Info on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 1660s

High all, I'm looking for info on the situation in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 1660s and a bit onwards. I know there was a war between Poland and Russia during this time but not much else. If anyone call help with this I would be very grateful. BTW its for my new Stuart TL.
 
It is the time of the Great Deluge 1655-1660, when Russia, Sweden and Brandenbrug, with some aid from revolts, the Cossacks and Transylviania invaded and ravaged Poland-Lithuania. It also marked the end of Polish religeous toleration, increasing the pressure on protestant and orthodox subjects.

Ducal Prussia was confirmed as being independent and Poland-Lithuania lost the lands east fo the Dniepr.
 
It is the time of the Great Deluge 1655-1660, when Russia, Sweden and Brandenbrug, with some aid from revolts, the Cossacks and Transylviania invaded and ravaged Poland-Lithuania. It also marked the end of Polish religeous toleration, increasing the pressure on protestant and orthodox subjects.

Ducal Prussia was confirmed as being independent and Poland-Lithuania lost the lands east fo the Dniepr.

So at this point the Commonwealth would be just beginning to recover from a devastating war. What about the internal political situation? I read that there was an uprising against the King's attempted reforms but besides that I can't find much.
 
1. The successor to John II Cazimir. The King and Queen have no children, however the preferred idea is to have the candidate to be husband of either one of nieces of Queen Marie-Louise Gonzaga (the wild idea appearing in the negotiations was to marry Tsesarevich-Successor Alexey Alexeevich of Russia to Benedicta-Henriette of Palatinate-Simmern, with Tsar Alexis of Russia promising "better and improved Union of Church" (he already started to reform the Church of Russia and was willing to work on reconciliation issue), but that never materialized due to early death of Alexey in 1670 (though heir and spare to the Russian throne got the education preparing them for role of Kings of Poland).
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Алексей_Алексеевич - in Russian, English article is a stub so use of Google Translate is encouraged.
The more realistic candidates were either Duke d'Engien or Charles-Paris de Longueville (who sadly drowned in 1672 IIRC). However with all pretenders being foreigners, Sejm decided "screw that" and elected Michael Korybut Vishnevetsky who pretty much sucked as king and ruled the unhappy rule of a few years, dying in 1673 of esophagus ulcer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Korybut_Wiśniowiecki
Oddly enough, Prince of Salm-Salm, another husband to a niece of Polish Queen, was never considered as pretender. And Michael upon election promptly married to the daughter of Eleonora Gonzaga, who was the grandniece to the late Queen, thus sort of honoring the argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwika_Maria_Gonzaga - may contain some interesting stuff.
2. Extinction of Radziwill Dukes of Slutsk and Birzai in the male line. During the war with Sweden Janusz (Duke of Birzai) and his cousin Boguslaw (Duke of Slutsk) conspired with Swedes trying to get the Grand Duchy of Lithuania independent from Poland and in the union with Sweden. The conspiracy failed, Janusz commited suicide in 1655, and Boguslaw went in exile to Prussia (where he died). Boguslaw was married to his first cousin once removed, the only daughter of Janusz, and the only child from this marriage - Ludwika Karolina Radziwill - inherited BOTH duchies and was the greatest heiress of this era in the region.
The ducal families were Protestants but they were also tolerant to Orthodox faith - among else, that was due to their common ancestor, Sophia of Slutsk, revered Orthodox Church saint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Radziwiłł_(1612–55)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogusław_Radziwiłł
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwika_Karolina_Radziwiłł
3. John II Casimir attempt to limit the power of Sejm and to get the successor to King being elected while the King is still alive, not "post-mortem" to avoid civil wars between magnates after his death. He promptly got a rokosh (organized rebellion) of Magnate Lubomirsky for his troubles and the reform that was to be financed with French subsidies (and probably involved naming Henry Jules d'Engien as the next King of Poland).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Sebastian_Lubomirski
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivente_rege
4. Rise of Pac magnate family in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. That created by-products of Grodno becoming the third Sejm-hosting city of Commonwealth and... Agafia Grushetskaya as Tsarina of Russia (her father was managing Pac's estates in what is now Vitebsk Region of Belarus, thus Agafia was educated with children of Michal Pac and later became the first "Enlightened" Tsarina of Romanov Russia).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michał_Kazimierz_Pac
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krzysztof_Zygmunt_Pac
Probably I can dig up more interesting stuff, but I think that those are interesting enough.
 
If you look for prominent supporters of vivente rege among Commonwealth nobility, let me introduce you this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paweł_Jan_Sapieha
Alas, the English article on him is stub - reading Russian or Polish version on Google Translate will do you more good.


A "cool factoid" guy - the last prominent Orthodox Christian magnate of Grand Duchy of Lithuania - was very important in signing the peace of 1667 and then the Eternal Peace of 1686 with Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcjan_Aleksander_Ogiński
 

Razgriz 2K9

Banned
Here's the interesting question. Could there have been a worse Deluge? (i.e. a continuation of the war with Russia and Sweden?)
 
Charles X Gustav not dying that early for example.
However the second round of Deluge could have been very different - the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Ordin-Nastchokin, was in favor of separate peace with Poland and then ganging together on Sweden to reclaim Livonia. He felt that the war for Ukrainian interests is a HUGE drain in Russian budget, while the Livonian trade brings huge profits. But Alexis of Russia was anything but pragmatic, feeling that "damning fellow Orthodox Christians to the tornment by Papists" will earn him nothing but Hell. Alexis had really ambitious plans of reconquering first Ukraine, and then Balkans from Turks. Those military campaigns were a huge drain on Russian budget, and the peace of 1667 was concluded out of desperation.
 
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