Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery

Hannah, Countess of Rosebery.

Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery (27 July 1851 – 19 November 1890) was the daughter of Baron Mayer de Rothschild and his wife Juliana, née Cohen. On the death of her father in 1874 she became one of the richest women in Britain. Her husband, the 5th Earl of Rosebery, was, during the final quarter of the nineteenth century, one of the most celebrated figures in Britain, an influential millionaire and politician, whose charm, wit, charisma and public popularity gave him such standing that he almost eclipsed royalty. Yet his Jewish wife, during her lifetime regarded as dull, overweight and lacking in beauty, remains an enigmatic figure largely ignored by historians; often regarded as notable only for her money aiding her husband to achieve his three ambitions: to marry an heiress, win the Epsom Derby, and become Prime Minister (the second and third of his ambitions were only achieved after her death). In truth, she was her husband's driving force and motivation.

Her marriage into the aristocracy gave her the social cachet, in an anti-Semitic society, that her vast fortune could not. She subsequently became a political hostess and philanthropist. Amongst her philanthropic interests was Oral Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, and improvements in standards of nursing. Queen Victoria appointed her president of the Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute for Nurses in Scotland, the beginning of the district nurse system, which revolutionised health care for the rural poor and sick in Britain. Hannah de Rothschild was also president of the Scottish Home Industries Association. Retaining after marriage her Jewish faith, she patronised numerous Jewish charities and took a keen interest in the conditions of young working class women, founding the Club for Jewish Working Girls in Whitechapel.

Having firmly assisted and supported her husband on the path to political greatness, she suddenly died in 1890, aged 39, leaving her husband to achieve the political destiny which she had plotted alone. Bewildered and without her support, his premiership of Great Britain was shambolic, and lasted barely a year. For over thirty years following her death, he wandered directionless and exceedingly eccentrically in a political wilderness until his own death in 1928.

Early years

Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild, father of Hannah de Rothschild.

Hannah de Rothschild and her mother in the Grand Hall at Mentmore. Hannah had laid the foundation stone for the great mansion aged just six months on 31 December 1851.

Hannah de Rothschild was born in 1851 into a world of huge wealth and luxury. She was the granddaughter of Nathan Mayer Rothschild, who had founded N M Rothschild & Sons, the English branch of the Rothschild's banking empire. The author Niall Ferguson states in his History of the House of Rothschild that by the mid-19th century the Rothschilds regarded themselves as the nearest thing the Jews of Europe had to a royal family. They considered themselves the equals of royalty, and regardless of whether this is strictly true or not, the many Rothschild homes and their art collections, in England, Austria, France and Germany, certainly rivalled those of the crowned heads of Europe.

Hannah de Rothschild's father Baron Meyer de Rothschild married his cousin Julia Cohen in 1850. The marriage provided the impetus for Meyer to create what he described as "an enduring monument", a country house of monumental proportions. Meyer's infant daughter, Hannah, laid the foundation stone aged just six months, on 31 December 1851. Throughout her life, the mansion Mentmore was to be a fixed and pivotal point.

Within a few years of Mentmore's completion, attracted by the good hunting and proximity to London, Hannah's relations began to build estates in the vicinity of Mentmore, all within a carriage drive of each other; thus, Hannah grew up in an almost private world of unimaginable splendour and security. Pevsner has described this enclave of Rothschild properties in Buckinghamshire as "the most conspicuous and significant aspect of Victorian architecture in Buckinghamshire." In addition to Mentmore, Baron and Baroness Meyer de Rothschild had a large house in London, 107 Piccadilly; The Zenaide, a luxurious yacht moored in the South of France; and other smaller properties visited only seasonally and occasionally.

File:Mentmore towers from below.jpg

Hannah de Rothschild inherited the vast Rothschild mansion of Mentmore aged 23.

As an only child growing up in what were, in all but name, palaces, her childhood appears to have been quite lonely. She was a companion to her hypochondriac mother, and, in later life, a hostess with her father during her mother's long periods of indisposition. She was indulged by both parents and her formal education was neglected in favour of music and singing lessons, subjects in which she was accomplished. Her over-protective parents ensured that she never entered a cottage where there was sickness or unpleasantness of any kind. A cousin who seems to have disliked her claims that Hannah was so protected that "the poor" was just a meaningless euphemism for her. This is likely to be an exaggeration, as from her teens onwards she used much of her fortune to improve the lot of the poor, in housing and education. Whatever the faults of her education, she possessed great confidence. Aged 17, she astounded her Rothschild relations with her poise and competence, hosting a large house party at Mentmore for the Prince of Wales.

