The son of Wacław III Adam and Katarzyna Sydonia, the daughter of the Prince of Saxony, Franz I. He spent his childhood at the court of the Elector of Saxony, his youth perhaps in Vienna. The time spent in Protestant Saxony initially made him a steadfast advocate of Protestantism in the Duchy of Cieszyn. He issued proclamations several times (e.g. in 1598) with the aim of eliminating Catholicism from the Duchy of Cieszyn. This is proof that, contrary to current opinion, Lutheranism had not become the dominant religion of the people of the Duchy of Cieszyn. His extravagant lifestyle caused him to run up debts which the knighthood and towns had then to pay off.
      He took part in the fighting with the Turks as the commander of a cavalry regiment. During the civil war among the Habsburgs he took the side of Rudolph II. After Matthias ascended to the throne Adam Wacław swore allegiance to him in Wrocław in 1611 along with representatives of the Silesian States. He then became an imperial councillor, which may be regarded as an acknowledgement of his faithful service to the Habsburgs. He became General Starosta of Silesia in 1617 but died in the same year.
      After converting to Catholicism from Lutheranism in 1610 he ordered the expulsion of Protestant predicants from the Duchy and a return of the faithful to the Catholic Church but he did not execute these pronouncements particularly vigorously.
      On 17 September 1595 Adam Wacław married Elizabeth (* 1575 + 19 November 1601), the daughter of the first Prince of Kurland, Gotard Kettler. This marriage may have been contracted on the initiative of the Lithuanian magnate, Albrecht Radziwiłł, during negotiations which he instigated in 1591 with the Habsburgs concerning the Polish throne. 
The premature death of his wife may have made it easier for Adam Wacław to convert to Catholicism.

(K. Jasiński, Rodowód, vol. 3, pp. 203-204, I. Panic, Wybrane zagadnienia, p. 5 ff., F. Popiołek, Adam Wacław, p. 19 ff., M. Kasperlik, Herzog Wenzels, p. 21)