Nor was it only members of his own family who urged Lionel to be more politically active. In 1841 a political associate of the Irish leader Daniel O‘Connell invited him “as one of the most influential of your honored nation” to attend a public meeting (“in Exeter Hall in the Anchor Tavern”) at which he proposed to discuss “the political position of the Jews.” Two years later, he was being offered assistance on the assumption that he himself would want to contest the City of London by-election.
Still Lionel remained reluctant. While others wasted no time in entering the breach made by Salomons—among them his brother Mayer, who became High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in February16—Lionel did nothing. Even when he himself was offered a baronetcy by the new Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, he stubbornly refused to accept it—to the dismay of his relatives.17 His stated reasons for doing so suggest that Lionel had a trait of petulance: he was reluctant to accept an honour which had already been bestowed on two other Jews, and would be content with nothing less than a peerage. Prince Albert reported him as saying: “[Y]ou have nothing higher to offer me?” This was bluntness worthy of his father, but his mother Hannah was incensed:I do not think it good taste for you to refuse it, as your little friend [presumably Russell] remarks what [?more] can she bestow[?] The Peerage cannot be bestowed at present without taking the Oath and that I suppose you would not do. A Personal Compliment from the Highest Personage should be esteemed and may lead to other advantages but to repudiate it might create anger—and in accepting it you do not do away with your original Title. The Arms may be splendid. The previous granting to the other 2 gentlemen I think has nothing to do with yours—and decidedly does not reduce the Compliment—this is my opinion—excuse my candour.
His brothers, any one of whom would have accepted, were baffled. As Nat cheerily wrote, “If I were you I would accept an English Baronetage, it’s better than being a German Baron.—Old Billy thinks Sir Anthony would sound very well & if you do not wish it for yourself you might get it for him—We have all got very pretty names & Sir Mayer of Mentmore wd even shine in a romance.” James too weighed in:I wish you, my dear Lionel, a lot of luck that your nice Queen has, thank God, taken such a liking to you. Do be very careful that your Prince Albert does not become jealous of you. Meanwhile I would urge you to accept it for one must never reject [such an honour] and one must never let such an opportunity pass by. A Minister can easily be replaced. Previously I could have become anything over here whereas now it is virtually impossible.
But Lionel was unmoved. In the end, the only way out of the impasse was for Anthony to accept the honour.18 Even his final capitulation—when he agreed to stand as a Liberal candidate in the general election of 1847—was made only after “hesitation.”
Lionel’s decision to stand for Parliament—he was adopted as a candidate by the Liberal London Registration Association on June 29, 1847—was a watershed in Rothschild history. As a result of his decision, the Rothschild name was to become inextricably linked to the campaign for Jewish political rights; he devoted much of the next decade to a succession of gruelling electoral and parliamentary battles. Why did this most reluctant of public figures do it, when he might easily have left the field to Salomons-or for that matter to Mayer, who simultaneously stood (against his eldest brother’s wishes) in Hythe? The obvious answer is that familial pressure finally proved irresistible. A second possibility is that he was talked into standing not by his own relations but by Lord John Russell, who was himself one of the sitting City MPs and who may have hoped to secure Jewish votes for himself. A third is that Lionel did not expect to win; that what ended up as a cause célèbre was intended to be a token gesture. One contemporary at least thought he would lose and that he had merely been drafted in by the Whigs to “pay the whole cost of their expenses.” And it is noteworthy that none of the other Jewish candidates was elected: it was a close contest, and the Whigs and Radicals would have had only a single-figure majority in the Commons had it not been for the Tory split.