Controversy and betrothal

The 5th Earl of Rosebery - "A strikingly handsome man and immensely cultivated"," but "A dowryless marriage would have meant a reduced scale of living of a kind galling to a proud nature".

Hannah de Rothschild was first introduced to her future husband, the 28-year-old Earl of Rosebery, by Lady Beaconsfield, the wife of Benjamin Disraeli at Newmarket Racecourse in 1875 The Disraelis were close friends and neighbours of the de Rothschilds in Buckinghamshire.

Archibald, 5th Earl of Rosebery, born in 1847, had inherited his title from his grandfather aged 21 in 1868 together with an income of £30,000 a year. He owned 40,000 acres in Scotland, and land in Norfolk, Hertfordshire, and Kent. His father had died when he was 8 and he had been brought up by his mother, who had subsequently married Harry Powlett, 4th Duke of Cleveland. His mother was a distant figure, and their relationship was always strained. The Earls of Rosebery, whose family name was Primrose, were old, if undistinguished, members of the Scottish aristocracy. Rosebery was considered to be a strikingly handsome man and immensely cultivated. Highly intelligent, a brilliant future was forecast for him by both his tutors at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.

As early as 1876, there were rumours of an engagement. However, several hurdles had to be overcome before a marriage could take place. While the Jewish Rothschilds were accepted into society, and indeed were close friends of some members of the Royal family, including the Prince of Wales, there was, as elsewhere in Europe, strong anti-Semitic feeling prevalent in the upper echelons of society. Queen Victoria herself expressed a reluctance to make a Jew a peer, and certainly many high ranking officials at her court were anti-Semites - Lord Spencer, for one, advised the Prince and Princess of Wales against attending a Rothschild ball with the words "The Prince ought only to visit those of undoubted position in Society". However, this did not prevent the Prince from accepting Rothschild's invitations and gifts privately. Thus a situation prevailed where, while one could be friends with Jews, and accept their hospitality, one did not become too close, and one certainly did not marry them.

Hannah de Rothschild as a young woman dwarfed by the splendours of Mentmore. The fireplace was originally designed by Rubens for his house in Antwerp.

Rosebery's own mother was horrified at the thought of a Jewess, even a Rothschild, in the family. Rosebery too felt there was an impassable barrier of faith; at this time, it was inconceivable that any children could be reared as Jews. Although it has been stated that Rosebery himself was devoid of any anti-Semitic views, this was not always the case, especially in later life.

This factor also worked in reverse; while Hannah de Rothschild was keen to marry Rosebery, she was also aware of many obstacles, the foremost being that she was devoted to her faith, and to leave it would be a severe moral wrench. Another obstacle was the Rothschild family itself: it was their custom to marry cousins, and in this way, their fortune stayed within the family. Ironically, Hannah herself had opposed the marriage of her cousin Annie de Rothschild to the Christian Eliot Yorke in 1866. The British Jewish population were horrified at the proposed marriage between de Rothschild and Rosebery: the Jewish Chronicle announced its "most poignant grief" at the prospect of the marriage, and went on to add "If the flame seize on the cedars, how will fare hyssop on the wall: if the leviathan is brought up with a hook, how will the minnows escape", demonstrating what a threat the Jewish elders viewed the prospect of such a marriage to the social fabric of the Jewish faith. These two lines of Hebrew text (originally from the Babylonian Talmud), including a third one not mentioned by the Jewish chronicle, can be translated as:

"If the flames seize upon the cedars, what will the hyssops on the wall do?

If the leviathan is brought up with a hook, what will the small fish do?

If drout hits the dashing torrent, what will the waters of the purling brook do?"

The formal engagement of marriage was announced on 3 January 1878, a day Rosebery forever afterwards regarded as sacred. Writing to a friend in January 1878, Rosebery described his wife as - "very simple, very unspoilt, very clever, very warm-hearted and very shy...I never knew such a beautiful character". The marriage was celebrated in London on 20 March 1878 at the Board Room of Guardians in Mount Street, and also in a Christian ceremony at Christ Church in Down Street, Piccadilly. While Hannah was not the first Rothschild to marry outside of the Jewish faith, such was the prominence of her bridegroom that no male member of the de Rothschild family attended the ceremonies. Shortcomings in the guest list were compensated for by the guest of honour - the Prince of Wales - and Disraeli, who gave the bride away.

Marriage

Hannah de Rothschild photographed aged 20 in a Ruskinesque pose

For the first few years following their marriage, the Roseberys resided in London in the Piccadilly house Lady Rosebery had inherited from her father. However, as the couple's social and political interests increased from 1882, they leased the larger Lansdowne House. Lansdowne House was one of the finest of the aristocratic palaces in London, well suited to be the home of the political salon which Hannah Rosebery was to establish. Here political and social leaders of the day mixed with royalty, authors such as Henry James and Oscar Wilde, and other members of the beau monde.

