Their is one and one only way.. During time of troubles Poland briefly controlled Moscow so have Michael Romanov die ending the Romanov dynasty in baby stages butterfling away Peter the great..... Then maybe we see a Poland ruling over Russia....
The problem is that Bathory, to some extent, initiated the Counter-Reformation in Poland, and, well, it's sorta illegal to have a Protestant King of Poland.
Besides, by the time Bathory died, the Jesuits had already established a firm control of religious education and ministry in Poland. In fact, the reclamation of Poland is viewed as the crowning achievement of the entire Jesuit order. If any Polish King makes moves to go Lutheran, or Calvinist, or pull a Henry VIII, it will spell nothing short of civil war. Catholic Szlachta and possibly Orthodox Szlachta will rise up, as will a good many peasants, against the Bathory King and his minority forces, which will have to be supplemented by mercenaries imported from Germany.
And, if the Hapsburgs see Poland torn apart in civil war, where one side is Catholic, and the other is an old opponent of theirs anyway (Stephen Bathory's father fought against a Hapsburg claim to Hungary, and Bathory himself fought a Hapsburg ally's claim to the throne of Transylvania), the Hapsburgs are going to intervene.
All in all, it's easier to keep Sweden Catholic.
Russia always nickled and dimed her neighbors to death, so if you remove the Russian Empire (like by having the Swedes-- the original Rus-- take it over) then Austria, Sweden and Prussia might not be able to take advantage, at least to the point of destroying P-L.
Would no strong Prussia help Poland-Lithuania a bit?
If Prussia collapse in the 7YW it would like create a power vacuum the next few decades, which would keep PL from being Partitioned. But the biggst problem are that reforms are still unlikely, so at some point when Austria look the other way, Russia are likely to try something. If you really want to help PL, let Prussia lose 7YW, Russia force a trade trade of Polish territories for Ducal Prussia and that wake the nobles up to the need for reforms, Peter tries to invade Denmark as in OTL, but the (1st) coup against him fails and Catherine is executed, but his continued obsession result in him being assasinated, and Russia fall into a civil war over whom are going to be regent, while Sweden help the chaos on the way with trying to regain lost territorium. This give PL time to reform.
Would no strong Prussia help Poland-Lithuania a bit?
I am not so sure on this. The main instigator of the Partitions was Prussia. PLC was sort of Russian protectorate and it seems that satisfied Russia enough.I think Russia is a bigger threat, at least until Prussia united the German States behind it. Without a strong Prussia, Russia might have pushed even further into Central Europe. Tsars were just plain greedy.
In order to enlist the support of the nobility, especially the military help of pospolite ruszenie, Casimir was forced to give up important privileges to their caste, which made them finally clearly dominant over townsfolk (burghers or mieszczaństwo).
In 1335, in the Treaty of Trentschin, Kazimierz relinquished "in perpetuity" his claims to Silesia. In 1355 in Buda, Casimir designated Louis I of Hungary as his successor. In exchange, the szlachta's tax burden was reduced and they would no longer be required to pay for military expeditions expenses outside Poland. Those important concessions would eventually lead to the ultimately crippling rise of the unique nobles' democracy in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Alexander's shortage of funds immediately made him subservient to the Polish Senate and nobility (szlachta), who deprived him of control of the mint (then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue for the Polish kings), curtailed his prerogatives, and generally endeavored to reduce him to a subordinate position.
The Nihil novi act adopted by the Polish Diet in 1505 transferred all legislative power from the king to the Diet. This event marked the beginning of the period known as "Nobles' Democracy" or "Nobles' Commonwealth" (Rzeczpospolita szlachecka) when the state was ruled by the "free and equal" Polish nobility (szlachta). The Lublin Union of 1569 constituted the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as an influential player in European politics and a vital cultural entity. By the 18th century the nobles' democracy gradually declined into anarchy, making the once powerful Commonwealth vulnerable to foreign influence.
The liberum veto (Latin for "I freely forbid") was a parliamentary device in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It allowed any member of the Sejm (legislature) to force an immediate end to the current session and nullify any legislation that had already been passed at the session by shouting Nie pozwalam! (Polish: "I do not allow!").
Frederick Augustus of Saxony, who then converted to Catholicism. Ruling as Augustus II, his reign presented the opportunity to unite Saxony (an industrialized area) with Poland, a country rich in mineral resources. However, the king lacked any skill in foreign policy and so became entangled in a war with Sweden.
After the Great Northern War, Poland became an effective protectorate of Russia for the rest of the 18th century.
In the eighteenth century, the powers of the monarchy and the central administration became purely formal. Kings were denied permission to provide for the elementary requirements of defense and finance, and aristocratic clans made treaties directly with foreign sovereigns. Attempts at reform were stymied by the determination of the szlachta to preserve their "golden freedoms" most notably the liberum veto
Augustus II the Strong (Wettin) (King 1697–1706, 1709–1733)hoped to make the Polish throne hereditary within his family, and to use his resources as Elector of Saxony to impose some order on the chaotic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, he was soon distracted from his internal reform projects by the possibility of external conquest. He involved the Commonwealth in the disastrous Great Northern War,
The secularisation of clerical land are in reality a secondary benefit of converting to Lutheranism. Polands problem was that it was cut of from Catholic Europe, while Silesia and Hungary was ruled by the Catholic Habsburg, both territories was Protestant. PL was to a large degree cut of from the intellectual development we saw in Germany and the Baltic, at the same time education was taken out of the state's hand and left in the Church, making it harder to develop a loyal bureaucracy.
A few thought: Why id Poland-Lithuania cut off? Russia managed to get plugged into intellectual discourse, no? And Protestants could live in P-L.
Similarly, France, the Habsburgs (Austrian) and the South German states were able to develop bureaucracies despite having Jesuits around.
Part of me wonders if poland's decline is traceable to the Baltic grain train. It was profitable for the nobles, sure, but it destroyed Poland's textiles, etc.
Yes they did, but if you look at their structure their taxation per capita was much smaller than in Protestant states, enable the Protestants to field much larger armies and bureaucracies per capita. Prussia had a quarter of Austrias population or a fifth of France and could field around half of what those states could field, and Prussia wasn't even the more militarised state, Hessen-Kassel with it population 1/25 could field a army a third the size of France. If you look at the Catholic states their main benefits was already existing economical structures* or economy of scale.
*from climatic and strategic advantage to already existing industries
During Louis XIV reign (1643-1715), France fielded an army of 500 000 soldiers during certain campaign... Dide really small Hessen-Kassel could field an army of 170K ???