The complex electoral politics of the Victorian City of London precluded confidence in victory. The constituency, which stretched as far east as Tower Hamlets, was a large one (nearly 50,000 votes were cast in 1847) which returned four MPs. On this occasion, there were nine candidates—four Liberals, one Peelite, three Protectionists and an independent—and the campaigning was intense, with around twelve public meetings in the space of a month. Lionel’s platform was at first sight unremarkable : in addition to the obvious issue of religious “liberty of conscience,” he declared himself in favour of free trade. He evidently did not follow Nat’s advice “to go a little farther than my Lord John” and “be as liberal as possible.” On closer inspection, he took stances which may even have counted against him: he argued for lower duties on tobacco and tea and the introduction of a property tax, a popular stance with the unenfranchised poor, but one which was hardly calculated to win over a propertied electorate. Despite an explicit offer of Catholic support from an enterprising priest named Lauch—which appears to have been accepted—Lionel declared himself against increasing the grant to the Maynooth Catholic college (though he hedged on the more general principle of state aid to denominational schools). Nor were Jewish votes necessarily as important as might be thought: not many Jews were as yet qualified or registered to vote. Although Lionel received an offer of support from at least one Jewish Conservative and was assured by his mother that that “the Jews ... will go up in a body all nicely dressed and vote for you,” the Peelite Masterman still managed to secure election despite his declared opposition to emancipation.
On the other hand, Lionel had two advantages. The press played a bigger role in London than in most parts of the country, and his contacts with newspapermen were rapidly developing. To be sure, a specifically Jewish press was in its infancy. In 1841 he and others had invested in Jacob Franklin’s Voice of Jacob, though this was soon supplanted by the Jewish Chronicle. But Lionel had a far more influential backer in the form of John Thadeus Delane, the twenty-nine-year-old editor of The Times, who was prevailed on to help him draft his election address. For his part, Delane believed he had secured Lionel’s victory: he found Charlotte “in a state of almost frenzied delight and gratitude” after the result and was “overwhelmed with thanks” by Nat and Anthony. The Economist also lent its support. On the other hand, the opponents of emancipation had arguably just as influential a journalist on their side. The historian J. A. Froude recalled Thomas Carlyle remarking as they stood in front of 148 Piccadilly:I do not mean that I want King John back again, but if you ask me which mode of treating these people to have been the nearest to the will of the Almighty about them—to build them palaces like that, or to take the pincers for them, I declare for the pincers ... “Now Sir, the State requires some of these millions you have heaped together with your financing work. You won’t? Very well”—and the speaker gave a twist with his wrist—“Now will you[?]”—and another twist, till the millions were yielded.
Somewhat improbably, Carlyle claimed that Lionel had offered him generous remuneration if he would write a pamphlet in favour of the removal of disabilities. Carlyle supposedly told him “that it could not be ... I observed too that I could not conceive why he and his friends, who were supposed to be looking out for the coming of Shiloh, should be seeking seats in a Gentile legislature.” He expressed the same view in a letter to the MP Monckton Milnes: “A Jew is bad, but what is a Sham-Jew, a Quack-Jew? And how can a real Jew, by possibility, try to be a Senator, or even a Citizen of any country, except his own wretched Palestine, whither all his thoughts and steps and efforts tend?”19 Carlyle’s attitude stands in marked contrast to that of Thackeray, who underwent something of a conversion on the subject as a result of social contact with the Rothschilds.20
As the alleged approach to Carlyle suggests, the second and perhaps more important advantage Lionel enjoyed was money. According to Lord Grey, the Whig Secretary for War, he made “no secret of his determination to carr
y his election by money.” Nat’s subsequent letters from Paris suggest that his brother had indeed “cashed up” “large sums.” In the end, this may well have turned the scale. Lionel was elected third in the poll with 6,792 votes, compared with Russell’s 7,137, Pattison’s 7,030 and Masterman’s 6,772, which beat the other Liberal, Larpent, by just three votes. His Catholic agent Lauch believed that he had saved the day for Lionel; and his motives for supporting a Rothschild were nakedly mercenary.21
To the rest of the family, this was the political victory they had so long thirsted for. It was, wrote Nat, “one of the greatest triumphs for the Family as well as of the greatest advantage to the poor Jews in Germany and all over the world.” His wife called it “the beginning of a new era for the Jewish nation, having a most distinguished champion like you.” “The breach has been made,” exulted Betty, “the obstacle of imputation, prejudice and intolerance is distinctly foundering.” Congratulations even came from Metternich (who perhaps failed to see it as a victory for that liberalism which would drive him into English exile less than a year later). Yet all this euphoria overlooked the fact that, if he wished to take his seat as an MP, Lionel would still have to swear the oath “upon the true faith of the Christian” —unless, of course, the government could pass the measure which it had proved impossible to pass eleven years before, namely a bill doing away with the oath. Russell had already pledged to introduce one. In truth, Lionel’s victory would be complete only once a majority of both Houses of Parliament had voted in favour of such a measure.
