Betrothal
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. The Disraelis were close friends and neighbours of the Rothschilds in Buckinghamshire. In 1901 Rosebery, in an interview with the Daily Mail, claimed to have met Hannah when their carriages crashed and he 'sprang out and saved her'; however, this version of their meeting is believed to be a romanticised fabrication of Rosebery's.
Archibald, 5th Earl of Rosebery, born in 1847, had inherited his title from his grandfather in 1868, aged 21, together with an income of £30,000 a year. He owned 40,000 acres (160 km2) in Scotland, and land in Norfolk, Hertfordshire, and Kent. His father had died when he was eight 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 strikingly handsome and immensely cultivated. He was highly intelligent, and a brilliant future was forecast for him by his tutors at both 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, as elsewhere in Europe, antisemitic feelings were prevalent in the upper echelons of society; this was particularly so among those closest to the Queen at court where, following the death of the Prince Consort in 1861, the Rothschilds became pointedly excluded. The Queen's equerry Arthur Edward Hardinge referred to the Rothschilds' dining tables as "resplendent with the Hebrew gold" going so far as to say a visiting Russian royal needed a "corrective" visit to Westminster Abbey following acceptance of Rothschild hospitality. Queen Victoria herself expressed antisemitic views in 1873 when it was proposed that Lionel de Rothschild be elevated to the peerage; the Queen refused, and expressed a reluctance to make a Jew a peer, saying that "to make a Jew a peer is a step she could not consent to" and furthermore stating that to give "a title and mark of her approbation to a Jew" was something she would not do. Lord Spencer 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. While one could be friends with Jews and accept their hospitality, their social status was still not sufficiently elevated to include marriage into the peerage without unfavourable comment.
Rosebery's own mother was horrified at the thought of a Jewish woman, even a Rothschild, in the family. Rosebery too felt there was an impassable barrier of faith. 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 to keep their fortune within the family. Ironically, Hannah herself had opposed the marriage of her cousin Annie de Rothschild to the Christian Eliot Constantine Yorke, the son of the Earl of Hardwicke, in 1866. In fact, she was to be the third daughter of the family's English branch to marry outside of the Jewish faith, but such was the fame of the bridegroom and the resultant publicity that the Jewish elders and press felt an example needed to be made. The Jewish Chronicle announced its "most poignant grief" at the prospect, and cryptically added, "If the flame seize on the cedars, how will fare the hyssop on the wall: if the leviathan is brought up with a hook, how will the minnows escape,"
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. To show "official" disapproval, no male member of the Rothschild family attended the ceremonies.