The Roseberys divided their year between their various homes: London for the social season and parliament, Mentmore at weekends to entertain both political and shooting house-parties. In August the household would move north to Dalmeny for the grouse shooting. In between, occasional days would be spent at their home "The Durdans" in Newmarket. Though small by comparison to their other homes, this mansion was described by Henry James as the most homely and comfortable of the Roseberys' many homes, and as a delightful house full of books and sporting pictures, with just a few Gainsboroughs and Watteaux.

Together the Earl and Countess of Rosebery added greatly to not only the Mentmore collection but also to the collection housed at Dalmeny House, Rosebery's Scottish seat, amassing together a great library of rare and continental volumes and a collection or artefacts formerly belonging to the Emperor Napoleon I.

Relationship with Rosebery

Published commentators of the Roseberys claim the Roseberys marriage to have been happy, and there is no known evidence to prove Hannah was indeed anything other than happy in her marriage, and quite of lot of evidence to suggest she was indeed blissfully happy. However, much evidence exists to suggest that Rosebery, while professing to be happy himself, was at times irritated and bored by her, while Hannah was always keen to accommodate his every whim.

Rosebery the popular and iconic idol. His image was even used, as here, to decorate cigar boxes

There were, however, times when Lady Rosebery's devotion to her husband was tested. While Rosebery may have not been anti-Semitic before his marriage, the quick acerbic wit for which he was famous seems to have led him to make many cruel remarks that could have been taken that way after his marriage had secured the Rothschild fortune. Rosebery seems to have disliked his first son, who he claimed looked "Jewish". On seeing his son for the first time he remarked "Le Jew est fait, rien ne vas plus", all of which must have been disconcerting for the child's very Jewish mother. Rosebery, who has been described as febrile and supercilious, replied in a letter of congratulations on the birth of his heir from Mary Gladstone: "I cannot pretend to be much excited by an event which occurs to almost every human being and which may cause me a great deal of annoyance". Rosebery then left his wife, again pregnant, and newborn child for a year-long tour of Australia. On another occasion, when the Roseberys were travelling in India, Rosebery is reported to have announced "I will travel ahead, Hannah and the rest of the heavy baggage will follow the next day".

While the marriage was based on warm liking and mutual esteem on Rosebery's side and admiration and adoring devotion on Hannah's, it seems that Rosebery often found his wife's devotion irritating, and this sometimes caused him to be impatient with her. He was often abrupt with her in public. She, by contrast, was completely enraptured by him, and would frequently ignore her neighbours at a dinner party in order to listen to her husband's conversation further down the table, a faux pas almost considered a crime in Victorian society. Commentators who saw the couple alone at home, it has been claimed, "could not doubt the affection as well as the comprehension that united them".

However, at times Rosebery's behaviour could be eccentric. Gladstone remarked that Rosebery was, perhaps, rather too self-conscious of his health. Early in the marriage Rosebery decided to renovate the small ruined Barnbougle Castle (the original Rosebery family seat) close to, and within sight of, Dalmeny House. Once renovation was complete in 1882, Rosebery used it as a private retreat from his family, and began to spend his nights there alone. Always an insomniac, he claimed that the "stillness of the waters (the nearby Firth of Forth) were conducive to sleep". Books were his passion, and he assembled a huge library in the small castle. Thus Rosebery was able to lead a life at Dalmeny with his wife, but also quite apart from her.

During their marriage the Roseberys travelled extensively, usually without their children. In September 1883 the couple left their children in the care of the nannies and nursery maids, supervised by Rosebery's sister Lady Leconfield, for a long tour of America and Australia. Lady Rosebery owned large investments in North America, including ranches in Texas and mines in Montana. Their arrival in New York was widely reported and a full and flattering description of Lady Rosebery was reported in The Herald. The newspaper went on to describe Rosebery as looking like a prosperous farmer. Lady Rosebery was very taken with California, from where she wrote: "The inhabitants are very entertaining... the women are very handsome, think nothing of dresses costing £80, "fix up" their faces very frequently and are generally divorced". Having toured and been fêted in America, the party moved on to Australia via Honolulu. In Australia, Rosebery chose to indulge his habit of solitude, installing his wife in an hotel in Sydney, while he went off alone to tour the outback.

