December 16, 2025 • 35 mins
Though she was born in Ireland with no Spanish blood, the self-named "Lola Montez" captivated Europe with her charm and sexuality, eventually entangling King Ludwig I in a scandal that would lead to the end of his reign.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is Danish Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood.
Just a little bit of housekeeping, tiny little announcement before
we start. I have a new podcast called Hoax. It's
a very casual podcast with my friend Lizzie Logan, where
every other week we do a deep dive into a famous,
historical or not so historical hoax that fascinates one or
(00:21):
the other of us. It's so much fun to do.
And if you like Noble Blood and you just want
to hear me talk in a more casual way, listen
to Hoax. Hoax exclamation point. We have a lot of
fun making it. I also have a new book coming
out in May twenty twenty six. I co wrote this
book under a pseudonym. It's called The Arcane Arts. I
(00:43):
co wrote it because we alternate points of view in
the book. I write the female point of view. My
co author, my friend Dan, writes the male point of view.
It's a dark academia sexy thriller. If that's the sort
of thing you think you might like, look up The
Arcane Arts by s. D. Coverly. Pre Orders really really help.
So if the book seems like it's something that would
(01:04):
interest you, please preorder the book, but as always, just
thank you for listening to the show and letting me
make Noble Blood. Let's get into it. Welcome to Noble Blood,
A production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Listener Discretion advised. Bavaria in the middle of the nineteenth
(01:28):
century was a country in peril. The King, Ludwig the
First had once been beloved, but now he was mired
in a firestorm of controversy. His subjects were furious with him.
Scandals piled up as rumors swirled that his judgment had
been compromised, that he was being controlled by shadowy outside forces.
(01:53):
High ranking officials were dropping like flies, while citizens took
to the streets in protest. By the middle of the
eighteen forties, the demonstrations had reached a fever pitch. The cabinet,
the people, and eventually even the rest of the royal
family turned against Ludwig. It reached the point where Ludwig
(02:15):
knew he couldn't continue to rule, at least not without
undermining the institution of the monarchy itself, and so on
March twentieth, eighteen forty eight, he abdicated the throne, allowing
his son Maximilian to become the new King of Bavaria.
(02:36):
What had caused King Ludwig's remarkable downfall? What had turned
the people against him? Like any question in history, the
answer is complicated and layered. But at the heart of
it all in this case is an exotic dancer whom
the king had made a countess, a woman named Lola Monte.
(03:00):
I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. Lola Montes
blazed a trail throughout the Western world, rubbing elbows and
more with some of the greatest minds and most powerful
men of the era, but her fiery spirit and insatiable
(03:23):
lust for life turned out to be far too much
for any one man, even a king, to handle. She
was a master of reinvention, an opportunist whose motto was
courage and shuffle the cards. She wasn't actually as she
claimed until her death from Spain, nor was her real
(03:44):
name Lola Montes, but for simplicity's sake, we'll call her
Lola throughout the episode. She was born in Ireland and
given the name Eliza Rosanna Gilbert. Her birth year was
most likely Lee eighteen twenty one, although with all things
Lola Montes, we should take it with a grain of salt.
(04:07):
Her dad, Edward, was a British officer and her mom
the illegitimate daughter of a local politician. There were rumors
that her mom was already pregnant when she got married,
and that was in addition to the circling allegations that
Lola's mother and even her grandmother were also illegitimate. Lola
(04:27):
never stood a chance. She was just born into a
scandalous life. In eighteen twenty three, the family moved to India,
where Edward's regiment was dispatched. Tragically, Edward died of cholera
soon after their arrival. Lola's mother, Elizabeth, a widow at
only nineteen years old, remarried within the year to Lieutenant
(04:52):
Patrick Craigie. Craigie was fond of his stepdaughter, but he
was seriously concerned about her her behavior. A childhood in
a foreign land with a loving but laid back aya
or nursemaid was fertile ground for young Lola's spirited nature
to blossom into problem child territory. At age ten, Lola
(05:17):
was sent away to live with Craigie's relatives, the idea
being that sometime in England would groom the foreign wildness
out of her, but it didn't work. Lola quickly earned
a reputation as a troublemaker and was bounced from boarding
school to boarding school, always leaving chaos in her wake.
(05:40):
By the time Lola was sixteen, her mother was eager
to marry her off. Elizabeth was an ambitious social climber
and saw her daughter's marriage as the perfect way to
elevate both the family's status and also make her daughter
someone else's problem. Elizabeth showed up at Lola's school at
(06:01):
this point in Bath and announced her plan. Lola would
come back to India and marry Sir Abraham Lumley, a
wealthy and powerful judge. Lola bulked at the union for
many reasons, not least of which was that Lumley was
sixty years old. Lola wanted nothing to do with that
(06:23):
old man. She sought the advice of a young army
lieutenant named Thomas James, whom her mother had befriended on
her journey to beth. Lola poured out her heart to
this visiting stranger, and for the first time, but certainly
not the last, a man found himself captivated by her
(06:44):
Lieutenant James was taken with the vibrant young girl and
decided on the spot that he would be the one
to save her. That very night, he took Lola to
his family home in Ireland, where they were married days later.
Lola's mother was apoplectic. Her carefully devised social climbing had
(07:05):
ended in complete betrayal, but the marriage was doomed from
the start. Lola was too young and inexperienced to understand
what she'd committed to, and had mostly been focused on
getting out of a bad situation. And here is where
we q getaway car by Taylor Swift. Thomas James did
(07:27):
care for his young bride, but they were never really
a good fit. Lola wrote of her time in Ireland, quote,
I wished for nothing more intensely than to be abducted
once more, but this time not by a potential husband,
but by anything or anyone who could rescue me from
the deadly monotony of this eternally repetitive life. From these
(07:50):
cold English faces, no smiles, no friendly glances, no kind words.
