Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery
Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery (née de Rothschild; 27 July 1851 – 19 November 1890) was the daughter of Baron Mayer de Rothschild and his wife Juliana (née Cohen). After inheriting her father's fortune in 1874, she became the richest woman in Britain. In 1878, Hannah de Rothschild married Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, and was thereafter known as the Countess of Rosebery.
During the final quarter of the 19th century, her husband, the Earl of Rosebery, was 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 that of Royalty".[1] The Countess remains an enigmatic figure, and is often regarded as notable only for financing her husband's three ambitions: to marry an heiress, win The Derby, and become Prime Minister (the second and third of these possibly apocryphal ambitions were achieved after her death).[2] In truth, she was her husband's driving force and motivation.
Her marriage into the aristocracy, while controversial at the time, gave her the social cachet in an antisemitic society that her vast fortune could not.[3] She subsequently became a political hostess and philanthropist. Her charitable work was principally in the sphere of public health and causes associated with the welfare of working-class Jewish women living in the poorer districts of London.
Having firmly assisted and supported her husband on his path, she suddenly died in 1890, aged 39.
Legacy[edit]
Rosebery as widower[edit]
There is no evidence that Lady Rosebery drove her husband to follow her own political agenda, 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."[92] Proof of the widespread belief in society that Lady Rosebery was the stable element of the partnership was confirmed shortly after her death, by Queen Victoria, following a then 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".[93] While Queen Victoria always personally liked Rosebery, she mistrusted his politics.[94]
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.[95] It seems that the Queen's antipathy to Jews was confined to elevating them to the peerage. This view had softened by 1885.[96] In 1890 she accepted a luncheon invitation from Lady Rosebery's cousin Ferdinand de Rothschild and toured Waddesdon Manor albeit eating in a separate dining room to the Jewish members of the party.[97]
Shortly after his wife's death, Rosebery left his grieving children and went alone on a tour of Spain. Following a visit to El Escorial he wrote on the sepulchral wonders of the building, but added "for the dead alone the Taj is of course supreme".[98] 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."[99]
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 of view as it was at the time of her death."[65]
Widowhood changed Rosebery, both mentally and physically: he aged overnight, and began to refer to himself as an old man.[65] 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."[100]
Sir Edward Hamilton, Rosebery's closest friend, wrote:
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