The Mad King Ludwig

Ludwig II of Bavaria is best known as Mad King Ludwig.

He inherited his crown at 18 after a childhood of privilege. He was not interested in the business of governing, which was still at least part of the job of European royals in 1864, instead occupying himself with art, architecture, mythology and fantasy. Otto von Bismarck, minister-president of Prussia, a man who was not a king, but was deeply interested in the business of conquest and governing, easily outmaneuvered Ludwig ultimately bringing Bavaria, against Ludwig's wishes, into what became the German Empire. This is likely a major factor in Ludwig's increasingly "mad" descent into his world of fantasy.

Modern psychiatrists are today split on whether or not Ludwig was actually "mad" by today's standards, but in 1886, he was declared mentally unfit to rule, deposed, and shortly afterward found dead in a lake under mysterious circumstances.

He left behind a mountain of debt and some of Bavaria's most popular tourist attractions, including the castle Neuschwanstein, the model for Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle. My wife and I visited it several decades ago and it is truly a magnificent palace: a place of pure fantasy.

The Mad King Ludwig lived during a time of great change, everywhere, but especially in the Western world. Kingly power had been declining for decades, being replaced everywhere by parliaments and legislatures. While Bismarck was "unifying" the Germanic world, the American Civil War was being fought over slavery, and Ludwig was building fairy-tale castles.  Ludwig, for me, represents the last of the hereditary kings, those unitary figures who ruled by whim. Whatever the psychiatrists say, his "madness" was one that is commonly shared by those who hold extreme individual wealth and power: he seemed to live as if he had the absolute freedom to shape reality and the absolute authority to compel the rest of us to live in it.

In some ways, Ludwig's fantasies were no different than those of the preschoolers in our lives, who often fashion themselves as princesses and princes, queens and king, dressing in fancy frills and building castles. The difference is that there is never one king in a preschool, never one princess, and the kingdom belongs to everyone. Children may assert their vision over those of others, they may even attempt to dictate their preferred reality, but they learn soon enough that to do so is to lose their kingdom. Commanding people isn't nearly as satisfying when there is no one to command. The greater joy comes from creating reality together.

"Let's pretend . . ." is an invitation, not a command.

"I've got an idea!" is an offer to co-create.

"We can both be queen!" is a compromise that acknowledges the sovereignty of everyone.

When children play together, they are constantly confronting a truth that kings struggle to accept: other people have minds of their own. We may try to command, threaten, and bribe, but none of that is comparable to the joy of inspiring them to join us willingly, not as subjects, but as collaborators. They learn that the world is not theirs alone, but rather a creation of everyone.

Ludwig's "madness" is not that he lived in a fantasy world, but rather that he thought he could be its sole author.

He died just 76 years before I was born. Some of his contemporaries were still walking the earth during my own lifetime. His story is not ancient history. And while hereditary kings have largely disappeared, the fantasy of being its sole author is very much alive. 

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