Hannah de Rothschild, Countess of Rosebery

Rosebery's frequent absences from his wife fuelled the country-house gossip that the he was a secret homosexual. It has been claimed that the inscrutable air that Rosebery carried was a mask to disguise his secret homosexual life. The worry of this illegal secret, it was claimed, and his potential exposure caused his insomnia and bouts of depression. It was even whispered that his Barnbougle Castle retreat was really a venue for clandestine assignations with young men. Rosebery's possible homosexuality has been much discussed in recent times. Nothing conclusive has ever been found one way or the other, but it is possible that he had homosexual experiences while in the care of a paedophile housemaster at Eton in his youth. No evidence exists that his wife was aware of these rumours against her husband, or would have understood them if she had. It is unlikely that she would have even known of the existence of homosexual men, bearing in mind her sheltered upbringing and limited education. Comprehensive sex education was not part of the syllabus of a nineteenth century upper class girl's education. Even as late as 1931, in a similar situation, the uncomprehending wife of Lord Beauchamp had to be educated in the subject by her vindictive brother, The Duke of Westminster, after he "outed" her husband, causing him to flee the country and leave her. The more public and precise accusations of Rosebery's homosexuality by the Marquess of Queensberry did not occur until three years after Lady Rosebery's death.

The relationship between the couple appears at time to have been almost that of a mother and child. Rosebery, a self-centred, reserved man, prone to depression, pessimism and insecurity, had a difficult relationship with his mother who had been distant and openly preferred his younger brother. Lady Rosebery, an orphan and only child, appears to have been desperate to lavish affection. Once upon entering a book shop she told her children they were entering a toy shop, and when the disappointed children pointed out the obvious she replied "to your father this is a toy shop." Lord Rosebery's friend Edward Hamilton recorded her "notable faculty of getting other people to work and quickening their energies", It seems she was the driving force of the relationship, with her feet firmly on the ground. She made herself the link between the world and her "thin skinned and neurotic" husband. While her husband sulked or withdrew with hurt pride from a situation, she came to the forefront to plead his case or cause. If she was aware of his faults she gave no indication of it.

The Rosebery's daughter Lady Sybil Primrose (1879 - 1955) painted by Lord Frederick Leighton

Children

The marriage produced four children: Lady Sybil Primrose, born in 1879; Margaret Primrose, born in 1881; the heir Harry Primrose, Lord Dalmeny (later 6th Earl of Rosebery), born in 1882; and finally The Honourable Neil Primrose, born the same year as his elder brother.

As a mother, Lady Rosebery was presented with a dilemma: she was in fact already practically a mother to her husband. This was particularly evident in June 1880 when Rosebery wished to visit Germany for three months, to take a cure at a German spa (Rosebery was recovering from what is now thought to have been a nervous breakdown) shortly after the birth of their daughter Sybil. He had no great feeling for a proximity to small babies. His wife dutifully accompanied him, but Rosebery reported Hannah savoured every detail of the daily letters from London concerning the baby, and that she never complained at the forced separation. A comment from Hannah herself to Rosebery, "I sometimes think it is wrong that I have thought less of the children in comparison to you" made shortly before her death in 1890, confirms that when a choice between her children and husband had to be made, she always chose her husband. This is not to say she was a bad mother: in an era of plentiful nannies, wet nurses, nurserymaids and governesses in the upper classes, her lack of attention to her children was not unusual or even remarkable. In spite of their prolonged absences from their children, the Roseberys do not appear to have been distant or remote figures in their children's lives. Margot Asquith records how Rosebery loved to play and romp on the floor with the children.

Politics

Dalmeny House was the ancestral seat of the Earls of Rosebery and the setting for Lord and Lady Rosebery's political houseparties.

It has been said of Hannah de Rothschild that she grew up with a good sense and presence of mind, enabling her to deputise for her mother on grand social occasions at Mentmore and in London. This gave her confidence and the experience to be the perfect political wife. Marriage to her altered Rosebery's status too: while his wife acquired Christian respectability and a title, Rosebery moved from being one of many wealthy and capable young noblemen, into one with unfathomable riches. These coupled with his good looks appealed to the public's imagination and gave him glamour.

From the moment of the marriage, political members of the Rothschild family took an interest in Rosebery, and he was soon acclaimed as one of the rising hopes of the Liberal Party As an hereditary peer, he already had an automatic seat in the House of Lords and had made his maiden speech there on attaining his majority. However, Rosebery, brilliant and clever as he was, had a tendency to be lethargic and easily bored. Lord Granville in fact considered Rosebery's wife to be the more ambitious of the pair, and went so far as to advise Lady Rosebery "If you keep him up to the mark, [he] is sure to have his page in history." The subtle driving of her often languid and lethargic husband to achieve his "page in history" was to become her raison d'être Rosebery's secretary Thomas Gilmour noted: "She is thoroughly genuine and very tender and devoted to Lord Rosebery, it is easy to see that she is very proud of him, and she is a woman of considerable force of character and great energy, she may prove to be a powerful ally in his political career. Rosebery was not a natural politician. He was an idealist who disliked the rancour of politics, in fact "his innate dislike of politics was something Lady Rosebery always fought against". However, Rosebery was a gifted orator, and this was an era when platform speaking was beginning to replace House of Commons debate. On a tour of America before his marriage Rosebery had been impressed by the campaigning of prospective political candidates; in Britain little had changed in that respect since the hustlings of the 18th century. He realised how an electorate could be swayed by a candidate touring his prospective constituency aided by a well thought out series of events, rallies and advertising with the candidate's ideal and attractive family smiling by his side. Thus Lady Rosebery not only pushed and encouraged him behind the scenes but was now to become an encouraging and much evident figure by his side. In this way it could be said she was the first "political wife" in Britain.

