HUGHENDEN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

‘Dizzy married me for my money,’ Mary Anne Disraeli was wont to say. ‘But if he had the chance again he would marry me for love.’

Hughenden (left) was the country residence of Queen Victoria’s favourite Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, but it was also the backdrop to an extraordinary Victorian marriage. Disraeli was an outsider, a dandy with huge debts, and if he was to succeed in politics he needed to raise his social status. His grandfather was an Italian Jew, and had a synagogue dispute not led Dizzy’s father to raise his children as Anglicans, his political career would have been a non-starter, for Jews were debarred from Parliament until 1858.

Mary Anne was a wealthy widow 12 years his senior, and when he married her in 1839 people assumed his motives were mercenary. And they were. He bought Hughenden in 1848 as his entrée into the landed gentry. But Disraeli came to cherish her for her vivacity and good humour. She was a one-off in staid Victorian society, renowned for her indiscretions. She confided to Queen Victoria – who found her ‘very vulgar’ – that she always slept with her arms around Dizzy’s neck. On one occasion, when another lady’s pale complexion was admired, Mary Anne retorted, ‘I wish you could see my Dizzy in his bath.’

But she proved herself a devoted political wife. One evening husband and wife set off to Parliament in their carriage, where Dizzy was due to make an important speech. The door slammed shut on Mary Anne’s thumb – but she didn’t make a sound, lest she upset him before his speech. When he found out later what happened, Disraeli removed the door from the carriage and preserved it at Hughenden – where it hangs on a wall to this day.