What started as verbal arguments escalated into physical abuse. Things
improved slightly when the couple returned to India in eighteen
thirty eight and could enjoy some semblance of a social life,
(08:14):
but they parted ways five years later. Desperate to leave
that chapter of her life behind, Lola sailed for London
a single woman, now with her whole life before her.
She was never one to be without a man for long.
Whether that was a matter of convenience or of genuine
emotion and preference, will never know, although she most likely
(08:37):
landed somewhere in the middle, regardless of the reasons why exactly.
Upon her arrival in London, Lola immediately took up with
a man she met on the ship. Between the money
she had gotten from both her stepfather and her then
ex husband, Lola arrived in London with around ten thousand dollars,
(08:57):
but thanks to her extravagant spending, it didn't last long.
Neither did that new relationship I alluded to. Now alone
and broke, Eliza needed a new plan. For a single
young woman in the eighteen forties, employment opportunities were scarce.
(09:17):
Lola didn't have the right disposition to be a governess,
and given her scandalous social life, she probably wouldn't have
kept a position for too long. Besides, the other option
was much more appealing to her the stage. Lola started
her training, but things didn't go perfectly well. Her voice
(09:40):
was too weak for the theater, and she wasn't naturally
gifted as a dancer either. But she had one big
thing going for her. She was beautiful, with a magnetic
presence and a killer body. Spanish dances were fashionable at
the time and required much less in the way of technique,
(10:04):
at least two English audiences. After a few months of
training and a trip to Spain to study the language
and customs, Lola reinvented herself completely as someone glamorous and
quote unquote exotic. She adopted the stage name Lola Montes
(10:24):
full name Dona Maria Dolores de Pores Emntez. She had
learned just enough of the language and Spanish customs to
seem authentic to the casual English observer. She started smoking
thin black cigars and spun multiple invented gloriously dramatic backstories
(10:46):
for herself. She was ready to take the world by storm,
but even Lola herself couldn't have imagined how far she'd go.
You might be asking yourself why Spanish. At this time,
Spanish culture was very popular in Europe. It represented passion, mystery, sensuality,
(11:10):
all the things that other cultures, especially early Victorian England,
were sorely lacking. Spanish dancers had a reputation for being
fiery and uninhibited, which coincidentally could provide excellent cover for
a lack of technical prowess. It was the perfect persona
(11:32):
for a woman looking to reinvent herself and stand out.
In eighteen forty three, Lola had her stage debut. She
went on a press tour where she posed as a
genuine Spanish woman telling stories in broken English. She charmed
the press completely. Her reviews were nearly unanimous, although most
(11:56):
critics did note that she was more style than substance,
but they didn't seem to mind. But there was one problem.
She was almost immediately recognized. People began to talk, and
Lola Montes was outed as Missus James and identified as
(12:17):
most definitely not being actually Spanish. London was too close
for Lola. If she wanted to make her new persona stick,
she needed to put more distance between her old life
and her new one. It assumed that around this time
Lola was putting her natural charms to work as a
(12:38):
means of supporting herself. Whether that was outright sex work
or just keeping company with wealthy men who showered her
with gifts, we can't say, but Lola was never shy about,
let's say, maximizing her assets. Around this time, Lola met
a rich, elderly German prince who soon found himself entranced
(13:02):
by the exotic young woman. He gave her money to
pay off her debts and extended an offhand invitation to
come visit his court if she were ever in his country.
That was all the encouragements our girl needed, and she
headed for the continent. Things didn't go well with the princeling.
(13:23):
Lola's casual swearing and rejection of royal protocol rubbed everyone
the wrong way, but Lola kept it moving, still trying
to get a foothold as a performer. Lola's reception in
Germany was basically the same as it had been in London.
Some were entranced by her brash stage presence and gonzo
(13:46):
performing style, but for most patrons, Lola was the inverse
of that famous song from a chorus line. She was
looks ten Dance three Again. Lola's temper also got her
in trouble. She was almost thrown in prison for hitting
an officer with a whip while trying to sneak into
(14:09):
a state visit from Zar Nicholas, the First of Russia.
Lola incidentally loved a whip and she needed little excuse
to break it out. But with that, it was time
for her to move on again. In Poland, Lola found
new benefactors, including the composer Franz List. More stage time
(14:31):
brought more mixed reviews and more controversy. Then it was
on to Paris, where Lola made her stage debut in
an opera, but that didn't go particularly well either, and
she soon found herself taken off line ups. People seemed
to either love her or hate her, with no in between.
(14:54):
It can't really be a coincidence that the ones who
loved her were usually predominantly wealthy, powerful men who were
also happy to bankroll her lifestyle. Through a relationship with
newspaper owner and drama critic Alexandra Dujarier, Lola was able
to boost her performing career, and she continued to perform
(15:17):
to wildly varying reviews. As always, her beauty and stage
present made up for her lack of real skill. She
cared deeply for Dujarier and hoped to marry him someday,
but he was killed in a duel, and Lola found
herself once more without a protector. She moved from place
(15:40):
to place and man to man, but no one could
keep up with her. Finally, in eighteen forty six, Lola
traveled to Munich, where she bagged her biggest catch yet,
the King of Bavaria. Ludwig the First was sixty years
old when he met Lola. I'm guessing the royal title
(16:02):
made him much more palatable than the sixty year old
her mother had tried to marry her off to back
in India. Ludvig at this time was generally popular among
his subjects. As a ruler, he had little political ability,
content to leave the government in the hands of others
while he focused on the arts and on beautiful women.
(16:25):
For years, his subjects, as well as Queen Terrace, had
tolerated Ludwig's dalliances, knowing any fling would be short lived
and result in not much more than a new portrait
for his gallery. There was no reason to think that
this Spanish dancer would be any different. They had no
(16:47):
idea just how different this one would be. Lola and
Ludwig met in October eighteen forty six. There was a
rumor that Ludwig asked her in public if her breasts
were real, and she responded by tearing off enough of
her garments to prove that they were. Whether or not
(17:09):
that story is apocryphal, it's undeniable that Ludwig fell under
her spell, and Lola immediately began to exercise her control.
