The free election was introduced due to the childless death of the last Jagiellonian monarch Sigismund II Augustus and the lack of a potential candidate that would satisfy most of the nobles.

Zygmunt August did not have a son, so Polish throne was left empty, and no legal regulations existed to specify election of a new monarch.

Lithuanian nobility demanded revision of the Union of Lublin, and return of Podlasie, Volhynia, Podolia, and Kiev, which had been incorporated into the Crown of Poland.

Lesser Poland supported the so-called electio viritim movement, in which all members of the nobility would be eligible to vote for the future king.

On the other hand, Greater Poland nobility claimed that electio viritim would be chaotic, and that the king should be elected by chosen representatives.

Supported by Roman Catholic clergy and Primate Uchanski, he was however disliked by the szlachta, which was afraid that Ernest would introduce Habsburg-style government, based on aristocracy.

Furthermore, at that time the Habsburg monarchy was in a never-ending conflict with the Ottoman Empire, and Polish nobility feared that the Commonwealth would be drawn into the war.

Later on, however, he presented a list of unrealistic demands, such as incorporation of vast territories of the Commonwealth, and creation of a Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite state, with a hereditary monarch.

Henry of Valois, the brother of Charles IX of France, emerged as a possible candidate in the final years of the reign of Zygmunt August.

He was supported by the pro-French circles among Polish nobility, which hoped to reduce Habsburg influences, end wars with Ottoman Empire, a traditional French ally, and profit from lucrative Baltic Sea trade with France.

This was however ridiculed by Piotr Opalinski, who suggested that an unknown man named Wawrzyniec Bandura Slupski, who resided in the area of Bydgoszcz, be elected new king.

On May 16, French envoys accepted the Henrician Articles and other demands, and on the same day Crown Marshal Jan Firlej named Henry King of Poland.