In that first election he was in favour of Henry de Valois (later, Henry III of France). Subsequently, he was part of the diplomatic mission that traveled to France to finish formalities with the newly elected king. He also published a pamphlet praising the new king, and thus suffered a loss of face when Henryk secretly abandoned Poland and returned to France. During the following 1575 election he was a vocal enemy of the Habsburg dynasty and its candidate, and this anti-Habsburg stance, resounding among the lesser nobility, helped him regain his popularity. For the king, Zamoyski championed the case of a Polish candidate, which ended up in the marriage of Anna Jagiellon with the anti-Habsburg Stephen Bathory of Transylvania.