She started getting stage time, and audiences were once again
divided between love her and hate her. What was obvious
was Ludwig loved her. Within a month, she had a
(17:32):
yearly allowance of ten thousand florins, five times as much
as a university professor's salary and nearly twice that of
a cabinet minister. A couple weeks after that, Ludwig had
Lola ridden into his will. By December, he had bought
her a house purchased in her name. This was both
(17:55):
to keep the money trail clean and to help her
establish residence. More than anything, Lola wanted Bavarian citizenship as
well as elevation to nobility, and she wasn't shy about
letting the king know. Within just days of meeting her
Ludwig had presented Lola to his ministers. Gentlemen, you have
(18:18):
the honor to meet my new best friend, he declared,
Please oblige me by treating her at all times with
the same respect you have always shown me. But Lola
immediately recognized the stern men as potential enemies and boldly
warned King Ludwig that his Jesuit packed government controlled him.
(18:41):
She singled out Prime Minister Carl von Abel as being
particularly untrustworthy. Ludwig was stunned she had identified in mere
weeks what he had been questioning for years. In his eyes,
that gave Lola enormous credibility. For her part, Lola truly
believed that she was freeing the king's mind from outdated conventions.
(19:05):
She saw herself as the people's liberator, symbolizing freedom in
a new age. Ludwig was deaf to suggestions that she
was manipulating him. The Jesuits called her the apocalyptic Pore.
Lola's stubbornness and temper were still on full display, making
(19:26):
her extremely unpopular among the people. Ludwig was spending astronomical
amounts of money on her, and despite his attempts to
rein her in she continued to blow past her allotted allowance.
She was arrogant and often abusive to anyone who caught
her at the wrong moment. She was seen with lots
(19:48):
of other men. She was often scandalously under dressed. Despite
opponents installing a spy in Lola's household and reporting back
her ar radic behavior, Ludwig couldn't accept the truth. Despite
extreme oppositional pressure, Ludwig granted Lola Bavarian citizenship in February
(20:11):
of eighteen forty seven. The Minister of the Interior resigned
in protest, and many of his colleagues followed. Suit protests
erupted all over, including one outside Lola's house, where it
is rumored that she, in characteristic fashion, flashed her breasts
(20:32):
at the crowd. Ludwig was becoming a joke to his
own people. He and Lola followed all the hallmarks of
a toxic couple. Break up, get back together, cause chaos,
repeat the cycle. Despite all the drama, on Ludwig's birthday,
August twenty fifth, eighteen forty seven, Ludwig made Lola the
(20:56):
Countess of Landsfeld and Baroness of Rosenthal. He wrote her
a letter asking her to please behave in accordance with
her new title, essentially begging her not to embarrass him.
Please please, please, You won't be shocked to know it
didn't work. Lola's elevation to nobility only increased her appetite
(21:21):
for power. Her arrogance, her hatred of the Jesuits, her
blatant greed were all the talk of Europe. Her public
behavior was increasingly shocking, spitting at a bishop, thrashing a worker,
smashing a shop window, or breaking her parasol over the
head of a nobleman who opposed her. On more than
(21:43):
one occasion, she threatened an angry crowd with her whip,
pistol or dagger. One of her lovers was a university student,
and she essentially turned his fraternity, the Alimanon, into her
own private army. She parted with them, and they worshiped her.
(22:05):
When Lola set her bulldog on a much respected university
professor of philosophy who had done her no harm, she
unwittingly set in motion her own downfall. The students were
tremendously supportive of the professor. Munich University students revolted, with
(22:26):
clashes erupting between the Alamanen and the rest of campus
who hated her. Ludwig closed the university, which only escalated
the situation. By March eighteen forty eight, pressure was mounting.
The specter of the French Revolution still hung over Europe
(22:47):
decades later, and the very real threat of revolution was
enough to knock some sense into Ludwig. He reopened the
university and abdicated, leaving his son Maximilian the Second to
become the new king. Lola fled the country. In less
than two years, Lola Montes had brought a country to
(23:09):
its knees and permanently changed the geopolitical landscape. Not bad
for a random girl from Ireland. Lola Montes found herself
stripped of the power she had enjoyed and abused as
King Ludwig's number one mistress. Without her benefactor and protector,
(23:31):
she was suddenly Bavaria's public enemy number one. Lola fled
to Switzerland, where she waited for Ludwig to come for her.
He never did, but Lola didn't spend too much time
tied up in grief. She dusted herself off and kept
things moving. She moved to London in eighteen forty eight,
(23:52):
and you guessed it met another guy, George Held was
a twenty one year old officer with serious family money,
as well as an apparent affinity for passionate dancer types.
The two were married quickly, but soon ran into problems
Lola's separation from Thomas James. The ex that she had
(24:16):
left back in India contained terms that prohibited either of
them from remarrying while the other was still alive. That
meant that Lola and George had to leave the country
to escape bigamy charges. The two lived in France and
Spain for a while, but within two years the marriage
(24:37):
fell apart. At this point, Lola decided to do what
so many before her also did, try her luck in America,
where she was surprisingly successful in rehabilitating her image for
a time at least. She threw in some acting with
her dance performances, and her shows sold out across the country.
