Maximilian Jan Sobieski (1 February 1684 - 29 December 1766) was a Polish prince. In 1720, he married Brunanter Princess Catherine. Their son Adrian became King of Brunant in 1784, making Sobieski the patrilineal ancestor of the current Royal Family.
Biography[]
Poland[]
Portrait of the Polish royal family, with Max at far left
Maximilian Sobieski was born in Gdańsk, Poland to Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and his wife, Marie Casimire Louise de La Grange d'Arquien, a French-born noblewoman.
Maximilian's father died in 1696 and his older brother Aleksander Benedykt was an unsuccessful candidate to 1697 election for the Polish throne. In 1696, Maximilian had left Poland with his mother for France. In 1704, he left his mother to travel around Europe, visiting Brunant, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Spain.
Brunant[]
Sobieski first came to Brunant in 1709 and was well received by King Marten I. On a later visit, he became smitten by the king's daughter, Princess Catherine, whom he married in 1720.
- Maria Kazimiera Sobieski (1721-1763)
- A girl (1722-1722)
- Martinus Sobieski (1722-1722)
- Jan Sobieski (1724-1736)
- Antonia Sobieski (1725-1741)
- Stefan Sobieski (1728-1729)
- Adrian Sobieski (1733-1807)
Max had wanted sons in order to bolster his chances of being elected King of Poland. His eldest daughter was born in 1721. In 1722, his wife bore him twins, but they did not survive long. He had a son in 1724, who died at age 13. In 1728, Catherine gave birth to a boy, but he died the following year of pneumonia. After a while of perceived sexual inactivity, Catherine became pregnant in 1732 at the age of 39. Due to her age many feared for the child's life, but in 1733, she gave birth to a healthy boy, Adrian. He was their first son and second child to make it to adulthood.
When his father's successor, Augustus II the Strong, died in 1733, France supported Stanisław Leszczyński and not Augustus II's son Augustus III. As part of the Brunanter-Franco-Spanish alliance established under the 1534 Treaty of Madrid, Brunant was expected to support Spain financially and military in their conquest of Naples and Sicily. Prince Max, who had become an important figure in Brunanter diplomacy and politics upon his marriage, strongly disagreed with supporting the Bourbons. He favored Augustus III, who formally became King of Poland with the Treaty of Vienna in 1738. This was one of the first breaks in the Brunanter-French relationship, which ended with King Marten's death in 1744 (also known as the amici novi period).
Later life[]
With Augustus III's ascension to the Polish throne, Maximilian Sobieski gave up his dreams to become a monarch himself. When the king died in 1744, his brother-in-law Pieter became King of Brunant. Under Pieter's rule, Sobieski remained very influential at the royal court in Grijzestad. In 1753, he bought the Osorio Palace for himself, his wife and their youngest child.
With the death of his daughter Maria Kazimiera in 1763, he entered into a depression and became very sick. He died in 1766 at the age of 82 and was interred in Grijzestad.
Legacy[]
Maximilian's family was, for the next 20 years, just an ordinary family with royal connections. Some events in the 1780s would change just that. In 1784, James Carrington invaded Brunant and deposed King Pieter, his brother-in-law. As Pieter had no sons, Carrington decided to appoint Sobieski's son Adrian as King of Brunant. Thus Maximilian would become known as the son of a king (Jan III Sobieski) and the father of a king, but he was never king himself.