Ludwig II was born on 25 August 1845, heir to the illustrious Wittelsbach family which at that time ruled Bavaria from its capital, Munich. Ludwig's mother, Marie, was the niece of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia. His father, Maximilian II, became king of Bavaria when Ludwig was two years old-Maximilian's own father, Ludwig I, had been forced to abdicate due to his involvement with a notorious Irish beauty who styled herself Lola Montez.

When Ludwig was 13 years old, during the typically difficult childhood of a royal heir to the throne, his former governess, now Baroness Leonrod, described a performance of Wagner's Lohengrin in a letter to the young Ludwig. Ludwig, who was already interested in the mythological subjects that provided the framework for Wagner's work, became enraptured with the composer's music and writings even before, on 2 February 1861, he received his parents' permission to attend a Munich performance of Lohengrin. Wagner's call for a prince who, by his patronage, would ensure the purity and survival of German art led Ludwig to vow that he would be that prince.

Ludwig's family, from left: Ludwig, his mother queen Marie, his father king Maximilian II and his brother Otto.

Ludwig ascended the Bavarian throne in 1864 at the age of eighteen, when Maximilian II died after a short illness. He came to the throne with high hopes, aiming to preserve Bavarian independence while strengthening ties with the other countries-Prussia and Austria the largest among them-that formed the German Confederation. Yet Ludwig soon became bored with the realities of governing. He was confused about his sexuality, having developed both a romantic attachment to his aide-de-camp, Prince Paul von Thurn and Taxis, and a close platonic friendship with his cousin, Princess Elisabeth, the wife of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria.

One of Ludwig's first acts as King was to summon Richard Wagner to Munich. Ludwig, who hoped to promote a cultural renaissance in Munich through Wagner's presence, soon found himself funding the composer's lavish lifestyle. Wagner was before long widely disliked-both by members of the court who were jealous of his influence over King Ludwig and by members of the public who resented the money being spent on the composer, the King's neglect of his political responsibilities when in search of aesthetic satisfactions, and Wagner's illicit relationship with Cosima von Bülow, wife of the conductor Hans von Bülow. Tensions reached their height in December 1865, when Ludwig was forced to ask Wagner to leave Bavaria for at least six months. Ludwig was emotionally torn by this decision, and continued to write to Wagner, who had settled in Switzerland. Ludwig dreamed of happier future days in which "the Friend will return and inspire me with his dear proximity." Wagner would in fact sit in the royal box for the premiere of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868), but subsequent conflicts over the staging of Das Rheingold (1869) and Die Walküre (1870)-the first two installments of Der Ring des Nibelungen-helped drive Wagner temporarily from the King's affections.

Meanwhile, a long-simmering crisis erupted over the disposition of two duchies-Schleswig and Holstein, located to the north of the German Confederation. When Chancellor Bismarck of Prussia attempted to seize exclusive rights to the duchies, Ludwig found himself forced into a military alliance with Austria and the rest of the German Confederation. Ludwig's instinct was to try and avoid engagement in such affairs altogether-to the disgust of the public at large, he fled for a time to a solitary retreat at Castle Berg, 15 miles to the southwest of the capital. But he could no longer ignore the political realities of the situation when, in June 1866, the Seven Weeks' War erupted between the Confederation and Prussia.

The name of the Seven Weeks' War commemorates the rapidity with which Prussia crushed the rest of the German Confederation. The defeats suffered by the Bavarians reflected badly on the young King, who did not help his cause by refusing to accept the merely symbolic role of supreme commander of his nation's armed forces. At the war's end, Prussia had clearly become the leading nation within Germany, and Austria was expelled from the Confederation altogether. Chancellor Bismarck allowed Bavaria to emerge relatively unscathed, though a secret mutual defense treaty compelled Bavaria to come to Prussia's aid in time of armed conflict.

In 1867, the 21-year-old Ludwig surprised nearly everyone by becoming engaged to Princess Sophie, younger sister of his cousin and longtime friend Princess Elisabeth. During the engagement he showed distinct signs of mental instability. Though he spent, it was rumored, more than a million gulden in the construction of a lavish wedding coach, he asked his physician for a certificate declaring him unfit to marry, told an official that he would drown himself before going through with the ceremony, and sat before his mirror making faces at himself and declaring: "At times, I would not swear that I am not mad." Still troubled by doubts about his sexuality, he repeatedly postponed the wedding date until, in October, he finally canceled it.

After the Princess Sophie affair, Ludwig withdrew even further from his duties as king and political leader. Ordinarily, he remained in the capital for only the twenty-one nights per year required by the Bavarian constitution. While there, he adopted the curious practice of taking imaginary nocturnal rides from Munich to various destinations-in fact he simply rode round and round a ring at the Royal Riding Pavilion until he had traversed the distance to whatever place he had selected, whereupon he dismounted and had a picnic lunch on the floor of the ring.

Meanwhile, Prussian efforts to dominate Germany and Europe continued. In 1870, Chancellor Bismarck manipulated a minor squabble to provide a pretext for the Franco-Prussian War. Bavaria was compelled by the treaty that had ended the Seven Weeks' War to support Prussia in this conflict. Another quick victory by Prussia, in a war lasting just over a month, made it clear that the crown of a united Germany, if there was to be a united Germany, would be in the hands of the Prussians.

At the end of the War, negotiations to construct such a Germany began in earnest, and Ludwig found himself in a position where cooperation was mandatory. The plan eventually agreed upon, after considerable political maneuvering, allowed Bavaria to retain its King and, to a certain extent, its autonomy. Bavaria was to have its own army, which would fall under Prussian command only in times of war. Bavaria would also have its own railways, its own postal system, its own diplomatic contacts. Yet at the same time King Wilhelm I of Prussia was to be made emperor of all Germany, and it was to be King Ludwig who would offer him the title. Ludwig officially made this offer in the famous "Kaiserbrief"-a letter drafted by Bismarck but copied out and signed by an Ludwig, whose reluctance was overcome by a temporary indisposition. The Baden delegate to the Versailles Conference, where the details of a united Germany were hammered out, observed that "There was not likely to be another King of Bavaria who would offer the Imperial Crown to someone because he had a toothache." Wilhelm I was proclaimed Emperor of Germany in Versailles' Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871.

Succeeding years in Bavaria were marked by continuing political turmoil, in part turning on ecclesiastical disputes and, in particular, Pope Pius IX's mid-1870 declaration of papal infallibility. One politician, Johann von Lutz, proved admirably skilled at surviving rapid and continual governmental turnover, and in 1880 Ludwig appointed him prime minister. Lutz realized that Ludwig's main priority was to avoid involvement in the political process, and Lutz used this fact to assume nearly dictatorial powers. The normal governmental procedures of the Bavarian constitutional monarchy were bypassed, and important decisions undertaken without royal assent.

Ludwig, freed by Lutz's assumption of power from the diurnal responsibilities of kingship, became a nocturnal creature. His sudden coach-driven appearances, in the middle of the night, in peasant Alpine towns were a source of surprised delight to their inhabitants. On nights when he was not traveling, Ludwig studied the history of France, commanding private performances of little-known French plays, operas, and ballets. His psychological detachment from his own position as Bavaria's political leader was perhaps most clearly embodied in a bizarre flight of fancy not unlike James Joyce's contemplated turnover of Finnegans Wake to James Stephens-in 1873, Ludwig sent the director of the State Archives on two lengthy voyages to exotic lands in hope of finding a new country to rule.

Ludwig's troubled state of mind was reflected in a secret diary, which he maintained, off and on, from late 1869 until his death. Its often cryptic entries refer with anguish to Ludwig's frequent sexual encounters with stableboys and young soldiers, which are followed time and time again by solemn oaths to refrain from what Ludwig regarded as moral turpitude: "...I swear today...that what took place yesterday night was the last time forever; atoned for by the Royal Blood-the Holy Grail. Absolutely the last time under penalty of ceasing to be King." Relationships with those of higher social status ended just as uncomfortably as Ludwig's encounters with servants. No wonder, given the King's bizarre treatment of those who found themselves the object of his affection-one such man, a Hungarian actor named Josef Kainz, broke with Ludwig shortly after being forced to comply with a royal request that he journey across the snowy Suvenen Mountains, as had a character in the Wilhelm Tell saga.

However troubled Ludwig may have been, his younger brother Otto was far worse off. Indeed, the severely inbred Wittelsbach family had a long history of eccentricity-one of Ludwig's aunts was under the impression that she had swallowed an entire grand piano made of glass. Otto had begun to exhibit signs of excessive nervousness during the Franco-Prussian War, and by the end of 1872 had been confined at Nymphenburg. His state continued to worsen, and he was officially declared insane in 1878.