(25:00):
At New York's Broadway Theater, she pulled in over four
thousand dollars in a single week, a box office record
for that venue. Lola was smart enough to know why
audiences came. They wanted to see the King's scandalous Mistress,
the woman famous for her whip and pistol. The notorious
(25:21):
bedroom adventurer Americans showed up expecting a shameless, talentless royal plaything. Instead,
they found someone surprisingly refined and tasteful, although she couldn't
help herself from throwing in some of her old dances
for good measure. She created a show called Lola Montes
(25:43):
in Bavaria, where she played four versions of herself. It
wasn't high art, probably more like a play based on
the pages of US Weekly, but audiences loved it. That
legendary temper still made frequent appearing, especially during her dance performances,
and some audiences would deliberately provoke her just to watch
(26:08):
the show within a show. During her American sojourn, Lola
had her own California adventure, which lasted a few years
and was full of the highs and lows that defined
her life. Rough crowds heckled her, sometimes chasing her off stage.
There was another marriage and an attempt at domesticity, but
(26:32):
her wild past threatened the new guy, and the union
ultimately fell apart. In eighteen fifty five, Lola sailed to Australia,
reviving her career by performing for gold miners. As soon
as she landed in Sydney, she started generating headlines. Her
(26:54):
notorious spider dance, in which she lifted her skirts high
enough for a viewers to see that she wasn't wearing underwear,
caused an uproar. A local newspaper declared her show quote
utterly subversive to all ideas of public morality, and ticket
sales tanked. In another town, Lola took the bad press
(27:17):
into her own hands and attacked a newspaper editor with
a whip. The editor was actually armed with a whip
of his own, Lola's reputation having preceded her, and the
altercation escalated into a full blown fight. The stormy ups
and downs with the Australian public continued, and after nearly
(27:41):
a year down under, Lola headed back to the US.
During the voyage back to San Francisco, her manager went
overboard and drowned. Given Lola's legendary temper, it's been considered
if he had any ill timed, unwonted feedback for his client,
(28:04):
and whether a whip had been involved in his untimely
accidental demise. Back in America, Lola tried repeatedly to resurrect
her theatrical career, but nothing really took hold. By this point, ever,
the reinventor Lola pivoted to image rehabilitation. In eighteen fifty seven,
(28:27):
she began touring the country giving lectures on what Else
morality and doing charity work helping vulnerable women. Whether her
late stage religious awakening was sincere or just another performance
is up for debate. But Lola brought the same fervor
(28:49):
to this new chapter that she had to everything else
she did. By eighteen sixty, advanced syphilis was destroying her body.
She died on January seventeenth, eighteen sixty one, at just
thirty nine years old, which seems almost astonishing given how
(29:10):
much life she had lived. Lola Monte's international scandal is
buried in Brooklyn's green Wood Cemetery with a headstone that
reads simply Missus Eliza Gilbert. It's ironic, but ultimately fitting
that the woman who tore across continents and came dangerously
(29:32):
close to toppling an empire would be memorialized with her maiden name.
It's probably for the best, because when it came to Lola,
the man on her arm would always be the least
interesting thing about her. Ludwig outlived her by seven years
after Lola exited his life and he'd transferred governing responsibilities
(29:57):
to his son, he returned to his truth passions, poetry, art,
and beautiful young women. He won back the love of
his former subjects and spent his final years surrounded by
the beautiful city that he had been instrumental in creating.
No doubt his thoughts would drift to his adventures with
(30:18):
the sultry Spanish dancer. If not the one who got away,
then the one who very nearly carried him away. Lola
Montes is one of the most intriguing talked about women
of the mid nineteenth century. An inveterate liar, Lola's biggest
and longest sustained lie was her reinvention of herself when
(30:42):
she had returned from India in eighteen forty one, escaping
a loveless marriage and an ambitious mother. That reinvention changed
not only her name, but also her destiny. Lola defied
social norms and blazed her own trail. Chaotic as it was,
(31:02):
society's reaction to her highlighted just how threatening a sexually
liberated woman was and still can be to the status quo.
There have been many books written about her, each exploring
different facets of her personality. But the best authority, or
(31:23):
at least the most entertaining one, is Lola herself. Lola's
autobiography was based on interviews with the writer Charles Chauncey
Burr and probably contains to be fair more fiction than truth.
But as Amanda Darling writes in her book Lola Montes quote,
in a sense, Lola's wild disregard for truth reveals more
(31:48):
about her character than documented statistics would. Just as the
psychiatrist of today find the day dreams of his patient
as significant as sleeping dreams, so Lola's reshaping of her
past tells us far more than she realized about the
forces that formed and motivated her. How much truth does
(32:11):
a woman owe to a world that is set up
against her? From Lola's autobiography quote what can a woman
do then? Who cannot take her part? The great misfortune
that there was too much of her to be held
within the prescribed and safe limits a lotted to women.
But there was not enough to enable her to stand
(32:32):
securely beyond the shelter of conventional rules. At any rate,
such is the social and moral fabric of the world
that woman must be content with an exceedingly narrow sphere
of action, or she must take the worst consequences of
daring to be an innovator and a heretic. I do
(32:54):
want to say, on a personal note, I do not
think Lola Montes is in any way a hero. And
of course she is wildly self aggrandizing. What she is
is entertaining, and it's worth looking at the question of
who she might be in today's world. A diagnosed sociopath,
(33:15):
a politician, a reality TV star, an influencer, always on
the verge of getting herself canceled. One thing is certain,
we wouldn't be able to look away. As Lola herself said, quote,
even my many enemies must admit I always had a
flair for living. That is the scandalous story of Lola
(33:48):
Monte's But keep listening after a sponsor break to hear
one more scandal in Lola's life. There's one last anecdote
that showse the strong reaction people always had to Lola Montes.
(34:09):
Remember Alexandra Dujarier, the newspaper owner and drama critic, that
Lola mete in Paris. Lola had serious feelings for him,
and the two had planned to be married at one point,
though the two had their first fight over whether or
not Lola should join him at a party Dujarier attended
(34:31):
alone and, in a drunken state, offended another man. A
rival journalist with a grudge named Jean de Bauvan de
Bauvian challenged Dujarier to a duel where Djarier was shot
and killed. This might be the only time in her
life where Lola Montes's presence could have actually caused less drama.
