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| government | |
| history of poland 1569–1795 | |
| legal history of lithuania | |
Many historians regard the "Golden Liberty" as a positive and unique feature of Poland's political system. It was an exception in an age when Absolutism was developing in the principal countries of Europe, as an evolution from the medieval feudal system -- characterized by a strong aristocracy, a feeble king, and no legal system to grant Freedom and Liberty to the people or to protect them from the excesses of the nobility. Failing to evolve to the "modern" (in the sense of pertaining to the Modern Age, that succeeded the Middle Ages) system of a National Monarchy, the Commonwealth suffered a gradual decline down to the brink of Anarchy , resulting in its annexation by stronger, neighbouring countries in the late- 18th-century Partitions Of Poland . A similar fate was averted by Italy; first due to a secular inability of the kings of France and Spain, and the Papacy, to come to terms on how to divide the country, then through the reaction against Habsburg domination which, as late as 1861 , finally aligned most of the country's states in support to a national monarchy under king Victor Emmanuel II of the House Of Savoy , hitherto king of Sardinia . SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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