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The last years of the Glinskis regency were centered around the continuous centralization of the Lithuanian nation and the incorporation of the newly acquired terrtories. The title of the Prince of Tver was abolished and instead the territory of the annexed Principality was reorganized into the Voivodeships of Tver, Vladimir and Nizhny-Novgorod. Boundaries were drawn and Lithuanian garrisons in the cities were sent. The family of Ivan Mikhailovich was captured and imprisoned to make sure that none of the the Prince of Tver's successors try to raise a revolt in the near future. The children of Ivan died in the next few years in captivity in Chernigov. The Regency put a lot of effort to enforce the Brest Concordate on the newly conquered lands - Catholic churches were built in Tver, Vladimir and Suzdal, and the Orthodox priesthood was forced to accept the theological changed mandated by the Concordate. Mykolas Glinskis worked hard to root out corruption and any of his political opponents from the court and any higher positions of the Kingdom, and in exchange made the necessary changes and donations to support his own bloodline. The Glinski Regency saw the beginning of about a century of Glinski family dominance in Lithuanian politics and diplomacy, and Mykolas was the man to achieve that.

At the same time, though, the Regent promoted further introduction of Renaissance culture and literature to Lithuania proper. Listening to poems of Virgil, Homer and Horace, among others was starting to become a favorite pastime of well-read, educated Lithuanian nobles, especially in winters, when the weather was too cold and harsh for outdoor activities. It was around this time that the first examples of Lithuanian renaissance architecture came about in the nation - for example, the renovated Cathedral of the Theotokos in Vilnius. The Regent also provided funding for a project that was considered by the citizens of Vilnius for a while - surrounding the city with a wall to protect it from possible invaders or raiders. It was also at this time that numerous cities in Lithuania received city status via Magdeburg Rights - most notably Gardinas (Grodno), which was starting to become an important population center, with the inhabitants being a mix of Lithuanians and Ruthenians.

In 1504, Valdislovas reached maturity, and the Regency was no longer required. Mykolas Glinskis honored the will of his former sovereign and relished his title of Regent to grant full control of the Kingdom to the legitimate Monarch. The old noble, over 60 years old at the time, resigned from his position as Grand Hetman too mere three years later, retiring to his now massive estates scattered across the entire Kingdom, pretty suspiciously almost tripled in size during the Regency... Despite the self-service and brutality, Mykolas Glinskis is not an all-negative figure. A harsh and brutal man, he haunts the darkest nightmares of the Russian people, but it was a time when Lithuania needed a man as harsh as him the most. He still stands as an important figure in Westernizing the nation under Algirdas II and under his own devices - he brought the Lithuanian Army to better fighting capacity and modernized it to the newest weapons of the time. He may not be the gentlest ruler in Lithuanian history, but he surely was among the more capable ones.

King Valdislavas entered his period of rule as a complete novice. Merely 18 years old, he only received childhood tutorage by his court in the absolute basics of the state. As such, in the first years of his rule, a lot of the new King's policies were influenced by the nobility, whom he relied upon. A sizable portion of the Lithuanian magnates, led by the Kęsgaila family, put their hopes on manipulating the young and inexperienced King into returning the noble rights of old. In fact, at the beginning of his reign they managed to push through a few pro-nobility privileges and laws, but something unexpected came to be. Valdislavas was a quick learner, and the more he discovered about the art of rulership, the more arrogant he grew to be. Even though he was still incredibly young, he saw himself as one of the greatest rulers of Lithuania to have risen to the throne, and soon he dismissed the closest of his advisors, even imprisoning some of them for betrayal. Now reigning alone, with only a small ring of loyalists around him to handle day-to-day matters, Valdislavas set out to shape Lithuania into a nation of his liking.

One big problem that the powerhungry King had from the start came from the south. The Ottoman Turks were stopped by united Bohemo-Polish-Hungarian forces in the Battle of the Sava River in 1506, in a crushing defeat that left the Sultan and many of his officers dead, and the new Kaiser-i-Rum, Mehmet III decided to turn the expansion of the Turkish empire into a different direction. It was around this time that the Ottoman Empire extinguished the Mamluk Sultanate and subjugated the vast lands of Egypt and the Levant, and at the same time, they decided to employ the Crimeans for a push north. The Crimean Khanate was one of the many successor states of the Golden Horde, and was the first to fall under Ottoman dominance as a vassal and tributary. The territory of the peninsula was cramped, too small to feed all of it's inhabitants, and the rich lands north, held by Lithuania, were so enticing to any Tatar raider... The Ottomans encouraged Crimean tatars to attack this Orthodox state through military pushes and "bounties", and the raid on the Khadjibey port by the Black Sea in 1511 marked the beginning of a long series of raids and wars between the Crimeans and the Lithuanians across the lands of the former Kievan Rus. Tatar raiding parties reached as far north as Minsk and Smolensk, every time chipping away a part of Lithuania's wealth with them. An enraged Valdislavas sent numerous counterattacks to the peninsula, but it didn't do much to stop the attacking forces.

In regards to domestic matters, though, some other developments were put in place. While not particularly well educated, Valdislavas was learning by the minute, and one of the smarter moves of his reign was reorganizing the law code and archive of the Kingdom. That is, the Metrica. The Lithuanian Metrica was the nation's archive of law documents, decrees, yarlyks and other government information that was being kept and overseen by the Treasurer since the 14th century. It contained pretty much all written laws and documents in the nation, and under the rule of Valdislavas, it was reorganized and divided into organized directories, ordered by date and by content. It was also moved out of the Trakai Castle, the previous capital of Lithuania, and into Vilnius, where it was put under the oversight of the Grand Chancellor.