(35:02):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by
me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick,
Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Melaney. The show is
edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima
(35:24):
il KLi and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and
Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Danish Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood.
Just a little bit of housekeeping, tiny little announcement before
we start. I have a new podcast called Hoax. It's
a very casual podcast with my friend Lizzie Logan, where
every other week we do a deep dive into a famous,
historical or not so historical hoax that fascinates one or
(00:21):
the other of us. It's so much fun to do.
And if you like Noble Blood and you just want
to hear me talk in a more casual way, listen
to Hoax. Hoax exclamation point. We have a lot of
fun making it. I also have a new book coming
out in May twenty twenty six. I co wrote this
book under a pseudonym. It's called The Arcane Arts. I
(00:43):
co wrote it because we alternate points of view in
the book. I write the female point of view. My
co author, my friend Dan, writes the male point of view.
It's a dark academia sexy thriller. If that's the sort
of thing you think you might like, look up The
Arcane Arts by s. D. Coverly. Pre Orders really really help.
So if the book seems like it's something that would
(01:04):
interest you, please preorder the book, but as always, just
thank you for listening to the show and letting me
make Noble Blood. Let's get into it. Welcome to Noble Blood,
A production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Listener Discretion advised. Bavaria in the middle of the nineteenth
(01:28):
century was a country in peril. The King, Ludwig the
First had once been beloved, but now he was mired
in a firestorm of controversy. His subjects were furious with him.
Scandals piled up as rumors swirled that his judgment had
been compromised, that he was being controlled by shadowy outside forces.
(01:53):
High ranking officials were dropping like flies, while citizens took
to the streets in protest. By the middle of the
eighteen forties, the demonstrations had reached a fever pitch. The cabinet,
the people, and eventually even the rest of the royal
family turned against Ludwig. It reached the point where Ludwig
(02:15):
knew he couldn't continue to rule, at least not without
undermining the institution of the monarchy itself, and so on
March twentieth, eighteen forty eight, he abdicated the throne, allowing
his son Maximilian to become the new King of Bavaria.
(02:36):
What had caused King Ludwig's remarkable downfall? What had turned
the people against him? Like any question in history, the
answer is complicated and layered. But at the heart of
it all in this case is an exotic dancer whom
the king had made a countess, a woman named Lola Monte.
(03:00):
I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. Lola Montes
blazed a trail throughout the Western world, rubbing elbows and
more with some of the greatest minds and most powerful
men of the era, but her fiery spirit and insatiable
(03:23):
lust for life turned out to be far too much
for any one man, even a king, to handle. She
was a master of reinvention, an opportunist whose motto was
courage and shuffle the cards. She wasn't actually as she
claimed until her death from Spain, nor was her real
(03:44):
name Lola Montes, but for simplicity's sake, we'll call her
Lola throughout the episode. She was born in Ireland and
given the name Eliza Rosanna Gilbert. Her birth year was
most likely Lee eighteen twenty one, although with all things
Lola Montes, we should take it with a grain of salt.
(04:07):
Her dad, Edward, was a British officer and her mom
the illegitimate daughter of a local politician. There were rumors
that her mom was already pregnant when she got married,
and that was in addition to the circling allegations that
Lola's mother and even her grandmother were also illegitimate. Lola
(04:27):
never stood a chance. She was just born into a
scandalous life. In eighteen twenty three, the family moved to India,
where Edward's regiment was dispatched. Tragically, Edward died of cholera
soon after their arrival. Lola's mother, Elizabeth, a widow at
only nineteen years old, remarried within the year to Lieutenant
(04:52):
Patrick Craigie. Craigie was fond of his stepdaughter, but he
was seriously concerned about her her behavior. A childhood in
a foreign land with a loving but laid back aya
or nursemaid was fertile ground for young Lola's spirited nature
to blossom into problem child territory. At age ten, Lola
(05:17):
was sent away to live with Craigie's relatives, the idea
being that sometime in England would groom the foreign wildness
out of her, but it didn't work. Lola quickly earned
a reputation as a troublemaker and was bounced from boarding
school to boarding school, always leaving chaos in her wake.
(05:40):
By the time Lola was sixteen, her mother was eager
to marry her off. Elizabeth was an ambitious social climber
and saw her daughter's marriage as the perfect way to
elevate both the family's status and also make her daughter
someone else's problem. Elizabeth showed up at Lola's school at
(06:01):
this point in Bath and announced her plan. Lola would
come back to India and marry Sir Abraham Lumley, a
wealthy and powerful judge. Lola bulked at the union for
many reasons, not least of which was that Lumley was
sixty years old. Lola wanted nothing to do with that
(06:23):
old man. She sought the advice of a young army
lieutenant named Thomas James, whom her mother had befriended on
her journey to beth. Lola poured out her heart to
this visiting stranger, and for the first time, but certainly
not the last, a man found himself captivated by her
(06:44):
Lieutenant James was taken with the vibrant young girl and
decided on the spot that he would be the one
to save her. That very night, he took Lola to
his family home in Ireland, where they were married days later.
Lola's mother was apoplectic. Her carefully devised social climbing had
(07:05):
ended in complete betrayal, but the marriage was doomed from
the start. Lola was too young and inexperienced to understand
what she'd committed to, and had mostly been focused on
getting out of a bad situation. And here is where
we q getaway car by Taylor Swift. Thomas James did
(07:27):
care for his young bride, but they were never really
a good fit. Lola wrote of her time in Ireland, quote,
I wished for nothing more intensely than to be abducted
once more, but this time not by a potential husband,
but by anything or anyone who could rescue me from
the deadly monotony of this eternally repetitive life. From these
(07:50):
cold English faces, no smiles, no friendly glances, no kind words.