A house party at Dalmeny during the Midlothian campaign. Gladstone is seated centre (holding his hat) while Mrs Gladstone holds her head. Hannah Rosebery stands third from right. Lord Rosebery is seated on the ground on the right.

This first became evident in the great campaign to re-elect Gladstone. Known today as the Midlothian campaign it was masterminded by the Roseberys. Rosebery used his influence to have Gladstone invited to stand as parliamentary candidate for Midlothian, where Rosebery's Dalmeny estate was situated. Gladstone has nominally retired from politics after losing his Greenwich seat in 1874, when Disraeli had been swept to power. The campaign was based at Dalmeny where Lady Rosebery hosted a series of large political house parties throughout the long campaign. The Tories were later to claim that Rosebery had paid for Gladstone's campaign. Rosebery did later admit to spending £50,000.

The Roseberys' house party would leave Dalmeny and tour the major cities of Midlothian, Gladstone and the speakers often addressing vast crowds from the back of an American-designed Pullman car specially acquired by Rosebery for the purpose. The scenes at these meetings has been described as something between a carnival and an evangelicalist's revival meeting. While in the grounds of Dalmeny House itself, the public were treated to a great firework display.

Throughout all this, Gladstone was supported not only by the popular and charismatic Rosebery but also by an array of well dressed women including lady Rosebery and Gladstone's daughter Mary. These fashionable people who were the celebrities of their day (newspapers at the time gave many column inches each day to the doings of the upper classes) were as much a crowd-puller as the political speakers, and Rosebery's planning used that to full effect. One meeting was so packed that many were fainting when 70,000 people applied for tickets in a hall capable of holding 6,500. Lady Rosebery reported, "I had never heard Archie (Lord Rosebery) speak in public politically before, but after the first minute I felt I could never be nervous at his making a speech the audience show him great affection." However it was not just Gladstone and Rosebery the huge crowds had come to see, but the dutifully supporting and smiling families were part of the attraction. Lady Rosebery went on to describe how "They (the crowds) patted me on the back till my shoulders were sensitive". Thus in Rosebery's first serious involvement in politics, Disrali was defeated and the newly elected MP for Midlothian became Prime-Minister for the second time (the caretaker liberal leader Lord Hartington retired in favour of Gladstone). It was also obvious that Lady Rosebery was a very evident and valuable political electioneering asset. As the Marquess of Crewe put it "she had cut her spurs".

Gladstone was always the Nemesis to Hannah Rosebery's ambitions for her husband. In spite of her money financing the Midlothian campaign, he later said of her: "She would think herself capable of being Queen of the Realm and think the place only just good enough for her".

Her political mettle and ambitions for her husband were however to be more severely tested following the Liberal victory. Rosebery was as expected offered a position in Government by Gladstone. It had been rumoured that the position of Viceroy of Ireland or a cabinet place would be proffered, but in fact Rosebery was offered the job of Under Secretary of the India Office. Rosebery immediately declined the post, giving as his reason his sensitivity to the charges that it would look like he was being repaid for running Gladstone's campaign. When pressed further he cited ill health — he had been suffering from scarlet fever during the Midlothian campaign and now also appeared to be suffering a minor nervous breakdown. Political leaders urged Lady Rosebery to influence him, but she defended his decision, while stressing that his deterioration in health was only temporary. She had to be careful — if it appeared her husband had declined the offer on the grounds that it was too lowly, it would give substance to the claims being made that he was conceited and petulant. Whatever the truth, and it may be Rosebery's own explanation that he "disliked hard work," Lady Rosebery continued to solicit Gladstone for a job for Rosebery. In August 1880, when Gladstone told her firmly that "There is nothing I can give him," she claimed she had not been seeking a cabinet post and Gladstone had misunderstood her. At the same time she was canny enough to mention that Sir William Harcourt and Sir Charles Dilke, both radicals opposed to Gladstone's policies, were "visiting them" and "thoughtful". Lady Rosebery also began to befriend those politicians such as Lord Northbrook who empathised with her husband, while others such as Lord Granville and Lord Hartington she identified as aloof. Lord Spencer she dismissed with "I can never look on him as a great motive power, besides he does not mention Archie (Rosebery) to me".

