Later on, however, facing three powerful neighbours: Muscovy, Swedish Empire, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the monks found it difficult to keep their independence.

After Estonia had been seized by Sweden, Great Master Gotthard Kettler voluntarily decided to seek for help from Polish king.

Due to the military victories of King Stephen Báthory, the Commonwealth's control of Livonia was confirmed in 1582, when the province was divided into three presidencies, with capitals at Dorpat, Wenden and Parnawa (...) In 1598, King Sigismund III Vasa renamed the presidencies into voivodeships (...) Since Livonia was greatly desired by her neighbours, keeping control over it resulted in costly wars, which, despite efforts of Jan Zamoyski and Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, were a lost cause (...) The Treaty of Oliwa in 1660 returned to the Commonwealth only one-fifth of Livonia, which was named Inflanty Voivodeship (...) The Warsaw Sejm of 1677 settled the case of Inflanty, naming it a voivodeship and a duchy, with the right to name three senators: the Bishop, the Voivode and the Castellan of Inflanty (...) Since the Union of Lublin named Livonia a joint Polish–Lithuanian possession, all royal bills for the province were stamped with both Polish and Lithuanian stamps.

The voivodeship had six deputies to the Sejm, but only two of them came from Inflanty, the other four were symbolically named by the king, to remember the lost part of Livonia.

Some of them were descendants of German knights, such as the families of Borch, Plater, Hilzen, Zyberg, Weissenhof, Tyzenhaus, Grotus, Mohl, Denhof, Rejtan, Manteufel, others were Polish or Lithuanian settlers, such as the families of Szadurscy, Karniccy, Benislawscy, Sokolowscy, Kubliccy, Wereszczynscy (...)"[4]This is a list of the voivodes for Inflanty: