Loathsome leader: Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845–1886)
Poor Ludwig was another ruler called ‘Mad’.
Why? What did he do that was so mad?
He built castles. He built fantastic castles with steepling towers and halls of mirrors.
They were the sort of castles you see in books of fairy tales. He built castles until Bavaria ran out of money.
Would you believe all the things he did? Have a go.
Get ten out of ten and you, too, could be a mad monarch.
1 Ludwig II was born on the same day as his grandfather King Ludwig I – 25 August. This is exactly what his grandfather wanted. How did this happen?
a) Luck
b) The palace lied about the baby’s birthday.
c) His mother was forced to have the baby on that day.
2 Ludwig grew up a bit spoilt. He thought he owned Bavaria. What did the little brat do?
a) Stole a purse
b) Shot a tortoise
c) Sliced off his brother’s head
3 Ludwig got a Christmas present that changed his life. What was it?
a) A toy guillotine that let him chop off the heads of mice.
b) A toy cannon that let him blow the legs off the royal throne.
c) A set of building blocks.
4 Ludwig got his love of fairy tales from his mother, who acted them out with local children. But this stopped when a local child behaved badly. What did the child do?
a) Piddled on the palace cat
b) Smacked Ludwig on the lug
c) Stole the crown jewels
5 Ludwig’s father treated the boy harshly. How did he make sure Ludwig grew up tough?
a) He starved him.
b) He made him sleep on a raft in the castle moat.
c) He made him run ten miles every day with his hands tied behind his back.
6 When Ludwig took the throne he started building his fairy-tale castles. Linderhof Castle had a concrete cave built beneath it. What was in the cave?
a) Prisoners sent there to be tortured
b) Wild animals in a zoo
c) Rainbows
7 Ludwig’s greatest castle was Neuschwanstein. It took 16 years to build. How did Ludwig keep an eye on the building?
a) He walked around it every day.
b) He watched the work through a telescope from a hill across the valley.
c) He set up a tent so he could sleep there.
8 Ludwig began to run out of money. He made plans to get pots of money. What did he intend to do?
a) Rob a bank
b) Invade France and steal French gold
c) Sell his sister as a bride to the Russian king
9 Ludwig did have a slightly potty habit of going on a long ride and having a picnic. What was odd about it?
a) He took no food – just collected squashed hedgehogs from the road and cooked them.
b) He went nowhere – just rode round his stables in endless circles.
c) He hated riding because he was always travel sick; he ate the picnics and threw up.
10 When Ludwig started to act oddly the palace sent for a doctor. What was his name?
a) Baddun
b) Maddun
c) Guddun
Answers:
1b) The baby was born on 24 August 1845, half an hour before midnight. The palace kept quiet about this for an hour and said, ‘Guess what? The baby was born half an hour after midnight, on his grandad’s birthday. Isn’t that amazing?’
Grandad King Ludwig I was thrown off his throne three years later. He’d been flirting with the wicked (but beautiful) Lola Montez.6
Horrible Histories warning: Keep away from wicked women if you want to keep your crown.
He wrote Lola some dreadful poems. You know the sort of thing…
2a) He stole a purse from a shop. His teacher told him he couldn’t do that. Ludwig replied:
He did not shoot a tortoise, but he did love his pet tortoise to bits. He loved it so much his father took it from the young prince to teach him a lesson.
Ludwig was jealous of little brother Otto. One day Otto made a big snowball and Ludwig snatched it from him. His teacher made him give it back. Ludwig cried:
And he did not cut off his little brother’s head, but he was going to! The boys had a row and Ludwig said he could execute his brother. He tied him to a chair and took out a knife. A servant arrived just in time to stop him.
3c) Building blocks were Ludwig’s favourite toy. He sat for hours making dream castles. His grandfather watched the boy and said:
But once the boy became king he started building the castles for real – even though Bavaria didn’t need any more castles.
Shame he wasn’t given a train set. Then he could have built something useful for Bavaria like railways.
4b) Ludwig’s mother acted out the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Ludwig himself enjoyed acting – his favourite game was to pretend he was a nun.
Local children joined in the fairy-tale plays and were told to treat Prince Ludwig like one of their friends. One boy, Tony Arco, did just that when he smacked Ludwig’s ear.
5a) King Maximilian II gave orders that his sons should never eat till they were full. He didn’t want porky princes in his palace. So the boys were fed very little.
They used to go out for a walk in the fields where the farm workers took packed lunches to eat. The boys would beg for food from the workers.
Tough Maximilian II also gave young Ludwig hard beatings if he ever did anything wrong. If a teacher gave a bad report to the King then Ludwig was caned very hard.
The boys were made to get up early every morning and they got very little pocket money.
Ludwig learned to be sneaky. He went off to a dentist to have two teeth removed. He explained:
6c) The cave under Linderhof Castle was built like a fairy world. It had a lake with a hidden machine to make cute little waves. A golden boat bobbed up and down in a rainbow of light.
Ahhhh! Pretty – pretty expensive!
There was also a magic table in the kitchens. The empty table slid below the floor and came up again covered in food.
A hall of mirrors at Herren Chiemsee Palace was 100 metres long. It was lit by 2,200 candles. Ludwig spent just one week living there. Expensive hobby.
7b) Ludwig moved in and spent just 11 days living there. He kept a watch on the builders using a telescope – and that drove them crazy. A bit like your teacher looking over your shoulder when you are trying to do some exciting maths problems. He died before it was finished.
In the end it took 23 years to complete. The castle was copied to build Cinderella’s Palace in Disney World.
Ludwig built it to be alone. Now it’s packed with thousands of tourists every year.
8a) Most history books say that Ludwig spent all the taxes of Bavaria and made the people poor. But the history books are wrong – the truth is that Ludwig spent his own money. When he began to run out of money he came up with some brilliant ideas to get more.
One was to stage a bank robbery – that’s a pretty honest way to make money. After all, banks rob their customers every day.
Another idea was to kidnap a Prussian Prince. Ludwig would hold him to ransom. Don’t try this with your history teacher because (a) they aren’t worth enough money to build you a sandcastle and (b) someone may pay you to keep them. That is not a good way to make money – history teachers eat a lot.
His last daft idea lost him the throne. He decided to sell Bavaria and buy a smaller kingdom somewhere else.
9b) Ludwig liked the idea of going on long journeys and stopping off for a picnic. But he never went anywhere – except round and round his stables in circles for hours and hours. He would stop to change horses, have his picnic, then ride on.
10c) He was Dr Guddun (well Gudden to be precise) – except he wasn’t a good-un, if you see what I mean.
In 1886 a group of ministers wanted Ludwig off the throne. They sent Dr Bernhard von Gudden to say Ludwig was insane, even though the doctor had not met the King. Ludwig was arrested and taken to Castle Berg on Lake Starnberg.
A few days later Ludwig was dead. He and Gudden went out for a walk on a rainy night and never came home. The next morning their bodies were found in the lake.
No one knows what happened.
Did Ludwig try to kill himself and did Gudden die trying to save him?
Or did Ludwig try to escape and did Gudden die trying to stop him?
Ludwig’s cousin, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria said:
