James Morton journeys through the life of the passionate and ambitious Lola Montez, an Irish divorcée who reinvented herself as the world’s most desired Spanish dancer

Passing what used to be the Marlborough Street court in London the other day, I thought of the famous defendants who appeared there, and Lola Montez, mistress of Franz Liszt and the ruin of Ludwig I of Bavaria, sprang to mind. It is just short of 150 years since that captivating minx appeared there.


Born Rosanna Gilbert in Ireland, she married, around the age of 15, a none-too-wealthy Indian Army officer named Thomas James. That lasted a bare two years before she returned to England in the arms of another officer. Ruin in the form of a divorce a mensa e thoro followed. This meant that although they were legally separated, unless there was a very expensive petition to the House of Lords, neither could remarry. This was no impediment to Ms James, who had now metamorphosed into the not very talented but exceptionally beautiful – even her critics agreed on this – Spanish dancer Lola Montez. What she could do was ensnare men.


After her affair with Liszt and another in Paris with a journalist who was shot in a duel, she moved on to Ludwig of Bavaria, who ennobled her as the Countess of Landsfelt. When the citizens of Munich rioted against her influence on the besotted king, it was back to London, where she met the tall but effete George Trafford Heald, son of a barrister and a cornet in the 2nd Life Guards with an income variously described as between £3,000 and £14,000 per annum and ‘fine expectancies’.


A marriage at St George’s Hanover Square followed, but Heald’s maiden aunt Susanna, realising she must wean him off Lola before she weaned him off his inheritance, began work on the countess’s past.


Lola was arrested on 6 August 1849, on a charge of bigamy. The impending arrest had been widely forecast in the papers and the pair had planned to flee, but sloth undid them. At 8.30am, there on the doorstep was Inspector John Whall with a warrant. Unsurprisingly, Lola was furious, threatening to do away with herself if she was molested.


During the morning she calmed down, and at Vine Street she apologised and offered the station sergeant a cigar. He declined, pointing out that smoking was forbidden on the premises but, undaunted, she ‘smoked herself into good humour’.


When Lola appeared at Marlborough Street Police Court that afternoon, The Times reported that she was allowed to sit with Heald throughout the hearing. He held her hand between both of his and, at suitable moments, pressed it to his lips while looking at her.


A charge of bigamy was triable only at Assizes, and so the hearing was in the nature of committal proceedings. However, it was not wholly plain sailing for the prosecution. The magistrate, Peregrine Bingham, wanted strict proof that James was alive at the date of the Heald marriage. Anything could have happened to him in the Indian climate. It was quite possible, he thought, that she might have received a letter telling of his death.


Sir William Bodkin, appearing for Lola, made what, at least with hindsight, was a grave error. Instead of asking for the case to be dismissed there and then – something to which Bingham might well have agreed – Bodkin consented to an adjournment for further proof to be obtained from India.


Lola was bailed with two sureties of £500 until 10 September. The pair then left for Europe. In the meantime, the lawyers were left to arrange a compromise with Miss Heald, something which had been recommended by the magazine the Satirist, which thought Heald’s aunt to be indiscreet.


Over the next weeks, the couple could be found in Paris, and then Naples. They were not there for long. Heald received a telegram at his bankers and it was a question of sauve qui peut. Or at least save the bail money. The negotiations had broken down and they must return home. There were no boats scheduled to go to Marseilles and Heald paid £400 for a special charter. By now he must have begun to realise that Lola was an expensive luxury.


They were back in London two days before the adjourned hearing. It was a cause célèbre and the court was packed to see her reappearance at the hearing on the Monday, this time before John Hardwick. But appeared neither Lola nor lawyer. A helpful solicitor said that while he did not act for her, he thought an adjournment had been arranged until the Wednesday.


Clarkson, appearing for Miss Heald, was, he said, in a position to produce new and damning evidence. It was all very gentlemanly. If the countess cared to appear on the Wednesday, Clarkson would say nothing more about forfeiting her bail.


But on the Wednesday it was raining heavily and the countess did not care to appear – though it had nothing to do with the downpour. Accurately sensing the way the wind was blowing, she skipped her bail and, on the Monday night, had headed for the Boulogne packet, followed a few days later by Heald.


It would be pleasant to record that the pair lived happily ever after, but they did not. She stabbed him in Spain; he deserted her. They came together again, were reconciled in Paris, and finally Aunt Susannah had her way – in August 1850, Heald left Lola for the final time. He died from tuberculosis in Folkestone in 1856, but by then Lola had married a newspaper proprietor in San Francisco. The real Mr James lived long after she died in 1861 in New York. She was 39.


James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist