Hieronymus Roth

Ducal Prussia, with its capital at Königsberg (Królewiec) of which Roth was a mayor, as fief of the Kingdom of Poland.

Hieronymus Roth (1606–1678) was a lawyer and alderman of Königsberg In 1661 the Prussian council, led by Roth, repudiated the Treaty of Oliva, stating that the transfer of sovereignty from Poland to the Elector was not valid without their consent. Roth then sent a plea to the King of Poland John II Casimir Vasa, asking for assistance. Furthermore, Roth and the burghers objected to Frederick's requirement that henceforth the Prussian Estates could meet only with his approval, As a result, Königsberg and her council refused to make an oath of allegiance to the Elector, and sent letters to the Polish king in Warsaw asking if they could "become Polish subjects once more, as (they) had been in the past". While Roth was not immediately tried and killed, possibly because he would have been acquitted of any charge the Elector could bring against him, Initially, the terms of Roth's imprisonment were relatively benign and the Elector stated that he would free him if Roth would admit to treason. However, Roth refused to ask for pardon and secretly continued agitation against the Elector via clandestine letters sent from his prison cell. When these were discovered, the conditions in the prison were made worse and Frederick swore never to release him. At the end of his life, at the age of seventy, Roth did submit himself to the Elector, remained imprisoned and died two years later.