Quite a lot seems to be known about Lola Montez (1821-1861). She was a great beauty, as is evident from the many portraits of her to be found in reference works, and she inherited her looks from her Spanish father and her temper from her Irish mother. She was the mistress of kings; she once horsewhipped a newspaperman in the Californian gold fields and died in poverty in the nightmare slum of Hell’s Kitchen, New York.
The preceding paragraph contains information gathered from several reputable reference sources. Part of it is true, much of it is false. The Sligo-born Eliza Rosanna Gilbert was indeed very pretty. as is evident from Joseph Stieler’s decorous 1848 portrait (memorably described in Royal Flash by that great observer, Harry Flashman, as ‘wearing a come-to-Jesus expression’) Many of the other portraits of her displayed in reference works are in fact not of Eliza at all: the suspicion is that in the late 19th century any old portrait of a sultry Spanish-looking woman, preferably armed with a whip and a jaunty widebrimmed hat, would do to illustrate an article on Lola Montez, and as is the way of things, the pictures have become established as true likenesses over the years. She had no Spanish ancestry, her father being a British soldier and her mother an illegitimate member of the well-known and influential Irish Oliver family. She was indeed the mistress of a king – mad King Ludwig of I Bavaria – but did not die a terrible death.
Following a teenage elopement with one of her mother’s male friends, Eliza adopted the designation ‘Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer’ in her early 20s, in which incarnation she . debuted on the London stage in 1843. The performance ended in disorder after that dreadful cad Lord Ranelagh denounced her from his box as an Irish impostor, not Spanish. Lola had a hissy fit, stamped on her bouquet, and a few weeks later turned up in Europe, where her ‘tarantula dance’ made her famous. She had an affair with Liszt and was part of George Sand’s circle. She was also reputed to have developed an attachment to horsewhips at this time, and indeed is supposed to have horsewhipped a policeman who annoyed her.
She became Ludwig’s mistress in Austria in 1846, and was promoted to Countess of Landsfeld in 1847. As often happened in Lola’s life, her timing was bad: 1848 was to be the year of revolutions in Europe, and the subsequent forced abdication of Ludwig was probably inevitable, even without the public outrage at his liaison with Lola.
Lola moved to the US in 1851, where her dancing scandalised the righteous and delighted the others, particularly in the goldfields of California. She moved to Australia in 1855, where her ‘spider dance’ (this dance was the opening act in 1856 of the fine Theatre Royal in Castlemaine, Victoria), in which she raised her skirt in front in the audience – proved too daring for family audiences and indeed for some of the ‘digger’ audience of goldminers (Lola liked performing for goldminers). The diggers loved the eroticism but were not as equally taken with Lola’s willingness to trade insults with them.
According to some accounts, while in Lola had horsewhipped at least one Californian newspaperman. This did not happen. She did, however, chase one of Australia’s founding fathers of journalism down the street with a horsewhip, and if the horsewhip did not make contact, it was not for want of trying. Henry Seekamp, a major figure in both the history of Australian journalism and of its Labour movement, was editor of the Ballarat Times and a noted supporter of the diggers in their struggle for their right to vote and buy the land they worked on. A brave and intelligent man, with an equally brave and intelligent wife called Clara (who ran his paper and campaigns while he was jailed), Seekamp is unfortunately best-remembered outside of Australia for giving Lola a bad review, following which she chased him down the street with a horsewhip, thankfully without catching him. The still occasionally performed ‘Lola Montes [sic] Polka’, apparently commemorates this incident.
What Happened Next
Henry and Clara Seekamp, probably not prompted by the attempted horsewhipping, moved to Queensland, where Henry died in 1864, three years after the ever-wandering Lola’s death from pneumonia in New York in 1861. Lola’s career was described in the New York Times as ‘wonderfully chequered’ and stories began to be spread of a sad end in a squalid slum. In fact, she died well-cared for, but this was not good enough for the pious, who wanted to see a sinner brought low.
Lola is now commonly described as a precursor of the modern, independent woman, which may seem like just another fantasy view, with or without horsewhip, but in fact Lola, with minimum adjustment, is a character who would have fitted smoothly into 21st century western society. The most famous expression associated with her, ‘Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets’, which may have arisen during her Ludwig-mistress phrase, seems a fair summary of the modern woman as defined by the advertising world (and has been used for song titles and a 2007 movie).