Finally her soliciting paid off and in 1881, Rosebery was offered a position, acceptable to him, in government, that of Under Secretary at the Home Office with special responsibility for Scotland. He had sought the position feeling that Scotland was neglected by the Liberal Government who were more interested in Ireland. However, immediately upon assuming the job Rosebery began to demand a place in the cabinet itself. The office he sought was that of Lord Privy Seal, a position Gladstone refused on account of Rosebery's inexperience in Government. It appeared that Rosebery was showing his true colours and he was accused of behaving like a spoilt child, with doubts cast over the honourableness of his reasons for refusing the Under Secretaryship of the India Office. Lady Rosebery, "conscious of her husband's supreme ability," wanted her husband in the cabinet and was furiously agitating her husband's discontent until Rosebery threatened to resign his Home Office position. Lady Rosebery had an angry row with Gladstone's wife, where Mrs Gladstone pointed out that if Rosebery resigned he would have nothing but horse racing to interest him, and that Lady Rosebery should be patient as her husband was young. Rosebery, accepting that a cabinet place was not going to be forthcoming, resigned from Government. Lady Rosebery, realising further appeal to the Gladstones was pointless, tried a new avenue — Lord Hartington, the immensely influential Secretary of State for War, who was already quarrelling with Gladstone over the Irish Home Rule problem, and whom she allegedly met by chance at a Preston Railway Station. Inviting him into her carriage for the journey to London, she pleaded her husband's case for three hours to her captive listener. The Roseberys then immediately left England and their children for a long trip to America and Australia. On their return in 1885 Rosebery was appointed Lord Privy Seal, complete with the seat in the cabinet which he sought.

Sir Charles Dilke. Dilke claimed Lady Rosebery had paid his Mistress to announce he had enjoyed a three in a bed orgy with her and a maid. The ensuing scandal ruined him.

Gladstone resigned as Prime Minister in 1885 following a Government defeat over the Irish home rule question. The new Tory government was led by Lord Salisbury. However, as a minority administration it was not expected to last and a swift return of the former administration was anticipated. During this period serious (albeit unproven) charges of plotting and ruthless ambition were about to be levelled against Lady Rosebery. Sir Charles Dilke, considered as a likely replacement for Gladstone and thus a rival to Rosebery in government, was implicated in one of the most scandalous and ruinous divorce cases of the era. Involvement in a divorce at all was in the 19th century social suicide, but the facts which emerged were enough to ensure it was political suicide as well. A friend of the Roseberys, Donald Crawford, MP, sued his wife Virginia for divorce naming Dilke as co-respondent. There was little evidence and Dilke denied the charge, which could have been ultimately forgotten, if Virginia had not suddenly decided to sign a confession giving such lurid details that the seemingly puritanical society of the day was shocked to its roots. She claimed that not only had Dilke slept with her, and taught her "French vices" but also slept with her mother, and, more shockingly still, had partaken in a three in a bed orgy with Virginia and a maid. Dilke denied everything, but his hopes of high political office were ruined for ever. Dilke claimed the whole thing was an embroidery of lies and conspiracies by his political enemies. In his futile quest to exonerate himself he levelled the charge that Lady Rosebery herself had paid Virginia to make the confession. This was London "drawing room" gossip at the time. An outraged Rosebery denied all on his wife's behalf, while in December 1885 Lady Rosebery's only response on being told of Virginia Crawford's confessions was "...Dilke's behaviour is very astonishing in some reports, though it is not an actual surprise to me." Early the following year Gladstone was returned to power and Rosebery was appointed Foreign Secretary in Gladstone's third but brief term of office. Dilke's political career was ruined, and for years afterwards he continued to expound the Rosebery conspiracy theory. Nothing was ever proven against Lady Rosebery and no tangible evidence exists to substantiate the claim.

Rosebery's new office forced him to sell many of his business interests, which had come by the way of the Rothschild family in order to be seen to be avoiding a conflict of interest. However, his wife's ambition and part in his rise to power was not only being recognised in high places, but clearly starting to irritate. On being told that Lady Rosebery was very keen for her husband to become Foreign Secretary, Gladstone replied "She would think herself capable of being Queen of the Realm and think the place only just good enough for her". Rosebery was now on the path to political greatness. Gladstone's government fell the same year. The Liberals did not return to office until 1892, with Rosebery once again as Foreign Secretary and Gladstone as Prime Minister. Rosebery became Prime Minister on Gladstone's retirement in 1894, but by this time his wife had been dead for four years. Without her, Rosebery was a shadow of his former self, taking huge doses of morphine to combat insomnia and nerves. His Prime Ministership lasted barely a year.

