The Dancer Who Toppled A King

Beautiful. Manipulative. Salacious. These are just a handful of the words used to describe Lola Montez, the Irish woman who achieved international fame and notoriety thanks to her sensual performances and her fake identity as ‘the Spanish dancer’. Continuing her deception, she managed to become the mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, an illicit relationship that helped trigger the downfall of his reign. So who exactly was the real Lola Montez and how did she bring down a king?

Born as Eliza Rosanna Gilbert in Ireland, 1821, she was the daughter of Edward Gilbert, a British army officer and Eliza Oliver, a milliner’s assistant and the illegitimate daughter of Charles Silver Oliver, an MP and the former high sheriff of Cork. The family moved to India in 1823 but Edward succumbed to cholera shortly after their arrival, leaving behind his young wife and daughter.

The following year, the elder Eliza remarried and sent her daughter back to Britain to attend school and stay with relatives. When she was 16, the young Eliza defied her mother’s wishes for her to marry Sir Abraham Lumly, later described by Lola in her autobiography as “a rich and gouty rascal of 60 years”, instead eloping in Ireland with a young lieutenant named Thomas James. They moved to Calcutta, India, but the marriage disintegrated after five years – Lola would later