ABSTRACT
In the elective monarchies of eastern and northern Europe dynastic planning was just as important, but the parameters were different. Erik's foreign policy in the 1560s was based on hostility to Denmark and ambition in the eastern Baltic, and an alliance with Muscovy against Denmark and Poland-Lithuania. The personal union between Poland-Lithuania and Sweden, whose rupture in 1599 was not recognized by the Polish branch of the Vasa dynasty until the 1660 Treaty of Oliva, was to have profound consequences for the course of European history. The appeal of dynasticism to political communities, even in an elective monarchy like Poland-Lithuania, was strong, but it had its limits. Sigismund's Catholicism, if by no means the only factor, was to cost him the Swedish throne in 1599. Conrad Russell concluded that: 'All multiple kingdoms are composite monarchies, but not all composite monarchies are multiple kingdoms'.
