Polish Heiress, Pretender Queen of England, Roman Princess

She never founded a republic, led an army, wrote a treatise, or frescoed a chapel. But in the history of Rome, no one's story is more romantic and more poignant than that of Maria Clementina Sobieska. Hamlet's Polonius would classify its genre as romantic-historical-comical-tragical-swashbucklerical-picaresque. A savvy Hollywood producer might see in it the plot for a blockbuster film that would appeal to most every demographic. Clementina's odyssey to Rome featured the dramatis personae of a fairy tale: an honourable king, a beautiful princess imprisoned in a castle, and a brave and loyal knight sent to her rescue. Her journey to Rome alone is an adventure worth retelling. But it is in Rome that the story is most human and most affecting, and it is appropriate that the tale of a Pole, a Briton, and an Irishman should conclude in Rome—the setting for so many dramas featuring an international cast, both then and now.

Seemingly England was her destiny. Even in the cradle and later by her playfellows, Clementina had been jocularly called “Queen of England.” By the time she was seventeen years old, this prognostication technically came true. Clementina was the granddaughter of King John III Sobieski of Poland (r. 1674–96), one of Europe's most noteworthy kings following his victory over an invading Ottoman Turkish army at the Battle of Vienna (1683), for which he was hailed the saviour of Western Christendom. Her father was James Louis Sobieski (1667–1737), who as a mere adolescent also fought at Vienna; her mother was Hedwig Elizabeth of Neuberg (1672–1722), one of Europe's wealthiest countesses. Both of Clementina's parents were well integrated into the age-old network of European royal family politics long before their daughter was born. The family's English alliances, for example, included the sponsorship of Henrietta Maria, queen consort of England and wife to King Charles I (r. 1625–49), who was also godmother of Clementina's father, James. This English alliance grew stronger (if more complex) in 1719, when Clementina herself was married to James Francis Edward Stuart, Prince of Wales, son of the deposed English king James II (r. 1665–88), and pretender to the English throne from 1701 until his death in 1766.