Americans in Württemberg Scandal, 1888/Part 1

"a Noble Soul I Knew and Loved"

by Jonathan Ned Katz

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(Copyright by Jonathan Ned Katz)

King Karl

(This long entry, divided into four parts, was written as a chapter in Katz's book Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality [2001] but was deleted to reduce the book's size. It is an example of original scholarship published for the first time on OutHistory. We hope that other scholars will contribute unpublished and out-print historical articles and book sections.)

On October 24, 1888, the sensation-mongering New York Herald republished a dispatch from its European edition, the first report of a "scandal" in Württemberg, a state in South West Germany, involving Karl Friedrich Alexander, the third King of Württemberg.

Three American male "adventurers" and "spiritualists" were said to be "lavishly" disposing of the monarch's money. "The story is so sensational that it reminds one of the late unfortunate Bavarian King Ludwig," said the paper, a hint at the sexual character of King Karl's relationship with the Americans.

Ludwig

Ludwig, who had been declared insane before drowning mysteriously in 1886, just two years earlier, had never married, and had spent a fortune on his beloved Richard Wagner. Gossip about Ludwig's interest in men was much discussed privately and hinted at publicly. In the third year of Ludwig's reign, on August 29, 1867, just before Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was to publicly defend the love of "Urnings" (male homosexuals) before the Association of German Jurists, the president of that group had spontaneously interjected: "May the King of Bavaria [Ludwig II] soon enjoy marital bliss, because it is the ultimate happiness of men." This interruption may have been no irony of fate -- if the president had gotten wind of Ulrichs' upcoming request, the jurist was implicitly associating Ludwig and Urnings.

Ludwig

Gaveston

Continuing its 1888 report, The Herald added: an American named Jackson is "one of the three gentlemen ... now playing Piers Gaveston parts in Germany" -- another euphemism, obvious to those who knew their English history.

Gaveston had been loved by England's King Edward II, as Christopher Marlowe's play about the monarch recalled. King Edward had been slain in 1327, as a contemporary reported, "with a hot brooche [stake] put through the secret place posteriale [his anus]," a punishment designed to fit his crime. Taken literally, Americans "playing Piers Gaveston parts" with King Karl were performing the insertive role in anal intercourse.

"'There are certain things ... difficult to discuss in the columns of a newspaper, '" said The Herald on October 27, quoting a German paper's complaint: though "stories 'are bandied about from one mouth to another,' to 'see them in black and white all people are afraid.'"

Strict restrictions determined what could be printed in Germany about the King of Württemberg. But that nation's newspapers, and the American papers, said a great deal by innuendo. Their allusions constituted a language of indirection, a particular, coded way of speaking, as much as a way of silencing.

Jackson

The same Herald focused on the "strange stories" circulating in Germany about King Karl and "spiritualistic seances" presided over by the upstart "Baron Von Jackson, of Steubenville, Ohio." The rise of Richard Mason Jackson from poor, humble origins in Ohio to the aristocratic "Baron Von" in Germany, can be pieced together from the American newspapers, which quote his relatives, friends, and acquaintances. Other sources confirm many details.

ART 33 DRAWING OF JACKSON

Jackson's father, reportedly, a cousin of General Stonewall Jackson, had died "at the very moment of his son's birth," in 1846. Raised by his widowed mother on a farm in East Springfield, Ohio, Jackson, at age twelve, had moved with her to nearby Steubenville, and there studied the piano, developing an "ardent desire to become a great musician."

At sixteen, unable to finish his courses at Mount Union College, in Alliance, Ohio, Jackson returned to Steubenville, and taught music at Beatty's Seminary. He tuned pianos, became organist in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and traveled often to the Pittsburgh opera. "There was not a grand opera" that Jackson "did not come over to attend," a nephew recalled. Jackson formed a friendship with another Steubenville youth, a popular tenor, Will H. MacDonald, and, subsidized by relatives, traveled with MacDonald to Germany, to study at the Stuttgart Conservatory of Music.

When Jackson injured his arm he was forced to give up piano, and took a job, in August 1876, as assistant to the American Consul in Stuttgart, a Vice-Consul position he held for five years, until May 1881.

The "handsome, young American, with his pleasant smile and winsome manner," reported The Herald, while walking daily through a Stuttgart park, "soon attracted the notice of the King," also a daily stroller. The "acquaintance thus formed grew into a friendship of the most intimate character."

The intimacies of men with men began to exude, in these late-nineteenth-century reports, a nasty odor of gold digging, exploitation, and, sometimes, an illicit eros. In the late-nineteenth-century sex was beginning to occupy a new, prominent place in modern lives and minds.

The Herald continued: The monarch had asked Jackson, in 1881, to join his household as a "confidential friend and companion," the American had accepted, renounced his United States citizenship, and had been made a Baron. He had added "Von" to his last name, and become "a favorite of the King of Württemberg."