What started as verbal arguments escalated into physical abuse. Things
improved slightly when the couple returned to India in eighteen
thirty eight and could enjoy some semblance of a social life,
(08:14):
but they parted ways five years later. Desperate to leave
that chapter of her life behind, Lola sailed for London
a single woman, now with her whole life before her.
She was never one to be without a man for long.
Whether that was a matter of convenience or of genuine
emotion and preference, will never know, although she most likely
(08:37):
landed somewhere in the middle, regardless of the reasons why exactly.
Upon her arrival in London, Lola immediately took up with
a man she met on the ship. Between the money
she had gotten from both her stepfather and her then
ex husband, Lola arrived in London with around ten thousand dollars,
(08:57):
but thanks to her extravagant spending, it didn't last long.
Neither did that new relationship I alluded to. Now alone
and broke, Eliza needed a new plan. For a single
young woman in the eighteen forties, employment opportunities were scarce.
(09:17):
Lola didn't have the right disposition to be a governess,
and given her scandalous social life, she probably wouldn't have
kept a position for too long. Besides, the other option
was much more appealing to her the stage. Lola started
her training, but things didn't go perfectly well. Her voice
(09:40):
was too weak for the theater, and she wasn't naturally
gifted as a dancer either. But she had one big
thing going for her. She was beautiful, with a magnetic
presence and a killer body. Spanish dances were fashionable at
the time and required much less in the way of technique,
(10:04):
at least two English audiences. After a few months of
training and a trip to Spain to study the language
and customs, Lola reinvented herself completely as someone glamorous and
quote unquote exotic. She adopted the stage name Lola Montes
(10:24):
full name Dona Maria Dolores de Pores Emntez. She had
learned just enough of the language and Spanish customs to
seem authentic to the casual English observer. She started smoking
thin black cigars and spun multiple invented gloriously dramatic backstories
(10:46):
for herself. She was ready to take the world by storm,
but even Lola herself couldn't have imagined how far she'd go.
You might be asking yourself why Spanish. At this time,
Spanish culture was very popular in Europe. It represented passion, mystery, sensuality,
(11:10):
all the things that other cultures, especially early Victorian England,
were sorely lacking. Spanish dancers had a reputation for being
fiery and uninhibited, which coincidentally could provide excellent cover for
a lack of technical prowess. It was the perfect persona
(11:32):
for a woman looking to reinvent herself and stand out.
In eighteen forty three, Lola had her stage debut. She
went on a press tour where she posed as a
genuine Spanish woman telling stories in broken English. She charmed
the press completely. Her reviews were nearly unanimous, although most
(11:56):
critics did note that she was more style than substance,
but they didn't seem to mind. But there was one problem.
She was almost immediately recognized. People began to talk, and
Lola Montes was outed as Missus James and identified as
(12:17):
most definitely not being actually Spanish. London was too close
for Lola. If she wanted to make her new persona stick,
she needed to put more distance between her old life
and her new one. It assumed that around this time
Lola was putting her natural charms to work as a
(12:38):
means of supporting herself. Whether that was outright sex work
or just keeping company with wealthy men who showered her
with gifts, we can't say, but Lola was never shy about,
let's say, maximizing her assets. Around this time, Lola met
a rich, elderly German prince who soon found himself entranced
(13:02):
by the exotic young woman. He gave her money to
pay off her debts and extended an offhand invitation to
come visit his court if she were ever in his country.
That was all the encouragements our girl needed, and she
headed for the continent. Things didn't go well with the princeling.
(13:23):
Lola's casual swearing and rejection of royal protocol rubbed everyone
the wrong way, but Lola kept it moving, still trying
to get a foothold as a performer. Lola's reception in
Germany was basically the same as it had been in London.
Some were entranced by her brash stage presence and gonzo
(13:46):
performing style, but for most patrons, Lola was the inverse
of that famous song from a chorus line. She was
looks ten Dance three Again. Lola's temper also got her
in trouble. She was almost thrown in prison for hitting
an officer with a whip while trying to sneak into
(14:09):
a state visit from Zar Nicholas, the First of Russia.
Lola incidentally loved a whip and she needed little excuse
to break it out. But with that, it was time
for her to move on again. In Poland, Lola found
new benefactors, including the composer Franz List. More stage time
(14:31):
brought more mixed reviews and more controversy. Then it was
on to Paris, where Lola made her stage debut in
an opera, but that didn't go particularly well either, and
she soon found herself taken off line ups. People seemed
to either love her or hate her, with no in between.
(14:54):
It can't really be a coincidence that the ones who
loved her were usually predominantly wealthy, powerful men who were
also happy to bankroll her lifestyle. Through a relationship with
newspaper owner and drama critic Alexandra Dujarier, Lola was able
to boost her performing career, and she continued to perform
(15:17):
to wildly varying reviews. As always, her beauty and stage
present made up for her lack of real skill. She
cared deeply for Dujarier and hoped to marry him someday,
but he was killed in a duel, and Lola found
herself once more without a protector. She moved from place
(15:40):
to place and man to man, but no one could
keep up with her. Finally, in eighteen forty six, Lola
traveled to Munich, where she bagged her biggest catch yet,
the King of Bavaria. Ludwig the First was sixty years
old when he met Lola. I'm guessing the royal title
(16:02):
made him much more palatable than the sixty year old
her mother had tried to marry her off to back
in India. Ludvig at this time was generally popular among
his subjects. As a ruler, he had little political ability,
content to leave the government in the hands of others
while he focused on the arts and on beautiful women.
(16:25):
For years, his subjects, as well as Queen Terrace, had
tolerated Ludwig's dalliances, knowing any fling would be short lived
and result in not much more than a new portrait
for his gallery. There was no reason to think that
this Spanish dancer would be any different. They had no
(16:47):
idea just how different this one would be. Lola and
Ludwig met in October eighteen forty six. There was a
rumor that Ludwig asked her in public if her breasts
were real, and she responded by tearing off enough of
her garments to prove that they were. Whether or not
(17:09):
that story is apocryphal, it's undeniable that Ludwig fell under
her spell, and Lola immediately began to exercise her control.
