The report that devotees may be photographed shaking Bill Clinton’s hand for $1,000 a time reminded me of the great 19th century dancer and courtesan Rosanna James, who ennobled herself as Maria Dolores de Porres y Montes. Better known as Lola Montez (pictured), she was reputed to charge Bostonians a more modest $1 for the same privilege. That was after she had ruined King Ludwig I of Bavaria. It was also after she had fled London in the middle of a prosecution.

To spite her mother Lola married young, the unlucky spouse being Lieutenant Thomas James, an officer in the East India Company. It did not last because of (her version) his dalliance with a Mrs Lomer; (his) her dalliance with an Indian princeling.

On the boat back to England she dallied further, this time with one George Lennox. A suit for damages for criminal conversation followed but no divorce. Lola went on the stage at Drury Lane, London, and then toured Europe ensnaring, on a temporary basis, Franz Liszt. Back in England she had her claws into a young Guards’ officer, George Trafford Heald, who had an income estimated to be in excess of £10,000 a year. On 19 July 1849, they married at St George’s, Hanover Square. The marriage did not please Heald’s formidable aunt Susanna Heald. He was forced to resign his commission and a fortnight after the marriage a warrant for arrest for bigamy was drawn up.

The prosecution at Marlborough Street in August that year immediately ran into trouble. For a start, was Lt James still alive? After all, the death rate of officers in India was a high one. The case was adjourned for enquiries to be made. Lola, who had sat billing and cooing in court with Heald while a crowd gathered outside, was bailed with two sureties of £500 each. At the next hearing on 10 September there was no Lola. She was in Boulogne where the besotted Heald could also be found, leading her on a pony. The sureties - two lawyers - fought long and hard before their sureties were forfeit.

The marriage did not last and Lola toured America and Australia before returning to England in 1859 to lecture on women’s rights and style, charging more per lecture than Charles Dickens. She had had at least one more bigamous marriage but since Heald had died three years earlier, by then no one seemed to mind at all.

James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor