Mad King Ludwig

I like to bore people regularly with pictures of my study tours with young Americans around Europe.  It seems that King Ludwig II of Bavaria (or Mad King Ludwig as he's sometimes called) and his castles provoked some interest, so this blog is dedicated to him: a Queen amongst Kings.  Also the 125th anniversary of finding him face down in shallow water in Lake Starnberg was last summer, so he deserves a blog on that basis too.

Variously called "Mad, Swan or Fairy Tale King"

Ludwig II was born in the mid 1800s.  He came from a somewhat eccentric family: the Royal Wittelsbach dynasty of Bavaria, who ruled over the country without a break from 1180 to 1918.  During this time they frequently married their close blood relatives: Christmas must have been an absolute nightmare: what to put on the card - dear erm Mother/Aunty/Cousin etc.?  As I tell my groups, anyone who has been to West Virginia will be familiar with the effects of such habits: the family were just a tad eccentric after several centuries of it.  Ludwig's grandfather, Ludwig I, had caused a revolution by shacking up with an exotic dancer called Lola Montez (real name Eliza Gilbert of County Sligo in Ireland) whose party piece was a dance where she looked for a spider in her knickers. The elderly King apparently liked to lick her toes: the good conservative burghers of Munich were having none of that

Young Ludwig grew up very distant from his parents, although he did like his toe-licking Grandpa.  He apparently referred to his Prussian mother as my "predecessor's consort".  He was born in a time at the dawn of the modern era: railways were crossing the continent, iron clad warships were coming on the scene, Facebook and MySpace were still popular.  Ludwig instead spent his childhood days dreaming of a time of knights, courtly legends, castles and a long gone era.  He spent most of his youth in a castle in the Bavarian Alps riding and reading poetry with his young aide de camp, Paul von Thurn und Taxis.  Ahem, more of that later.

On the Throne and his Failed Engagement

Just after turning 18, the dashing Crown Prince Ludwig was thrust into kingship.  His father died suddenly and he ascended the throne in 1864.  His reign got off to a bit of a crap start when he backed Austria in a war against Prussia.  Everyone knows Austria always lost any war it *ever* got involved in; moreover you never pick a fight with a Prussian brandishing a currywurst and a pointed helmet.  Ludwig backed away from public affairs and instead lost himself in the music of Richard Wagner.  They were a perfect match: the schmaltzy, over the top romantic story lines of Wagner's operas were clangy music to the young king's ears.  The people of Munich disliked Wagner and Ludwig disliked them back in turn. He backed the composer and it is quite likely that without his generous patronage that many of his works would never have been written.

The Pumpkin Wedding Coach. Oh My.

Ludwig became engaged to his cousin (*surprise*) in 1867 at the age of 21.  He broke the engagement off nine months later claiming if "this is how much the wedding coach was, how much will the bride cost me?"  I think any reasonable person looking at the splendid golden pumpkin coach (his personal design) <might> guess that someone with these tastes wasn't that into marrying a young lady.  In a fit of pique, Ludwig personally supervised the smashing of all the Nymphenburg souvenir porcelain plates that had been produced for the occasion.  Ooooh, bitter.  From that point Ludwig hung round with a series of young men, apparently tormented in his conscience between his Roman Catholic faith and his liking of Glee.

Vain, beautiful Sisi: only pictures of her as a young woman exist

His only really close friendship was with his gorgeous other cousin, the stunning Empress Sisi of Austria.  She was the Princess Diana of her age: trapped in a loveless marriage, she suffered from an eating disorder, refused to be photographed after the age of 30 and ended up being stabbed on a boat on Lake Geneva by an Italian anarchist.  She has been merchandised to death and back by the tourism industry of Vienna in recent years.

Despite being all sniffy about the people of Munich, Ludwig was tremendously popular with the ordinary folk of Bavaria.  He would stop and talk to farm workers, stable hands and labourers (oh yes) and is still known as "Unser Kini" which I'm told means "Our dear King" in that odd throat disease called Bavarian German.  He also liked going to the theatre (mainly he insisted on private performances) and took a keen interest in the careers of the actors.  Here's one of them: a comely young Hungarian actor called Josef Kainz, the son of a railway worker. 

HAND ON ROYAL SHOULDER SCANDAL

A picture of the two on a private holiday together in Switzerland caused an absolute scandal because of 23 year old Josef's casual hand on the royal shoulder.  It was (no joke) effectively photoshopped out of a modified version.  The King had by this stage lost his youthful looks and clearly been at the Bier and the Pretzels.

The modified "decent" version of the photograph

As one of my followers so perfectly put it:

The Royal Castles

Of course the reason  Ludwig is so well known are his castles.  Linderhof was his first.  It cost 8.5 million Gold Marks, or roughly £42 million in Victorian money: bear in mind a house in suburban London cost around £300 at this time.  Let's say Linderhof is quite flamboyant.  It's the palace he lived in most: a perfect little bling Rococo gem surrounded by the Alps.  One of the most expensive features was an artificial Venus grotto he had built in the hillside, which was accessed by a giant fake rock that split open (as in Ali Baba and "Open Sesame").  Once inside the King could sit in his giant sea shell, feeding his pet swans and listening to Wagner's Operas from his private orchestras, who were conveniently hidden from view.

Linderhof Castle: the King's main real home

Another feature of the park was the Moorish pavilion where the King would dress up like the Sultan of Turkey and sit round on cushions wearing slippers and robes.  Linderhof feels like it belongs to Ludwig: less lonely, more homely and less artificial than his other creations.  His bedroom here had heavy black out curtains and a giant blue ball at the end of his bed.  He liked to sleep during the day and be comforted by the appearance of moon light.  The whole place occurs as utterly bat-shit crazy, but that's its whole charm.

Giant Sea Shell and Artifical Lake/ Grotto

Next came Neuschwanstein: the one on every bloody tourism poster ever put out by the German Tourist Board.  It's hugely famous: it was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Walt Disney copied it for Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland, Tchaikovsky was apparently inspired to write Swan Lake after a visit (the swan was the King's favourite animal and there are swans everywhere in the castle including a beak for his private wash basin).  The castle is Neo-Romanesque: he was inspired by the real thing of the Wartburg near Eisenach and had a copy of this 600 year old style built on on a hill, which was a massive engineering feat.  The plans were drawn up by a stage designer, not an architect.

It *really* does look exactly like this. Amazing.

The King's bedroom is worthy of note: his bed represents the cathedrals of Germany.  14 carpenters worked for 4 years on this piece of furniture alone.  Off the bedroom is another artifical grotto.  The whole place had central heating, running water and an early iPhone 1, which was connected to the Post Office in the nearby town of Füssen.  The castle was completed on the outside, but only part finished inside.  The interior feels dark, museum like and sad to me.  He spent 172 days here in total: a little under 6 months.

The King's Bedroom. Check out the Bed.

Last was Herrenchiemsee: a copy of the baroque palace of Versailles.  The King worshipped Louis XIV of France and the fact he was an absolute monarch, not constrained by constitutions and parliaments.  This place is actually weird: it is set on a stunning island in the middle of the Chiemsee lake (also called the Bavarian Ocean).  It is an actual copy of the central part of Versailles (there were plans for the side wings, but one partially erected one was torn down after the King's death) - except for example the breathtaking Hall of Mirrors is longer than the one at the original.

Herrenchiemsee: more impressive inside than Versailles

The strange thing that I think many visitors do not understand is that all of the formal rooms (exact copies of Versailles, down to the artwork) were never intended to be used.  The priceless King's formal bedroom with the massive sun above the bed was not meant to be slept in by anyone.  It was all just a homage: a shrine to a King of France who had lived 200 years before.  There were also private rooms: they included a "magic table" (as at Linderhof) where food could be set out on a table in the kitchen and the entire thing wound up through the ceiling to the dining room above, so the King would not have to be disturbed by servants during his meal.  The King spent just 10 days here in the autumn of 1885.

Herrenchiemsee Hall of Mirrors: for the King's Private Use

I should probably quickly just mention that there were plans for a 4th castle: Falkenstein (it was never built) and the King also had a fantastic Winter Garden or Conservatory shoved on the roof of the existing Residenz (Winter Palace) in Munich.  It was over 200 feet long, had a painted copy of the Himalayas, and Indian bamboo fishing hut, a Moorish pavilion and a huge artificial lake.  Unfortunately it leaked and almost took the ceiling down on the whole palace.  It was dismantled in 1897 and the whole palace was in any case levelled by carpet bombing by the RAF during WW2.

An Untimely End

The King paid for all of his fantastic projects from his own money.  His family was tremendously rich, and it is often pointed out what a Keynesian stimulus type effect his expenditure had: there was massive of work generated for years.  By the end of his life he was 14 million marks in debt, however, and was reduced to asking for loans from fellow monarchs.  His ministers feared Bavaria was becoming a laughing stock with its eccentric castle building "fairy tale" monarch.  He had also "sold out" Bavaria by agreeing in 1870 to its becoming part of the new German Empire under the rule of his uncle, William, the King of Prussia, and now Kaiser of the whole of unified Germany.

A plot was hatched.  Servants were interviewed and bribed for evidence of the King's alleged insanity.  His younger brother was seriously barking mad (possibly as a result of late stage Syphilis) and facts were scraped together.  The Imperial Chancellor Bismarck dismissed them as "tittle-tattle" and "rakings from the King's waste basket and cupboards" but a panel of 4 psychiatrists ruled the King as unfit to rule.  Not one of them actually examined him, and the basis of their findings is open to serious criticism.

A commission arrived at Neuschwanstein and in true Ludwig style it was driven away by an angry Baroness friend of his at the castle gates, with the suitably Teutonic use of her umbrella.  They tried again and on 12 June 1886 went into the King's bedroom, where they informed the 40 year old Ludwig that he was no longer King.  He was moved to another castle on Lake Starnberg, where he died a day later.

Lying In State in Munich

To this date no one knows what happened.  His body was found floating in shallow water (he was an excellent swimmer) along with his personal doctor - who had heavy wounds to his head and signs of strangulation.  There are at least 5 plausible theories running from suicide to murder.  His body was returned to the place he disliked the most: Munich, and there it lies to this day in the Michaelskirche (it's close to the big H&M in the main shopping street if you want to visit).

What A Legacy

POOR Ludwig.  I really genuinely feel sorry for him.  He was a tragic, mixed up, unhappy character.  He had a life of utter luxury, sure, but this was hardly unusual for a monarch of his time.  He spent a shed load of money, none of it from the State, and created work.  He left a legacy of 3 castles (they were opened in August 1886 to the public and have raked in gazillions in tourist revenue for Germany since then) and a still unsolved mystery.  He is still Bavaria's most popular monarch: a man who tried very hard to keep his country out of war and who was a friend to the ordinary man - if he was 25, dressed in Lederhosen and had nice arms, especially.  Ahem, who can blame him?

I first visited Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee in 1981 with my parents.  I've since been back literally dozens of times with groups and enjoy each and every visit.  We call their builder Mad King Ludwig, yet we don't know if he was actually mad, or just theatrical and very eccentric.  He harmed no-one, yet we do not apply the label to Mad Hitler or Mad Stalin, both of whom undoubtedly deserve it far more.  Truly he was a Queen amongst Kings and for his utter fabulousness and heinous crimes against taste he deserves acknowledgement.  125 years dead: rest his big old Bavarian soul.