She started getting stage time, and audiences were once again
divided between love her and hate her. What was obvious
was Ludwig loved her. Within a month, she had a
(17:32):
yearly allowance of ten thousand florins, five times as much
as a university professor's salary and nearly twice that of
a cabinet minister. A couple weeks after that, Ludwig had
Lola ridden into his will. By December, he had bought
her a house purchased in her name. This was both
(17:55):
to keep the money trail clean and to help her
establish residence. More than anything, Lola wanted Bavarian citizenship as
well as elevation to nobility, and she wasn't shy about
letting the king know. Within just days of meeting her
Ludwig had presented Lola to his ministers. Gentlemen, you have
(18:18):
the honor to meet my new best friend, he declared,
Please oblige me by treating her at all times with
the same respect you have always shown me. But Lola
immediately recognized the stern men as potential enemies and boldly
warned King Ludwig that his Jesuit packed government controlled him.
(18:41):
She singled out Prime Minister Carl von Abel as being
particularly untrustworthy. Ludwig was stunned she had identified in mere
weeks what he had been questioning for years. In his eyes,
that gave Lola enormous credibility. For her part, Lola truly
believed that she was freeing the king's mind from outdated conventions.
(19:05):
She saw herself as the people's liberator, symbolizing freedom in
a new age. Ludwig was deaf to suggestions that she
was manipulating him. The Jesuits called her the apocalyptic Pore.
Lola's stubbornness and temper were still on full display, making
(19:26):
her extremely unpopular among the people. Ludwig was spending astronomical
amounts of money on her, and despite his attempts to
rein her in she continued to blow past her allotted allowance.
She was arrogant and often abusive to anyone who caught
her at the wrong moment. She was seen with lots
(19:48):
of other men. She was often scandalously under dressed. Despite
opponents installing a spy in Lola's household and reporting back
her ar radic behavior, Ludwig couldn't accept the truth. Despite
extreme oppositional pressure, Ludwig granted Lola Bavarian citizenship in February
(20:11):
of eighteen forty seven. The Minister of the Interior resigned
in protest, and many of his colleagues followed. Suit protests
erupted all over, including one outside Lola's house, where it
is rumored that she, in characteristic fashion, flashed her breasts
(20:32):
at the crowd. Ludwig was becoming a joke to his
own people. He and Lola followed all the hallmarks of
a toxic couple. Break up, get back together, cause chaos,
repeat the cycle. Despite all the drama, on Ludwig's birthday,
August twenty fifth, eighteen forty seven, Ludwig made Lola the
(20:56):
Countess of Landsfeld and Baroness of Rosenthal. He wrote her
a letter asking her to please behave in accordance with
her new title, essentially begging her not to embarrass him.
Please please, please, You won't be shocked to know it
didn't work. Lola's elevation to nobility only increased her appetite
(21:21):
for power. Her arrogance, her hatred of the Jesuits, her
blatant greed were all the talk of Europe. Her public
behavior was increasingly shocking, spitting at a bishop, thrashing a worker,
smashing a shop window, or breaking her parasol over the
head of a nobleman who opposed her. On more than
(21:43):
one occasion, she threatened an angry crowd with her whip,
pistol or dagger. One of her lovers was a university student,
and she essentially turned his fraternity, the Alimanon, into her
own private army. She parted with them, and they worshiped her.
(22:05):
When Lola set her bulldog on a much respected university
professor of philosophy who had done her no harm, she
unwittingly set in motion her own downfall. The students were
tremendously supportive of the professor. Munich University students revolted, with
(22:26):
clashes erupting between the Alamanen and the rest of campus
who hated her. Ludwig closed the university, which only escalated
the situation. By March eighteen forty eight, pressure was mounting.
The specter of the French Revolution still hung over Europe
(22:47):
decades later, and the very real threat of revolution was
enough to knock some sense into Ludwig. He reopened the
university and abdicated, leaving his son Maximilian the Second to
become the new king. Lola fled the country. In less
than two years, Lola Montes had brought a country to
(23:09):
its knees and permanently changed the geopolitical landscape. Not bad
for a random girl from Ireland. Lola Montes found herself
stripped of the power she had enjoyed and abused as
King Ludwig's number one mistress. Without her benefactor and protector,
(23:31):
she was suddenly Bavaria's public enemy number one. Lola fled
to Switzerland, where she waited for Ludwig to come for her.
He never did, but Lola didn't spend too much time
tied up in grief. She dusted herself off and kept
things moving. She moved to London in eighteen forty eight,
(23:52):
and you guessed it met another guy, George Held was
a twenty one year old officer with serious family money,
as well as an apparent affinity for passionate dancer types.
The two were married quickly, but soon ran into problems
Lola's separation from Thomas James. The ex that she had
(24:16):
left back in India contained terms that prohibited either of
them from remarrying while the other was still alive. That
meant that Lola and George had to leave the country
to escape bigamy charges. The two lived in France and
Spain for a while, but within two years the marriage
(24:37):
fell apart. At this point, Lola decided to do what
so many before her also did, try her luck in America,
where she was surprisingly successful in rehabilitating her image for
a time at least. She threw in some acting with
her dance performances, and her shows sold out across the country.
(25:00):
At New York's Broadway Theater, she pulled in over four
thousand dollars in a single week, a box office record
for that venue. Lola was smart enough to know why
audiences came. They wanted to see the King's scandalous Mistress,
the woman famous for her whip and pistol. The notorious
(25:21):
bedroom adventurer Americans showed up expecting a shameless, talentless royal plaything. Instead,
they found someone surprisingly refined and tasteful, although she couldn't
help herself from throwing in some of her old dances
for good measure. She created a show called Lola Montes
(25:43):
in Bavaria, where she played four versions of herself. It
wasn't high art, probably more like a play based on
the pages of US Weekly, but audiences loved it. That
legendary temper still made frequent appearing, especially during her dance performances,
and some audiences would deliberately provoke her just to watch
(26:08):
the show within a show. During her American sojourn, Lola
had her own California adventure, which lasted a few years
and was full of the highs and lows that defined
her life. Rough crowds heckled her, sometimes chasing her off stage.
