Introduction

It is impossible to talk of King Ludwig II of Bavaria without mentioning the word “mad”, yet European royal insanity was hardly unique to Ludwig. Examples abound throughout history: Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Ivan the Terrible, and Vlad Dracul of Transylvania are just some examples. Nevertheless, the malady of royal insanity, which had reached its nadir in such monstrosities, did reach its apogee in Ludwig II, the ‘Swan King’, known to his fellow-spirit, Elizabeth of Austria, as ‘Cloud climber’, and to the composer Richard Wagner as Parsifal, the ‘pure knight’. In this writer’s view, Ludwig was a spiritually beautiful and very sensitive, but almost fragile, man; he was certainly unsuited to ruling Bavaria in the time of such Teutonic nationalistic ogres as Moltke and Bismarck. Ludwig’s insanity became an art form, finding its outlet in the construction of castles of miniature perfection, particularly Berg, Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee, and the crowning glory of Neuschwanstein.

Childhood

Ludwig’s childhood as a Wittelsbach was hardly a happy one. His father, King Maximilian, treated him extremely harshly, starving, humiliating and beating both Ludwig and his younger brother Otto. He apparently believed that his sons were soft and that no cure could be better than a piece of black bread and a swim in the icy lake. The two boys were starved so often that, from time to time, they had to beg for scraps from the servants, and Otto once tried to sell a tooth to a Munich dentist so that he could buy some food. His mother, Queen Marie – a Prussian and possibly not directly tainted – possibly suffered from porphyria and was odd enough to request that the poetry books of the world should be reprinted with the word ‘love’ replaced by ‘friendship’.¹

Appallingly, this treatment of European royal children had not been unique at that period of European history, particularly in central Europe. European monarchs seemed to believe that the heirs to the throne should be raised according to Spartan principles: early rises, cold showers, frugal eating, and hard work. Interestingly, Ludwig II’s grandfather, Ludwig I, was an exception; his rule had been surprisingly liberal. Being a Wittelsbach, part of a family who had always admired art and architecture, and having an admiration of early Greek architecture, he decided that his capital of Munich should be remodeled after Greek architectural principles. By trimming court costs and living frugally, he eventually managed to achieve his dream.