Free The House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson Page B

Though he was “now more of a Tory than when [he] was in London,” Nat stressed that his support for Peel would be strictly conditional: “I trust he will be liberally inclined . towards us poor Jews & if he emancipates us, he shall have my support.” For Nat, it was the Jewish issue alone which alienated the Rothschilds from Conservatism. As he wrote half-seriously in 1842:
    [Y]ou must know that altho’ a staunch whig in England I am an ultra redhot conservative here, I fancy you wd adopt the latter way of thinking also if it were not that the little bit which has been removed from a part of the body, & which part Billy [Anthony] in particular has always considered of the greatest importance, prevented our exercising the same rights & privileges as others not in the same predicament.
    Altogether more Liberal in outlook, Anthony welcomed Peel’s difficulties with his party in the Commons in the belief—correct as it turned out—that they would make him “a little more liberal & I trust that Sir Robert if he is so will do something for the poor Jews.” As for Lionel, he did not hesitate to lend his support to the Liberal candidate James Pattison at the October 1843 by-election in the City, urging Jewish voters to break the Sabbath in order to vote. These votes were crucial, as Pattison only narrowly beat his Tory opponent, who was none other than one of the Rothschilds’ old rivals, Thomas Baring.
    Yet Lionel hesitated to follow David Salomons’s example and involve himself directly in political activity. The most obvious explanation for this hesitation was purely practical: politics took up time which could not easily be spared by the senior partner of a bank as big as N. M. Rothschild & Sons. Perhaps Lionel shared James’s view—expressed as early as 1816—that “as soon as a merchant takes too much part in public affairs it is difficult for him to carry on with his bankers’ business.” On the other hand, the pressure from family members—including James—for him to do something to raise the family’s political profile in England was considerable. James’s notions of political activity remained rooted in his experience of the 1820s, when he and his elder brothers had energetically accumulated titles and decorations by ingratiating themselves with the monarchs of the various states with which they did business. He sought to encourage his nephews to do the same in England in 1838, telling Lionel that he had
    had a long conversation with the King of Belgium and he promised us that he will write to the Queen of England and he will arrange for his wife to write that you should all be invited to all the balls ... The King has granted the four brothers [an] order ... and if you, my dear nephews, are devotees of such ribbons then I will ensure that next time you will be the recipients, God willing, [though] in England these are not worn.
    Less old-fashioned was Anselm’s hope “in a year or two to be able to congratulate one of you on a seat in Parliament & to admire your eloquent speeches.” When Isaac Lyon Goldsmid became the first Jewish baronet in 1841, Anthony wrote from Paris that he “should have liked Sir Lionel de R. much better & he ought to have tried.” Similarly, when Salomon was made a “citizen of honour” of Vienna in 1843, Anthony pointedly hoped that it would “produce an effect in Old England.”
    The pressure mounted in 1845 as David Salomons scored another important point. Having won a contested City ballot for the aldermanry of Portsoken, Salomons was confronted with the oath “upon a true faith of a Christian”; when he refused to take it, the Court of Aldermen declared his election void. Salomons complained to Peel, who—as Anthony had predicted—now proved more sympathetic, instructing the Lord Chancellor, Lyndhurst, to draft a bill removing all remaining municipal disabilities as they affected Jews. The bill was enacted on July 31, 1845. 14 Lionel had in fact played a part