Jakub Ludwik Sobieski (1667-1737), the son of Jan Sobieski and Mari Kazimiera. Born in Paris, his second Christian name comes from his godfather, Louis XIV of France. Jakub was not the favourite son, but both parents consistently planned to ensure that he should ascend the throne. From the time of the Vienna campaign of 1683 he accompanied Jan III on war expeditions, demonstrating courage and military talent.
Attempts to reinforce the prince’s political position encountered the determined protest and resistance of the gentry. The planned prestigious and profitable marriage to Princess Ludwika Karolina, the daughter of Bogusz Radziwiłł and the widow of the margrave of Brandenburg, never took place; although she promised her hand to the prince, Karolina married Charles Philip of Neuberg, the brother-in-law of Emperor Leopold I. Upon the latter’s initiative, in 1691Jakub was married off to Hedwig Elizabeth, the sister of Ludwika Karolina’s suitor; this marriage brought the prince closer to the Habsburgs. The young couple resided in Oława Castle near Wrocław.
After the death of Jan III (1696) the Sobieski family experienced a series of financial conflicts, but Jakub’s efforts to win the royal crown still enjoyed the support of his mother. At the time of the election, the prince won the votes of only a small part of the gentry and left for Oława without acknowledging his successful rival, Augustus II. After the outbreak of the Northern War, he once again endeavoured to win the throne and established contacts with King Charles XII of Sweden and the pro-Swedish Warsaw confederation. At the beginning of 1704 Augustus II ordered the abduction and incarceration of Jakub, who was just leaving Wrocław for Poland. Set free by Charles XII after a two-years long Saxon captivity, Sobieski abandoned all ideas of competing for the crown, this time proposed to him by the confederates of Sandomierz and Tsar Peter I.
In 1718, Jakub consented to the marriage of his daughter, Maria Klementyna, and the pretender to the English throne, James III Stuart, thus causing the displeasure of Emperor Charles VI, who in this way gained a pretext for banishing the prince from Oława. Sobieski sought refuge, i.a. at Jasna Góra and although he visited Oława, after the death of his brother, Konstanty, in 1726 he settled down in Żółkiew, where he died and was buried. Żółkiew was inherited by his daughter, Princess Marie Charlotte de Bouillon. The third daughter - the favourite granddaughter of Maria Kazimiera and her namesake - died unmarried in 1723 in Oława.
