Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld (23 June 1818 or 17 February 1821 – 17 January 1861), better known by the stage name Lola Montez, was an Irish-born dancer and actress who became famous as a "Spanish dancer", courtesan and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who made her Countess of Landsfeld. Book "Lola Montez" had benn written by Edmund B. D'Auvergne. There are many interesting fact about her life.
Background
Eliza Rosanna Gilbert was actually born in Grange, County Sligo on 17 February 1821. She was baptised at St Peter's Church in Liverpool on 16 February 1823 while her family was en route to her father's post in India. As her mother's family was in County Limerick, it is not hard to see how little Eliza could have been told 'we're from Limerick' and assumed that the city was meant. Shortly after arrival in India, Edward Gilbert, her father, died of cholera. Her mother, who was now 19, married another officer, Lieutenant Patrick Craigie, the following year. Craigie quickly came to care for little Eliza, but her spoilt and half-wild ways concerned him greatly.
Eventually, it was agreed she would be sent back to Britain to attend school, staying with Craigie's father in Montrose, Scotland, at first. But the "queer, wayward little Indian girl" quickly became known as a mischief-maker. On one occasion, she stuck flowers into the wig of an elderly man during a church service; on another, she ran through the streets naked.
At the age of ten, Eliza was moved on again – this time to Sunderland, England. When her stepfather's older sister, Catherine Rae, set up a boarding school in Monkwearmouth with her husband, Lola joined them to continue her education.
Education
1832 - eleven-year-old Eliza sent to a boarding school at Bath, in England.
1837 - against her mother's matrimonial plans for her, sixteen-year-old Eliza eloped with Lieutenant Thomas James, who had accompanied her mother on the journey from India to Bath.
Career
Montez debuted on the American stage in 1851 as a dancer. She experienced a brief period of fame when she attracted large audiences, but her early fame and talent quickly came into question. According to George C. Odell, "she proved conclusively...that scandal does not necessarily create a great dancer. She was found to be commonplace and quite unsensational." Odell concedes, however, "Of course Lola Montes is still a name to conjure amon. Most likely regarded as a lower-level performer with questionable respectability, her "Farce," the play Lola Montes in Bavaria (1852) is her most memorable stage credit, even though Odell cites it as an example of "degeneracy of the stage in our own time." Montez played herself in the dramatization of her life and connections at the Bavarian court . The play would continue to be performed at the Bowery after her departure from the theater . Montez performed onstage in Australia from 1855-1856 ("Montez") and returned to New York, where, during the 1857-1858 season she was "but a shadow in memory of that Lola who had so proudly entered this very theater [the Broadway] only a few years before" . During this season and the 1859-1860 season, Montez seems to have participated in the lecture series that occurred in New York . Montez is also the author of Anecdotes of Love (1858) and Arts of Beauty (1858) ("Montez").
Politics
In 1846, she arrived in Munich, where she was discovered by, and became the mistress of, Ludwig I of Bavaria. The rumour was that at the time they met Ludwig had asked her in public if her bosom was real, to which her response was to tear off enough of her garments to prove it. She soon began to use her influence on the king and this, coupled with her arrogant manner and outbursts of temper, made her unpopular with the local population, particularly after documents were made public showing that she was hoping to become a naturalized Bavarian citizen and be elevated to the nobility. Despite the opposition, Ludwig made her Countess of Landsfeld on his next birthday, 25 August 1847. Along with her title, he granted her a large annuity. For more than a year she exercised great political power, which she directed in favor of liberalism and against the conservatives and the Jesuits. Her influence became so great that the ultramontane administration of Karl von Abel was dismissed because that minister objected to her being made Countess Landsfeld. The students of the university were divided in their sympathies, and conflicts arose shortly before the outbreak of the revolutions of 1848, which led the king, at Lola's instigation, to close the university.[11] In March 1848, under pressure from a growing revolutionary movement, the university was re-opened, Ludwig abdicated, and Montez fled Bavaria, her career as a power behind the throne at an end.[4][11] It seems likely that Ludwig's relationship with Montez contributed greatly to the fall from grace of the previously popular king. Her reputation in 19th century Germany was highly negative, but in the 20th century Germans came to admire her pluck and liberalism in defiance of Bavarian conservatism.
After a sojourn in Switzerland, where she waited in vain for Ludwig to join her, she made one brief excursion to France and then removed to London in late 1848. There she met and quickly married George Trafford Heald, a young army cornet (cavalry officer) with a recent inheritance.[12] But the terms of her divorce from Thomas James did not permit of either spouse's remarriage while the other was living, and the beleaguered newlyweds were forced to flee the country to escape a bigamy action brought by Heald's scandalized maiden aunt.The Healds resided for a time in France and Spain, but within two years, the tempestuous relationship was in tatters, and in 1851 she set off to make a new start in the United States, where she was surprisingly successful at first in rehabilitating her image.