Before their marriage and his full-time entry into politics, Rosebery's future wife had written with extraordinary foresight and ambition to him: "...I work only to help you, if you are Prime Minister, let me imitate Montagu Corry." Corry had been Disraeli's influential private secretary on whom he had relied. Rosebery only ever trusted his wife. Without her to calm and order his life he was a neurotic wreck.

Death and legacy

Hannah, Countess of Rosebery by George Frederick Watts. After her death her widower always travelled with this portrait close to him

Lady Rosebery died of typhoid at Dalmeny in 1890. She fought the disease, but it was found that she was also suffering from Bright's disease, which had weakened her, making it impossible to survive the attack. She was buried in accordance with the rites of the Jewish faith. Rosebery found this particularly hard to bear, and wrote to Queen Victoria of the pain he experienced when "another creed steps in to claim the corpse". It was only after after her death that the doctors who had treated here disclosed to Rosebery that her kidney condition would have killed her within two years even if she had not contracted typhoid.

Her funeral was held on November 25, 1890, at Willesden Jewish Cemetery. As is the Jewish tradition, the service was attended only by male mourners who included most members of Gladstone's cabinet.

There is no evidence that Lady Rosebery drove her husband in order to follow her own political agendas, or that of her family. For her the rewards seem to have been the pleasure of seeing a husband she undoubtedly adored in the high office of which she felt him worthy. There is no doubt that she tempered her husband's more radical views. Immediately following his wife's death Rosebery retired from politics, writing in October 1891 "The sole object of my ambition has disappeared with the death of my wife". Proof of the widespread belief in society that Lady Rosebery was the stable element of the partnership was confirmed shortly after her death, by no less a person than Queen Victoria following a, at this time, rare public speech by Rosebery, in which he supported Home Rule for Ireland. The Queen was shocked and thought the speech "almost communistic" and went on to attribute Rosebery's "shocking and disappointing" behaviour to the fact that "poor Lady Rosebery is not there to keep him back". While Queen Victoria always personally liked Rosebery, she mistrusted his politics. The Queen had thoroughly liked Lady Rosebery and wrote Rosebery several letters of condolence, likening his loss to the untimely death of her own consort, Prince Albert.

In the immediate aftermath of his bereavement Rosebery left his grieving children and went alone on a tour of Spain. Following a visit to El Escorial he wrote on the sepulchre wonders of the building, but added..."for the dead alone the Taj is of course supreme". On his return home he had designed for his wife a Victorian Gothic version of the Taj Mahal in miniature. For the remainder of his life he wore black and used black edged writing paper. Once, when talking with his daughter Sybil, he asked her what mourning she thought her mother would have worn had the situation been reversed. Sybil replied "She would not have worn any, she would have died at once".

Ronald Munro-Ferguson has been quoted in 1912 as saying "many things would have gone otherwise had Lady Rosebery lived. Her loss is today as great a calamity from every point if view as it was at the time of her death".

Widowhood changed Rosebery, both mentally and physically: he aged overnight, and began to refer to himself as an old man. Two years after her death, friends were still concerned that he was suicidal. Winston Churchill thought him maimed by her death, and later said of her "she was a remarkable woman on whom Rosebery leaned, she was ever a pacifying and composing element in his life which he was never able to find again because he could never give full confidence to anyone else".

Sir Edward Hamilton, Rosebery's closest friend wrote:

Her judgement of a whole was singularly sound and calm; indeed there was a sort of intuitive wisdom about the advice which she would recommend or the consequences of which she would foretell. Hers was a singularly well balanced mind; her shrewdness and foresight were most certainly to lead others as well as herself to form right conclusions. Having the power of seeing through people quickly, she gauged the characters of her fellow creatures with great perspicacity and she thus knew whom to trust and of whom to beware. She had a high sense of duty and would never allow pleasure to interfere with duty.

Her qualities were portrayed in literature when Lady Rosebery was reputed to be the model for Marcella Maxwell in Mrs Humphrey Ward's novels Marcella (1894) and Sir George Tressady (1909). The author lived at Stocks close to Lady Rosebery's home at Mentmore and would certainly have known her, while in the books Marcella's house is based on Hampden House, also in Buckinghamshire.

..."for the dead alone the Taj is of course supreme" Designs for Lady Rosebery's mausoleum

Lord Rosebery was eventually persuaded to enter government, becoming once again Foreign Secretary, and, in 1894, Prime Minister. His term of office was short and unremarkable, marred by problems and difficulties. Without his wife, as Queen Victoria phrased it, "to hold him back" he became exceedingly eccentric and controversial in his decisions. He died in 1929.

