 Hannah de Rothschild was born in 1851 into a world of great wealth and luxury . She was the granddaughter of Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild , who had founded N M Rothschild & Sons , the English branch of the Rothschilds ' banking empire . Niall Ferguson states in his History of the House of Rothschild that by the mid @-@ 19th century the Rothschilds regarded themselves as the nearest thing the Jews of Europe had to a royal family , and the equals of royalty . Whether or not this was strictly true , the many Rothschild homes and their art collections , in England , Austria , France and Germany , certainly <unk> those of the crowned heads of Europe . 