A large apartment in the palace, adjoining the royal residence, had been assigned to Jackson, and "a private entrance" was "constructed connecting directly with the royal apartments." A "handsome income" and "gorgeous" gifts were "bestowed upon him." The King had also added the American to his will, "so that should his benefactor die Jackson will still be immensely rich."

Because of his intimacy with King Karl, honors were reportedly showered on Jackson by the kings of Holland and Saxony, the Emperor of Austria, the Czar of Russia, and, even, the Pope, with whom he had an audience. After Jackson saved the lives of three men whose boat had overturned, King Karl made him a "Privy Councilor," and Jackson was called "'Excellency,' an honor seldom attained by any but the royal blood, and then late in life."

The American's appointment to court had finally caused a "political furor," reported the Herald, and in October 1888, a Munich paper had first daringly published a story headed "Ugly Revelations" -- about upstart Americans in King Karl's court. But, "safely entrenched in the King's favor," said the Herald of the Ohio-born Jackson, "the Buckeye boy withstood the shock of adverse criticism."

An account of Jackson's intimacy with King Karl, headed "His American Favorite," published in the New York Sun, denied that King Karl was "a second mad Louis of Bavaria" (another Ludwig reference), that Jackson was a "spiritualist" and "adventurer," and that he and the two other Americans were "male Dis Debars" (a misprint for "Dis Paters," gods of the underworld) . The Ohioan, stressed the Sun, was the "son of a poor farmer" and "has become a noble of the German empire" -- the American rags to riches fantasy -- with a twist.

Jackson "has acquired over the King a marvelous influence," added the Sun, and was also rumored to be "deeply in love with the Grand Duchess Vera," who was said to "warmly" reciprocate his love. Jackson's influence with King and Duchess caused no hint of surprise -- the paper still expected no exclusive love interest in one sex or another.

The relation between Jackson and Vera amounted to a "definite liaison," said the Sun, their apartments were near each other, "and the two lovers are often seen together," although "marriage between them would be out of the question" due to their different class origins. And, though King Karl could raise Jackson to Vera's rank, he "realizes that the marriage would separate the Baron from him, and to this he will not consent." Jackson had also pledged not to marry "in the King's lifetime." The love triangle hinted vaguely at a proper order of intimacy contravened.

Jackson's elevation to "Vice Consul," explained the Sun, was due to the same personal characteristics, which "lifted him into kingly favor, almost as in a fairy tale." The first known use of "fairy" (in reference, specifically, to one effeminate male prostitute) occurred four years later, in 1892, so the Sun's use may be a double entendre. But "fairy tale" did also name this paper's narrative, a fable of rising from obscure to famous and, in this case, infamous.

An "American lady" who lived in Stuttgart reportedly recalled Jackson as "the life of the American colony," and "the funniest man I ever knew," with a "quaint," "droll" way of talking. She added: "Men and women and particularly children liked him."

Jackson had been appointed "Reader to the King," added the Sun, which, it explained, is "something of a euphemism. It means ... the King's companion, one whom he can meet in ordinary human intercourse without formalities." That intercourse had led the King to bestow on Jackson "rare works of art," and to give him diamonds, and the American was "the man who has the most influence with the King."

Another New York paper, The Star, quoted a defense of Richard Mason Jackson offered by a nephew, Dr. Morrison, of Steubenville: "It has been sneeringly said 'the King of Wurttemberg fell in love with Jackson.' I don't see very well how he could help doing that. Mace was of the kindliest disposition that you could imagine, gentle almost as a girl, but so manly in bearing as to claim the admiration of all who carne in contact with him. His weakness used to be his love for flowers."

Calling the manly but flower-loving Jackson "gentle as a girl," the doctor had no sense, apparently, that he was casting suspicion on his nephew's love life. Gentle Jackson's deviation from the manly then carried no obvious hint of deviation in sexuality. For the Ohio doctor a whiff of gender nonconformity carried no scent of sexual transgression, though it may have for the big-city reporter and some urban readers.

Jackson had saved the King from snowballs thrown by some intoxicated students, added Dr. Morrison, and the monarch had then become "perfectly infatuated with Mace." When the King heard Jackson play the piano "his infatuation ... became complete." The King had then insisted that Jackson "consent to assist him in managing the realm." Neither the King's "infatuation," or the Ohio pianist's call to manage a kingdom was considered odd by his trusting relative.

The King called Jackson "'My dear bosom friend, Jack, '" the Ohioan had written home to relatives, and Dr. Morrison was sure that his nephew could not help it if the King did fall in love with him. Falling in love, for the doctor, included no connotation of eros--love was still one thing, sex another, a dominant nineteenth-century conception.

It was Woodcock, another of the Americans in Stuttgart, who was causing Jackson “all this trouble,” declared Dr. Morrison, probably echoing his nephew. In a recent letter Jackson had mentioned the schemes of "jealous Americans."

Continued at Americans in Württemberg Scandal, 1888/Part 2