Meanwhile, Wagner, whose work Ludwig had by no means forgotten, was in the process of completing the last two operas of the Ring cycle-Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Wagner had settled on the town of Bayreuth, in the northern part of Bavaria, as the location of an ideal new theater designed specially for the production of his work. Ludwig contributed substantially to Wagner's vast undertaking, including a 100,000-gulden loan (Bavaria was at this time in the process of converting its currency, the gulden, to the Prussian mark) which was not repaid until long after Ludwig and Wagner were both dead. Wagner's Festspielhaus-a wooden theater planned as a temporary predecessor to a never-built stone version-was completed in summer 1876, and in August of that year Ludwig twice attended complete performances of all four Ring operas. His reaction was predictably enthusiastic, and he wrote to Wagner shortly afterward, calling the latter a "god-man who truly cannot fail." After this first Bayreuth Festival, Wagner returned to work on his last opera, Parsifal. Ludwig and Wagner quarreled in late 1880 over a performance of the Parsifal prelude and did not meet again, though when Wagner died in 1883 Ludwig commanded that every piano in his castles should thereafter be draped in black as a monument to the composer.

During these later years, Ludwig's creative energies were directed toward vast architectural projects that depleted his personal wealth. The first of these madly grand undertakings was the construction of Neuschwanstein Castle, meant as a magical paradise which would bring the imaginary world of Wagner's operas to life. Work on the castle itself began in 1879, though preparation of the site had begun as early as 1868. Its interior incorporated a magnificent Throne Room with an intricate floor mosaic of over two million tiles, an artificial grotto complete with hidden colored lights, and a Festsaal modeled on a scene in Wagner's Tannhäuser. When Ludwig died in 1886, Neuschwanstein was only half finished.

A second project was Ludwig's villa at the royal hunting estate of Linderhof. Around an ornate central structure-which included a special "magic table" that descended through the floor to a lower-level pantry so that servants could prepare and set the different courses of Ludwig's dinner without intruding upon his solitude-Ludwig arranged a number of strange and wonderful pavilions. The park included a replica of Hunding's Hut from Die Walküre, the Hermitage of Gurnemanz from Parsifal, and a Grotto of Venus in an artificial cavern. The Grotto was furnished complete with a lake (featuring artificial waves and live swans), a backdrop adopted from Lohengrin, and a cockleshell-shaped boat on which Ludwig would sail while listening to singers he had summoned from Munich.

Ludwig's final project was the Palace of Herrenchiemsee, fifty miles southeast of Munich, intended as a partial copy of the Palace of Versailles. Ludwig's Hall of Mirrors in Herrenchiemsee was longer than the original, and was illuminated by over 1800 candles. Ludwig, imagining himself to be the guest of Louis XIV at Versailles, maintained a State Bedroom for that long-deceased monarch. The total amount of time Ludwig spent in Herrenchiemsee, upon which he spent over 16 million marks? Nine nights.

Predictably, even for a king, such expenses had their toll. These three projects cost Ludwig some 32 million marks, and Ludwig still had plans for more castles-one Gothic, one Byzantine, and one Chinese. And Ludwig never appropriated public monies for his construction projects. By the end of 1885 Ludwig was some 14 million marks in debt, and there were serious concerns that the King could be sued-the company which supplied his castles with water and gas in fact served legal papers against him-and his properties confiscated. Ludwig sent his officials on bizarre journeys in search of loans, and some of these officials only pretended to take the journeys they knew in their hearts were hopeless. One group of servants, it is said, were ordered to go to a number of major European cities to rob banks. Fortunately, they refrained.

Ludwig's financial quandary was potentially a disastrous embarrassment to the Bavarian government-a scandal which could only be avoided if the King were removed from office. Members of the Wittelsbach family, too, were disgusted with Ludwig's ridiculous expenditures and his refusal to fulfill the responsibilities of his position. And so, in mid-1885, Prime Minister Johann von Lutz and Ludwig's uncle Prince Luitpold met to discuss what might be done with the 40-year-old monarch. Their solution, approved by Bismarck, was a carefully planned coup d'état, to be effected by declaring Ludwig officially insane.

The certification of Ludwig's insanity was provided in early June 1886 by Dr. Bernhard von Gudden and three colleagues, based on an accumulated mass of evidence that was, of course, deliberately biased against Ludwig. Those who believed the King merely eccentric found that the four doctors were uninterested in hearing their testimony. Ludwig's cabinet secretary went to the trouble of compiling some 300 letters by Ludwig, none of them exhibiting any mental problems. The commission declined to examine this evidence, as well as the patient on whose health they were to pronounce, and declared that Ludwig was mad, that his madness was incurable, and that he was now, and would be for the rest of his life, incapable of exercising the powers entrusted to him.

