youthful image from Wikipedia - Public Domain -
artist Joseph Heigel painted before 1840
artist Joseph Heigel painted before 1840
Eliza Rosanna Gilbert - Lola Montez
born possibly 1818 -1821- death 1861
Also called Senora Maria Dolores de Porris y Montez
and a few other names.
and a few other names.
A femme fatale of the Victorian age who gained world wide infamy, the woman most likely born illegitimate to a fifteen year old mother in 1818 as Eliza Rosanna Watson - or Gilbert - in Ireland, was a victim of fake news and gossip like certain celebrities today, even as she caused much real ruckus herself. It seems her nature to have been a spitfire and willing to use notoriety to work her way up to the attentions of a King. Affairs with Franz Liszt the composer, Andre Dumas Sr., who had left a lot of women with fatherless children, and many others, are probably facts but of short duration. Perhaps "mercurial" or "whimsical" would best describe a woman with a hot temper who would eventually die - most likely - of complications of syphilis. "Word had it she had taken so many lovers that a centipede couldn't count them on its legs." (page 14)
She was, like many of the women elected Mistress of the Month here at Mistress Manifesto Blogspot, using what she had - beauty - at a time when someone coming from her origins had little opportunity to be more than a wife. Her clear blue eyes were said to shift shades of color and her white skin and black hair were quite the contrast. Considered a great beauty, in some paintings she is, in some images she isn't. Certainly her beauty and youth must have been what captivated her first husband, Lt. Thomas James, whom she married in July 1837 as a sixteen year old (?)who went to live with him in Dublin, then to India. Theirs was a Catholic union that may have never been quite dissolved and could have been a marriage arranged for her by others.
Of this marriage she would come to be quoted thus: "Runaway matches, like runaway horses, are almost sure to end in a smash up."
The author of the book below, James F. Varley, doesn't say how beautiful or desperate her mother may have been, but by 1840 Lola was shipped home to England and said to be locked up in a room. She had a full on affair with Lt. Charles Lennox of several months duration on the way home. In 1841, off ship, they went off to London boardinghouse to continue. But the affair ended.
Primary reference for posts
on Lola Montez is this book by James F. Varley.
Later in this month I'll get to her California Adventures, for Lola is considered to be part of the history of California and the Wild Wild West in San Francisco and Grass Valley, once a prosperous boom town, but for this first post, I'll focus on what happened in Europe before she decided to travel to the new country.
Wanting and needing to become financially independent, and inspired by a famous dancer at the time who did "Latin" dances, Lola decided to give dance a try, studying in London with a Spaniard and then going off to Spain, where she called herself Dona Lola Montez, and claimed Maria de Los Dolores was her real name. She would change names many times in her life in attempts to reinvent herself. She put on a Spanish accent. She claimed to be a widow. But by 1848 she was back in England with a story of being widowed in Spain and selling mantillas. Possibly then she was kept by the Earl of Malmesbury. Too bad for her, an audience member outed her as just plain Betty James, the runaway wife of an army man.
She went to Berlin. There she attended a review held by King Frederick William to honor Nicholas I of Russia. Did her horse bolt right into the parade because of gun fire or did she ride him there to gain attention? Well, instead of being arrested, she was invited to visit Saint Petersburg.
Then there was Warsaw, where she met Liszt. (He already had a mistress for nine years, Comtesse d'Agoult, but Lola had a passionate week with him.)
Then off to Paris, where she was accused of doing a strip tease of sorts by throwing her garters and other clothing items to men. Her affair with Alexandre Dumas Sr, took place there.
She was still considered an amorist rather than a cold hearted man eater at this point. In Paris she even got herself engaged. But her fiancee soon died in a duel that wasn't even about her. She mourned. She testified. She brawled with another girl in a theater. She moved on.
In 1846, Lola traveled to the Grand Duchy of Baden and met Henry LXXII of Reuss. They were lovers but she got thrown out for the offense of having walked across his flower bed! Never mind. Soon King Ludwig I of Bavaria, the married father of nine children, then 60 years old to her 29 years, would become her greatest conquest. It was a conquest that changed history.
Lola was outspoken and let her opinions be known. She was aware of her power over the King. King Ludwig I's goal in life was to make Munich the center of architecture and art and spent lavishly to build and decorate. But was he really "mad"? Lola's presence and the King's unwillingness to give her up challenged the social order and his regime. So controversial was she that protests erupted. She was anti Jesuit/Catholic and sided with the Protestants. It wasn't just his family who wanted her out. Other aristocrats wanted the infamous affair to end.
By 1848 there were student protests and Ludwig closed down the university for a year. She was involved with a young Protestant noble. Soon she was denying rumors of orgies while working on the King to give her a title. |
"He made the Irish poseur Countess of Landsfeld, Baroness of Rosenthal, and a cannoness of the Order of Saint Therese, of which Ludwig's humiliated Queen was the head." page 40 He also demanded she be respected for her new position and that she receive a lifetime income and a new palace be built for her.
The protests against her became violent. Rocks were thrown at the King. Lola left town thinking King Ludwig would catch up to her snf when he didn't she tried to come back. Then she went to Switzerland and awaited him. He didn't show.
Lola left Munich because he sent her to Frankfurt where 500,000 florints awaited her at the Rothschilds bank.
Ludwig was forced to cancel her citizenship and all those titles.