While that was an important development in Lithuanian law, it was way, way overshadowed by what came after it - the Statute of Lithuania. Ever since the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the concept of written laws was common among the nation, mostly inherited from annexed Ruthenian principalities, and some carried from the West, like the Magdeburg Laws. However, it should be noted that for most of it's history, Lithuania did not have a universal codified legal code - the codes were different in each duchy, the cities had their own rights, and the laws released by the King and the Council of Lords (Ponų taryba, Lithuania's own "representative" organ) were sporadic and often had loopholes. Valdislavas I ordered the Grand Chancellor of his court, a Jewish statesman from Vilnius, Elijah ben Moses Margalit, to create what is nowadays known as the Statute. Margalit wasn't particularly liked around the court due to him being a Jew, but he was nevertheless capable to push his proposal for a code of law to the King, who approved after a few edits and officially signed it in 1518. The Statute of Lithuania was one of the first pieces of codified law in Europe, and was very progressive in many ways. It had a tendency towards severe penalties for many crimes, especially capital punishment, and while the punishments were slightly higher for the lower classes, they were nevertheless close enough to fulfill the common Renaissance idea that "all humans lives are of equal worth". The powers of the King were greatly expanded, in expense for the Council of Lords, which was lowered to a more advisory role.

It was once again reiterated that all religions in the Kingdom of Lithuania can be expressed freely, as long as it's followers do not take action against the King and his government - an another example of great Lithuanian religious tolerance that was by then already a tradition. Lithuania was a haven for exiled Jews, fleeing Muslims and protesting Christians alike, it was where religious thought of the entirety of Europe could arrive and live in peace. For now, at least. While religions were all equal in the eyes of the King, the borders between the nations turned more clear. The Statute of Lithuania had some small, barely visible, but nowadays obvious instances of incoming pro-Lithuanian law codification. It was hard to notice for people of the time, but some of the laws in the section of land ownership and serfdom included bits and pieces that benefited the Lithuanian nobility in expense of the Ruthenian ones. Institutional anti-Slavic laws had a long way to go, but it was a menacing start in hindsight...

The rule of Valdislavas I saw progress in the northwest. The Teutonic and Livonian Orders lost Papal support after the Brest Concordate, and their lives were coming to an end. The Teutons, locked to Prussia and surrounded by two hostile Eastern European superpowers, were experiencing problems of their own in the name of Hanseatic cities within their territory, which demanded more autonomy and even wanted an end to the rule of the monastic order. Valdislavas stood in favor of the cities, and in the three-year long Teutonic-Lithuanian War between 1518 and 1521, more commonly known romantically as the The Teutonic Order's Last Raid, the Lithuanian armies clashed with the Teutons across East Prussia. The "last raid" in the name was actually the unsuccessful Teutonic attack on Klaipėda in 1520, the last Teutonic attack on Lithuanian land. A successful Prussian uprising in Sambia, led by Sarbis Mančius, helped in the conflict, and in the end, Valdislavas I banished the Teutonic Order from East Prussia, demanding that they never return, and incorporated the territory into Lithuania - of course, the cities of Elbing, Konigsberg and others, which were the ones who started the war, received significant autonomy from the Lithuanian King, so much that they were regarded as "a state within a state" by contemporary and modern researchers alike. The Triple Crown was busy with a border struggle with the Ottomans and so couldn't intervene, but their King Charles II still sent a complaint.

All in all, the beginning of Valdislavas I's rule was calm, indeed. The King was willing to centralize as much power around him as he could, and while this sparked numerous clashes with protesting magnates, the transition from an ancient feudal to an Early Modern monarchy went quite smooth for Lithuania. The Statute of Lithuania gave the people of the nation a sense of safety, knowing that the laws will punish all of them equally. But the King was treading a path that none had ever even imagined. Although... not for good reason.

There was a particular genre of literature growing popular across Lithuania. Home chronicles. Chronicles detailing the lives of multiple generations of noble members, recording pretty much everything that the authors wanted to record for future generations, from jokes and anecdotes to financial documents and moral advice. Silva rerum is what they were called.

Silva rerum. Silva rerum. Latin for "forest of things". In a way, that name was an accurate description of Lithuania at the time, too. The people of Western Europe saw those "barbaric lands to the north" as one massive, impenetrable forest, still supposedly inhabited by wild and uncivilized pagans. But Lithuania wasn't just a forest, no more - it was a forest of things. It had characters, it had drama, it had culture, it had power. Power. Power strong enough to stop Tatars and destroy Teutons. Power elaborate enough to create one of the first systems of codified law since the Antiquity. Power cultured enough to take up on the beliefs and philosophy of the Renaissance...

In the year 1525, when Lithuania was still in the middle of Valdoslavas I's rule, something far, far, far more influential happened in the West, though, no matter how many silvas we were to write. The Roman Catholic Church, the most powerful of all the Christian churches in Europe, had been in rapid decadent conflict for over a few centuries. No matter how many inquisitions and anti-heretic crusades they were to launch, the "heresies" - from Cathars to Hussites - just kept popping up, "like from the devil's ass itself". But this time, Europe was lit on fire, by a German. Philip Melanchthon, a German theologian from Baden, launched what at first seemed only a local debate on theology and the state of the Catholic Church - from the point of view of many reformist preachers, a hive of scum, villainy, indulgence and greed - in Heidelberg University eventually turned into a wide upheaval of theology students sending a petition to the Bishop of Worms, now famously known as the "118 Theses on the State of Corruption, Simony and Indulgences in the Church of Christ". Melanchthon began preaching his idea of "renovating" the Catholic Church according to the Bible, not to the Papacy.

Of course, the Catholics were quick to learn of this new development that was taking southern Germany by storm, and a long, but in hindsight expected, struggle in the name of religion began.