On 10 June 1886, it was officially announced that Prince Luitpold was to rule as permanent Regent in place of the ill King. Ludwig's affairs would henceforward come under the command of a special commission which would look after his finances and general well-being. As these developments were taking place, Ludwig was at Neuschwanstein, and, at the urging of his aide-de-camp, decided to do what he could to fight back. He arrested the members of the special commission sent to take him into custody and wrote an open letter to his subjects asking them, in effect, to stage a civil war if he should be taken by his enemies. He talked of suicide, but after some maneuvering was at last seized and taken away in a carriage lacking interior door handles.

His prison was to be Castle Berg, where he arrived on 12 June. His apartments had been specially modified to permit spying on the King and to prevent his escape. June 13th, 1886, Ludwig woke in the early hours of the morning as he was used to, and got up to get dressed. But his clothes had been removed. He was told by a warder to go back to sleep after he was discovered pacing the room in his night-shirt. When the sun rose through grey, rainy clouds, he was not permitted to speak to anyone, and the Royal hair and beard was dressed by a different barber, something which must have unnerved him. Ludwig ate a large breakfast, and even though it was Whitsunday, he was not permitted to attend Mass. (As a devout Catholic, this again must have unnerved him.)

Around 11:00 am, Ludwig asked Dr Gudden if he would accompany him on a walk through the grounds of the castle, as the rain had stopped. They set out for their walk with two warders following at a distance behind, and when they returned, Dr Gudden commented over lunch how well Ludwig was. The treatment is working very well, he commented - the patient seemed quite 'normal' already. Naturally, the fact that Ludwig was 'normal' to begin with never occurred to him. Was Gudden so arrogant as to think that 24 hours in his presence would turn someone suffering a mental problem 'normal'?
Gudden returned from their walk exhausted from all the questions Ludwig had asked. Several wardens were also plagued by the King for answers, and among these questions, Ludwig had very cunningly asked how many guards surrounded the castle grounds and where they were positioned. None of the wardens noticed the significance of these questions, and answered them dutifully.

Ludwig had a large lunch that day, and at about 4:30 pm had requested another huge meal. Gudden tried to dissuade Ludwig from this, but finally agreed to it. During this meal he drank a considerable amount, even though Gudden had set a strict quota on how much alcohol the King was permitted to have.

Just after 6:00 pm, Ludwig sent for Gudden to accompany him on another walk, as had been arranged during their last walk, and the rain had stopped once more. Gudden grudgingly agreed, and he thought Ludwig was behaving so well that the order was given to leave the two men alone, and not to follow them. The King might be even more co-operative if he saw the doctor had such trust.

The two men set out at around 6:10 pm, and both were wearing overcoats and carrying umbrellas, as another storm was threatening. It is recorded that they passed from the castle's view at exactly 6:25 pm. Before departing, Dr Gudden had given orders for dinner to be ready at 8:00 pm.

When 8:00 pm came, and Ludwig and the 62 year old doctor had not returned, Müller thought they must be sheltering from the rain, which was now falling heavily, and didn't think too much about it. A policeman was sent out to look for them, and soon after two more. At 9:00 pm, when there was still no news of them, Müller began to panic at last. It was very unlike Gudden to be out on such a night. It was now dark, and the rain was torrential. Every available man in the Starnberg area was summoned to search for the missing pair with lamps and torches, as it was a very black night. The park was scoured, every inch of ground covered, until, around 10:00 pm, someone noticed a dark object floating in the water at a point where the path was close to the shore. It was the King's jacket and overcoat, and half an hour later, at 10:30 pm, June 13, 1886, the body of King Ludwig II was found floating face down in shallow water, about 20 metres from the lake's bank. Dr Gudden's body was found a few minutes later, floating near the King. Ludwig's watch had stopped at 6:54 pm, Gudden's at 8:00. However, Dr Gudden frequently forgot to wind his watch, so it may have actually stopped at 8:00 am., and the doctor had not noticed it.

The bodies were dragged from the water and laid out on the shore. Dr Müller tried for over an hour to resuscitate the King, but at midnight he announced that no more could be done. They were laid into a small boat and rowed back to the castle, and a telegram sent to the Prince Regent in Munich, the most important of the many telegrams that were sent to Munich that night.
The Dream King was dead at the age of 40.

Upon Ludwig's death, the more obviously insane Otto became King, and remained nominal ruler of Bavaria for thirty years, until his death in 1916. Prince Luitpold, now prince regent, was de facto head of Bavaria for most of this period, until his death in 1912. At that time, Luitpold's son acceded to the Bavarian throne as King Ludwig III, so that, for several years, the country had two kings. Bavarian monarchy ended in 1918, with the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II from the German throne.

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