To Londen Lola Montez went, there calling herself Marie, Countess de Landsfeld. She misjudged that the English didn't know what had happened with Ludwig or that they would accept her. She married a new heir - 21 year old George Stafford Heald, who was a decade younger than she. Bigamy charges followed. Divorce was highly unusual. Had her first husband died in India? As things got complicated the newly married couple left the country and then fled to France. They lived there quarreling for a couple years - domestic violence. He fled to England alone. She changed her name to La Comptess de Landsfeld Heald.
Though she got money from Heald and had some of what Ludwig gave her, she spent too much. So in 1851, she decided to write her memoirs, and they were published in Le Pays, serially. Like other mistress memoirs, the stories may have been an attempt at extortion.
Affairs and rumors of affairs continued. Finally she took a steamship to America. Was she revitalized or broken? When she arrived in New York in December 1851 crowds were there to greet her. A book had already been written about her. Broadway embraced her but the reviews of her dancing skills were not good. Still, she was learning to market herself and manipulate the press... better than she had before.
More to come!
Missy
C 2019 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot All rights reserved.
Primary reference for posts on Lola Montez is this book by James F. Varley.
Later in this month I'll get to her California Adventures, for Lola is considered to be part of the history of California and the Wild Wild West in San Francisco and Grass Valley, once a prosperous boom town, but for this first post, I'll focus on what happened in Europe before she decided to travel to the new country.
Wanting and needing to become financially independent, and inspired by a famous dancer at the time who did "Latin" dances, Lola decided to give dance a try, studying in London with a Spaniard and then going off to Spain, where she called herself Dona Lola Montez, and claimed Maria de Los Dolores was her real name. She would change names many times in her life in attempts to reinvent herself. She put on a Spanish accent. She claimed to be a widow. But by 1848 she was back in England with a story of being widowed in Spain and selling mantillas. Possibly then she was kept by the Earl of Malmesbury. Too bad for her, an audience member outed her as just plain Betty James, the runaway wife of an army man.
She went to Berlin. There she attended a review held by King Frederick William to honor Nicholas I of Russia. Did her horse bolt right into the parade because of gun fire or did she ride him there to gain attention? Well, instead of being arrested, she was invited to visit Saint Petersburg.
Then there was Warsaw, where she met Liszt. (He already had a mistress for nine years, Comtesse d'Agoult, but Lola had a passionate week with him.)
Then off to Paris, where she was accused of doing a strip tease of sorts by throwing her garters and other clothing items to men. Her affair with Alexandre Dumas Sr, took place there.
She was still considered an amorist rather than a cold hearted man eater at this point. In Paris she even got herself engaged. But her fiancee soon died in a duel that wasn't even about her. She mourned. She testified. She brawled with another girl in a theater. She moved on.
In 1846, Lola traveled to the Grand Duchy of Baden and met Henry LXXII of Reuss. They were lovers but she got thrown out for the offense of having walked across his flower bed! Never mind. Soon King Ludwig I of Bavaria, the married father of nine children, then 60 years old to her 29 years, would become her greatest conquest. It was a conquest that changed history.
Lola was outspoken and let her opinions be known. She was aware of her power over the King. King Ludwig I's goal in life was to make Munich the center of architecture and art and spent lavishly to build and decorate. But was he really "mad"? Lola's presence and the King's unwillingness to give her up challenged the social order and his regime. So controversial was she that protests erupted. She was anti Jesuit/Catholic and sided with the Protestants. It wasn't just his family who wanted her out. Other aristocrats wanted the infamous affair to end.
By 1848 there were student protests and Ludwig closed down the university for a year. She was involved with a young Protestant noble. Soon she was denying rumors of orgies while working on the King to give her a title. |
"He made the Irish poseur Countess of Landsfeld, Baroness of Rosenthal, and a cannoness of the Order of Saint Therese, of which Ludwig's humiliated Queen was the head." page 40 He also demanded she be respected for her new position and that she receive a lifetime income and a new palace be built for her.
The protests against her became violent. Rocks were thrown at the King. Lola left town thinking King Ludwig would catch up to her snf when he didn't she tried to come back. Then she went to Switzerland and awaited him. He didn't show.
Lola left Munich because he sent her to Frankfurt where 500,000 florints awaited her at the Rothschilds bank.
Ludwig was forced to cancel her citizenship and all those titles.
To Londen Lola Montez went, there calling herself Marie, Countess de Landsfeld. She misjudged that the English didn't know what had happened with Ludwig or that they would accept her. She married a new heir - 21 year old George Stafford Heald, who was a decade younger than she. Bigamy charges followed. Divorce was highly unusual. Had her first husband died in India? As things got complicated the newly married couple left the country and then fled to France. They lived there quarreling for a couple years - domestic violence. He fled to England alone. She changed her name to La Comptess de Landsfeld Heald.
Though she got money from Heald and had some of what Ludwig gave her, she spent too much. So in 1851, she decided to write her memoirs, and they were published in Le Pays, serially. Like other mistress memoirs, the stories may have been an attempt at extortion.
Affairs and rumors of affairs continued. Finally she took a steamship to America. Was she revitalized or broken? When she arrived in New York in December 1851 crowds were there to greet her. A book had already been written about her. Broadway embraced her but the reviews of her dancing skills were not good. Still, she was learning to market herself and manipulate the press... better than she had before.
More to come!
Missy
C 2019 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot All rights reserved.
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