Lady Rosebery's eldest son, Harry, who was less successful in politics than his father and brother, distinguished himself by becoming captain of Surrey County Cricket Club and owning two Epsom Derby winning horses. He succeeded his father as 6th Earl of Rosebery and died in 1974. Lady Margaret Primrose married her father's old friend and biographer the Marquess of Crewe. Such was the fame of her parents that London traffic was brought to a standstill on her wedding day in 1899. Lady Crewe became one of the first women magistrates in Britain, she died in 1955. Lady Sybil Primrose has been described by one of her father's biographers as "Even more eccentric than her father, she spent much of her time living in a caravan". Neil Primrose the second of the Rosebery's sons, entered politics and a promising future was foetold for him. However on the outbreak of World War I he joined the army, and was killed leading a charge at Gezer in 1917.

Of Hannah, Countess of Rosebery's fabulous houses, the lease on Lansdowne House was surrendered shortly before her death allowing them to recreate 38 Berkeley Square as one of London's most luxurious town houses, her son, Harry, sold it in 1938, and it was demolished. Ironically the following year the year a bomb landed on the empty site. The Durdans was bequeathed to her daughter, Sybil, in 1929 and was sold together with its contents in 1955, Lord and Lady Rosebery's library there was given to the nation at this time. Mentmore the grandest of the Rosebery's home was sold by Lady Rosebery's grandson, the 7th Earl of Rosebery, in 1977 together with the Rothchild art collection, in which Lady Rosebery had not only been intensely interested but had added to considerably. Lady Rosebery had personally catalogued the collection, writing in the preface "In time to come, when, like all collections, this will be dispersed(and I hope this will be long after my death) this book may be of value". The two volume work and the collection it described remained so unknown that "Save Mentmore" (a group attempting to halt the sale of Mentmore to keep the collection within Britain) failed largely due to widespread ignorance of the both house and collection. A few pieces of furniture and paintings were taken to Dalmeny, where they remain today, and three pictures including Drouais' Madame de Pompadour were purchased for the National Gallery. The remainder of the collection was dispersed in a week-long sale and is now scattered across the globe. A further sale of the "Continental Library" to which she had added, was sold in 1995 at The Aeolian Hall, London by Sotheby's.

Today, Lady Rosebery, is a mere footnote in the long history of her husband's family, rather in the same way that Consuelo Vanderbilt is regarded in the Spencer-Churchill family. Her husband, once one of the "most celebrated figures in Britain", is a minor figure in British history. Thus, Hannah, Countess of Rosebery, in her day a celebrity, notable in the world of politics, philanthropy and the glamorous world of Victorian high society, is largely unknown and forgotten.

References

• Binney, Marcus. John Robinson. William Allan (1977). SAVE Mentmore for the Nation. London: Save Britain's heritage. ISBN N/A.
• Cowles, Virginia (1975). The Rothschilds, a family of fortune. London: First Futura Publications. ISBN 08600 7206 1.
• Crewe, Marquess of (1931). Lord Rosebery. London: John Murray. ISBN N/A.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Edel, Leon (1962). Henry James: the conquest of London 1870-1883. London: Rupert Hart-Davis. ISBN N/A.
• Ferguson, Niall (1998). The World's Banker. The History of the House of Rothschild. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0 297 815393.
• McKinstry, Leo (2005). Rosebery, a statesman in turmoil. London: John Murray (publishers). ISBN 0 7195 6586 3.
• Rosebery, Deidre, Countess of. Dalmeny House. Edinburgh: Privately published.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Sotheby's, Sale Catalogue (1995). The continental library of Archibald, 5th Earl of Rosebery and Midlothian, K.G., K.T. London: Sotheby's. ISBN N/A.
• Valynseele, Joseph and Henri-Claude Mars (2004). Le Sang des Rothschild. Paris: L’Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux.
• Watson, Sir Francis (1977). Mentmore Volume I -V. London: Sotheby, Parke, Bernet & Co. ISBN N/A.
• Young, Kenneth (1974). Harry, Lord Rosebery. London: Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0340162732.
• Jewish Chronicle 21 November and 28 November 1890
• London newspapers of 20 November 1890
• Hannah de Rothschild's Infants School, accessed 23 September 2006
• Hannah de Rothschild, accessed 23 September 2006
• Jewish Encyclopedia
• Obituary of Lady Dorothy Heber Percy accessed 20th October 2006
• The British Empire.com Sir Charles Dilke accessed 29 October 2006
• The Rothschild Archive accessed 30 October 2006

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