There was another marriage and an attempt at domesticity, but
(26:32):
her wild past threatened the new guy, and the union
ultimately fell apart. In eighteen fifty five, Lola sailed to Australia,
reviving her career by performing for gold miners. As soon
as she landed in Sydney, she started generating headlines. Her
(26:54):
notorious spider dance, in which she lifted her skirts high
enough for a viewers to see that she wasn't wearing underwear,
caused an uproar. A local newspaper declared her show quote
utterly subversive to all ideas of public morality, and ticket
sales tanked. In another town, Lola took the bad press
(27:17):
into her own hands and attacked a newspaper editor with
a whip. The editor was actually armed with a whip
of his own, Lola's reputation having preceded her, and the
altercation escalated into a full blown fight. The stormy ups
and downs with the Australian public continued, and after nearly
(27:41):
a year down under, Lola headed back to the US.
During the voyage back to San Francisco, her manager went
overboard and drowned. Given Lola's legendary temper, it's been considered
if he had any ill timed, unwonted feedback for his client,
(28:04):
and whether a whip had been involved in his untimely
accidental demise. Back in America, Lola tried repeatedly to resurrect
her theatrical career, but nothing really took hold. By this point, ever,
the reinventor Lola pivoted to image rehabilitation. In eighteen fifty seven,
(28:27):
she began touring the country giving lectures on what Else
morality and doing charity work helping vulnerable women. Whether her
late stage religious awakening was sincere or just another performance
is up for debate. But Lola brought the same fervor
(28:49):
to this new chapter that she had to everything else
she did. By eighteen sixty, advanced syphilis was destroying her body.
She died on January seventeenth, eighteen sixty one, at just
thirty nine years old, which seems almost astonishing given how
(29:10):
much life she had lived. Lola Monte's international scandal is
buried in Brooklyn's green Wood Cemetery with a headstone that
reads simply Missus Eliza Gilbert. It's ironic, but ultimately fitting
that the woman who tore across continents and came dangerously
(29:32):
close to toppling an empire would be memorialized with her maiden name.
It's probably for the best, because when it came to Lola,
the man on her arm would always be the least
interesting thing about her. Ludwig outlived her by seven years
after Lola exited his life and he'd transferred governing responsibilities
(29:57):
to his son, he returned to his truth passions, poetry, art,
and beautiful young women. He won back the love of
his former subjects and spent his final years surrounded by
the beautiful city that he had been instrumental in creating.
No doubt his thoughts would drift to his adventures with
(30:18):
the sultry Spanish dancer. If not the one who got away,
then the one who very nearly carried him away. Lola
Montes is one of the most intriguing talked about women
of the mid nineteenth century. An inveterate liar, Lola's biggest
and longest sustained lie was her reinvention of herself when
(30:42):
she had returned from India in eighteen forty one, escaping
a loveless marriage and an ambitious mother. That reinvention changed
not only her name, but also her destiny. Lola defied
social norms and blazed her own trail. Chaotic as it was,
(31:02):
society's reaction to her highlighted just how threatening a sexually
liberated woman was and still can be to the status quo.
There have been many books written about her, each exploring
different facets of her personality. But the best authority, or
(31:23):
at least the most entertaining one, is Lola herself. Lola's
autobiography was based on interviews with the writer Charles Chauncey
Burr and probably contains to be fair more fiction than truth.
But as Amanda Darling writes in her book Lola Montes quote,
in a sense, Lola's wild disregard for truth reveals more
(31:48):
about her character than documented statistics would. Just as the
psychiatrist of today find the day dreams of his patient
as significant as sleeping dreams, so Lola's reshaping of her
past tells us far more than she realized about the
forces that formed and motivated her. How much truth does
(32:11):
a woman owe to a world that is set up
against her? From Lola's autobiography quote what can a woman
do then? Who cannot take her part? The great misfortune
that there was too much of her to be held
within the prescribed and safe limits a lotted to women.
But there was not enough to enable her to stand
(32:32):
securely beyond the shelter of conventional rules. At any rate,
such is the social and moral fabric of the world
that woman must be content with an exceedingly narrow sphere
of action, or she must take the worst consequences of
daring to be an innovator and a heretic. I do
(32:54):
want to say, on a personal note, I do not
think Lola Montes is in any way a hero. And
of course she is wildly self aggrandizing. What she is
is entertaining, and it's worth looking at the question of
who she might be in today's world. A diagnosed sociopath,
(33:15):
a politician, a reality TV star, an influencer, always on
the verge of getting herself canceled. One thing is certain,
we wouldn't be able to look away. As Lola herself said, quote,
even my many enemies must admit I always had a
flair for living. That is the scandalous story of Lola
(33:48):
Monte's But keep listening after a sponsor break to hear
one more scandal in Lola's life. There's one last anecdote
that showse the strong reaction people always had to Lola Montes.
(34:09):
Remember Alexandra Dujarier, the newspaper owner and drama critic, that
Lola mete in Paris. Lola had serious feelings for him,
and the two had planned to be married at one point,
though the two had their first fight over whether or
not Lola should join him at a party Dujarier attended
(34:31):
alone and, in a drunken state, offended another man. A
rival journalist with a grudge named Jean de Bauvan de
Bauvian challenged Dujarier to a duel where Djarier was shot
and killed. This might be the only time in her
life where Lola Montes's presence could have actually caused less drama.
(35:02):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by
me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick,
Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Melaney. The show is
edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima
(35:24):
il KLi and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and
Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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