358 SOBIESKI
occurred on the day following the King's death. Three months later, he entered
Warsaw in triumph in the middle of the electoral Sejm, and was acclaimed King
with very little opposition. With the exceptions of the battles of Batoh in 1652,
where his brother Marek was killed, and of Matwy in 1666, where he had faced
his old patron and commander, Lubomirski, he had rarely encountered defeat.
Few monarchs, and certainly no hereditary monarch, have ever acceded to the
throne with so many advantages or such wide experience.
As with Bathory almost one hundred years before, the King's personality
dominated political life to a remarkable degree. It was observed, admired, and
described by the English divine, the Revd Robert South, who visited Poland in
person:
The king is a very well spoken prince, very easy of access, and extreme civil, having most
of the qualities requisite to form a complete gentleman. He is not only well versed in all
military affairs, but likewise, through the means of a French education, very opulently
stored with all polite and scholastic learning. Besides his own tongue, the Sclavonian, he
understands the Latin, French, Italian, German and Turkish languages; he delights much
in natural history, and in all the parts of physic. He is wont to reprimand the clergy for
not admitting the modern philosophy, such as Le Grand's and Cartesius's, into the uni-
versities and schools.
As to what relates to his Majesty's person, he is a tall and corpulent prince, large-
faced, and full eyes, and goes always in the same dress with his subjects, with his hair cut
round about his ears like a monk, and wears a fur cap, but extraordinary rich with dia-
monds and jewels, large whiskers (i.e. moustaches) and no neck-cloth. A long robe hangs
down to his heels in the fashion of a coat, and a waistcoat under that of the same length,
tied close about the waist with a girdle. He never wears any gloves, and this long coat is
of strong scarlet cloth, lined in the winter with rich fur, but in summer only with silk.
Instead of shoes he always wears both abroad and at home Turkey leather boots with
very thin soles, and hollow deep heels made of a blade of silver bent hoop-wise into the
form of a half-moon. He carries always a large scimitar by his side, the sheath equally flat
and broad from the handle to the bottom, and curiously set with diamonds.^2Sobieski's confidence was undoubtedly heightened by the rewards of an intense,
unusually successful, and sometimes stormy marriage. For from 1665, he was
married to the most sensational woman at Court - Marie-Casimire de la Grange
d'Arquien, universally known in Poland as 'Marysienka'. Their remarkable
partnership can only be compared to that of their younger contemporaries, and
equals in love, war, and politics - John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and
Sarah Jennings.
In its own way, the personality of Marysienka (1641-1716) was equally
remarkable, and equally active at the centre of the web of politics. She had come
to Poland at the age of four, in the suite of the French Queen, Marie-Louise. She
was the daughter of a Captain in the French Guard and of the Queen's former
governess (although rumour hinted that she was really the Queen's bastard by
one of her former lovers, Gaston d'Orleans or the unlucky Cinq-Mars).
Throughout their married life, she was Sobieski's intimate companion, the