Disraeli
The issue raised by Lionel’s election divided the British political elite along fascinating and far from predictable lines. Not the least unexpected development was that Russell’s bill to remove parliamentary disabilities attracted support not only from his own side of the House, but also from both factions of the divided Tories. When he introduced the bill in December 1847, the arch-Peelite Gladstone and the Protectionist leaders Lord George Bentinck and Disraeli all spoke in favour. Of these, Disraeli was the most personally interested, though his motivations and conduct were more complicated than might be imagined.
Disraeli had by now known the Rothschilds for nearly a decade. His earliest recorded social encounters with the family had been in 1838, and the acquaintance had become good enough to guarantee Disraeli a friendly reception when he visited Paris in 1842. By 1844-5, he and his wife Mary Anne were dining with the Rothschilds frequently: in May 1844, twice in June 1845 and again later that summer at Brighton. By 1846, Lionel was helping Disraeli speculate in French railways and later assisted him with his tangle of debts (in excess of £5,000 at this time). There was more to this friendship than his appreciation of their money and their appreciation of his wit, however. This was Disraeli’s most creative period as a novelist: Coningsby, or, The New Generation was published in 1844, Sybil, or, The Two Nations in 1845 and Tancred, or, The New Crusade in 1847. The contribution to these works made by his relationships with the Rothschilds is widely acknowledged, but still underestimated.
Having been baptised in large part because his father Isaac had fallen out with his synagogue and fancied himself as a country gentlemen, Disraeli remained fascinated by Judaism all his life. His enemies sought to use his origins against him; but Disraeli boldly turned what others saw as a weakness into a strength. Particularly in the fiction of the 1840s, he set out to reconcile what he regarded as his “racial” Jewishness with his Christian beliefs, arguing in effect that he enjoyed the best of both worlds. There is no question that contact with the Rothschilds had a substantial influence on his characterisation of Judaism. Lionel and Charlotte were unquestionably an attractive couple, he rich and influential, she intelligent and beautiful; but it was their Jewishness which most fascinated Disraeli—and indeed his wife. What made them doubly attractive to the childless Disraelis was their brood of five. They were, Disraeli wrote (inviting them to Grosvenor Gate to watch a parade in Hyde Park in June 1845), “beauteous children.”
Three months later, the family had a bizarre visit from a hysterical Mary Anne, who flung herself into Charlotte’s arms. After a preamble to the effect that she and Disraeli were in a state of exhaustion (“I have been so busy correcting proofsheets, the publishers are so tiresome ... poor Dis’ has been sitting up the whole night writing”) and were therefore about to depart for Paris, Mary Anne astonished Charlotte by announcing that she wished to make her six-year-old daughter Evelina the sole beneficiary of her will:Mrs Disraeli heaved a deep sigh and said: “This is a farewell visit, I may never see you again—lire is so uncertain ... Disi and I may be blown up on the railroad or the steamer, there is not a human body that loves me in the world, and besides my adored husband I care for no one on earth, but I love your glorious race ...”
... I tried to calm and quiet my visitor [Charlotte wrote], who, after having enumerated her goods and chattels to me, took a paper out of her pocket saying: “This is my Will and you must read it, show it to the dear Baron, and take care of it for me.”
When Charlotte gently told her that she “could not accept such a great responsibility,” Mary Anne opened the paper and read it aloud: “‘In the event of my beloved Husband preceding me to the grave, I leave and bequeath to Evelina de Rothschild all my personal property.’ ... ‘I love the Jews [she went on]—I have attached myself to your children and she is my favourite, she shall, she must wear the butterfly [one of Mary Anne’s jewels].’”
The will was returned the next morning after “a scene, a very disagreeble one,” presumably between Disraeli and his wife. Yet the couple’s interest in the family showed no sign of waning. When Leo was born in 1845, Disraeli expressed the hope (in a letter from Paris) that “he will prove worthy of his pure and sacred race, and of his beautiful brothers and sisters.” “My dear,” exclaimed Mary Anne on seeing the child, “that beautiful baby may be the future Messiah whom we are led to expect—who knows? And you will be the most favoured of women.”
There was always an undertone of frustrated attraction in Charlotte’s relationship with Disraeli, as well as a jealous impatience with his wife Mary Anne. It was an attraction Disraeli did not deny. “Amid the struggles of my life,” he told her in March 1867, “the sympathy of those we love is balm, and there is no one I love more than you.” There is some reason to think that this was more than Disraelian hyperbole. On one occasion when Charlotte called on the Disraelis, there was evidently some kind of scene involving Mary Anne; Disraeli hastened to apologise (writing “in Cabinet”):I think ... though I deeply regret the inconvenience to which you were subjected, that it was, on the whole, better you did not meet yesterday, for, from protracted want of sleep & other causes, she was in a state of great excitement, so that I myself never see her in the evening now.
She ... sends you many loves ... I wd. also send you my love, but I gave it you long ago.
The oddity about all this was Mary Anne’s highly demonstrative affection for Charlotte—perhaps a way of over-compensating for any jealousy she may have felt. When Mrs Disraeli was ill in 1869, “She murmured to me to write to you,” Disraeli scribbled in a note to Charlotte. The Rothschilds responded by sending the invalid delicacies from the Piccadilly kitchens. (After Mary Anne’s death, however, it was Charlotte’s turn to feel jealous as Disraeli spent increasing amounts of time “at the feet of Lady B [radford].” She responded by sending him “six large baskets of English strawberries, 200 head of gigantic Parisian asperges, and the largest and finest Strasburg foie gras that ever was seen,” a none too subtle reminder that her resources would always exceed those of the “wealthy old lady.”)
But perhaps the most singular aspect of their relationship is its religious ambiguity. As Charlotte recalled, Disraeli’s attitude to his own Jewish roots was always ambivalent. “Never shall I forget,” she wrote in 1866, “Mr. Disraeli’s look of blank astonishment when I ventured to assert that through the Montefiores, Mocattas and Lindos, Lady [Louisa] de R[othschild] had the great and deligh
tful honor of being his cousin; but heaven descended is what Mr. Disraeli affects to be, though London is full of his relations, whose existence he completely ignores.” Yet the two found a good deal of common ground when they discussed religious questions. In 1863 he sent her a copy of Ernest Renan’s newly published and hugely contentious Life of Jesus. She found Renan’s attempt to demythologise Christ “delightful,” though she had reservations about its portrayal of his Jewish background:It reads like a beautiful poem written by an ardent poet inspired to reveal the truth, to reveal it with tenderness, with reverence & with glowing zeal. For enlightened Jews there will not[,] I believe, be any novelty of appreciation in the book as regards the principal figure[,] the great founder of Christianity, of the religion which has ruled the world these eighteen hundred years; but many of our co-religionists will be deeply pained at having been painted by Renan in colours so stark & so repelling. When prejudices are believed to be waning it is doubly disturbing to see a long persecuted nation held up to the scorn of calm readers & earnest thinkers as incorrigibly sordid, cold, cunning and—even stubborn, hard-hearted & narrow-minded. A great writer apparently so fair & just, in the communication of his opinions—whose judgement is so correct, whose feelings seem so pure & noble, should not have condescended to heighten the dazzling brilliance of his great picture by introducing such deep shadows—as if he had felt it required to calumniate the Jews in order to atone to the religious world for the liberties taken with the greatest & highest of all subjects of human interest.
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