Ludwig II of Bavaria

Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm became King of Bavaria at eighteen in 1864 and quickly turned from statecraft to obsession: commissioning Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, and Herrenchiemsee, bankrolling Richard Wagner, spending every penny of his private royal revenues and borrowing when those ran dry. His ministers tried to stop him; he defied them. In June 1886 they used his extravagance as grounds to declare him insane and take him into custody on the 12th. By the 13th, Ludwig and his doctor were both dead, pulled from a lake. Suicide was the official story. The doubt has never cleared. The castles…