The Women of Rothschild: the Untold Story of the World's Most Famous Dynasty by Natalie Livingstone

Author:Natalie Livingstone [Livingstone, Natalie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2022-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

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Elevations

DURING THE EARLY 1880s Gladstone’s support for home rule and his failure to speak out against antisemitic pogroms in the Russian Empire had lost him the support of many Anglo-Jewish Liberals – Natty among them – but Cyril remained a dogged ally.1 His loyalty was rewarded: after his Brecon constituency was abolished in 1885, he was ushered into the new seat of Luton. ‘I am delighted that he has not lost his favourite occupation,’ wrote Louisa, who had been to Luton to see Cyril’s victory declared.2 In early 1886 Gladstone offered him the role of Liberal Chief Whip and Lord of the Treasury, and in 1892 he was offered a barony. Constance had managed to suppress her misgivings about the role of whip – it was, she thought, an unprincipled role that made one ‘slave to the House’ and ‘tyrant of the numbers’ – but when it came to the barony, she could not help airing her doubts.3 By the early 1890s the Lords was coming to be seen by Liberals as a constitutionally problematic house, and Constance was convinced that the Commons was the place for ‘real’ political work.4 On the way back from the opera festival in Bayreuth, Constance wrote to Cyril to express her misgivings. After a couple of days, having seen how much the title meant to him, she dropped her opposition and wrote supportively about his chosen name, which was ‘Lord Battersea’, after the estates he had inherited from his father. But Cyril had been ‘hurt and vexed’ by the initial letter, and would, she feared, ‘never quite forget it’.5

If he did, it was only because this falling-out was dwarfed by a cataclysmic dispute over another role, offered to him less than a year later. Arriving at Surrey House one afternoon in January 1893, Constance saw a telegram addressed to Cyril lying on the table.6 It was from Lord Ripon – a loyal Gladstonian and Secretary of State for the Colonies. She waited nervously for Cyril’s return. He arrived in a celebratory mood. ‘I have good news for you,’ he said, flinging himself into a chair. ‘I have been offered the governorship of New South Wales.’ The Australian territory was one of the more prestigious colonial governorships – and one of the furthest away. The posting would be for five years, meaning that should Cyril take the position, Constance might never again see her mother Louisa, who was in her seventies. The news, Constance wrote, ‘struck me like a knife’.7

That evening she sat distractedly through a play at the Haymarket Theatre, before spending a sleepless night at Surrey House. The next day, following a Rescue and Prevention committee meeting, she went to see Lord Ripon herself. Depleted by sleeplessness, she ‘broke down & cried my heart out’. Lord Ripon was ‘so kind’, but by this point things were beyond his control.8 Annie acted as a go-between, travelling to and fro between Cyril, at the House of Lords, and Surrey House, where her sister was feeling ‘more and more wretched’.

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