nobility of the country. They were ennobled about the middle of the fifteenth century by the title of Earl of Rothes.—John, sixth earl, was the most distinguished member of the family. He attached himself at an early age to Charles II.; carried the sword of state at his coronation; fought for him at Worcester, where he was taken prisoner; was confined in the Tower, and afterwards in Newcastle, but ultimately regained his liberty in 1654. At the Restoration he was made president of the council, and one of the extraordinary lords of session, and was in 1663 appointed the royal commissioner to the parliament. In the same year he was nominated high treasurer, and in 1664 was appointed keeper of the privy seal. Three years later he was promoted to the office of lord chancellor for life, and was created Duke of Rothes in 1680. His indolence and licentiousness fitted him, as he himself said, better than any nobleman in Scotland to be his majesty's representative. The duke died in 1681, in his fifty-first year, in great agony of mind.—J. T.
ROTHSAY, Duke of: one of the titles of the eldest son of the reigning sovereign of Great Britain. The first who bore this title was Prince David, eldest son of Robert III., on whom it was conferred on the 28th of April, 1398, being the first introduction of the ducal dignity into Scotland. This unfortunate prince was born in 1378. His handsome person, winning manners, and elegant accomplishments, made him a great favourite with the people; while his acquaintance with the literature of the age, and the sagacity and energy which he manifested on various occasions gave high promise of future usefulness. But his good qualities were unfortunately marred by his violent passions, love of pleasure, and fondness for dissipated company. He was not without ambition, however; and supported by his mother and a strong party of the nobles, he compelled his uncle Albany, to resign the office of governor of the kingdom, which the parliament immediately conferred on the prince himself. Rothsay had been affianced to the daughter of the earl of March, but Albany and the earl of Douglas contrived to set aside the agreement, and to get the daughter of Douglas preferred in her stead. As might have been expected, the prince proved a negligent and unfaithful husband, and became more profligate and reckless than ever. His crafty uncle urged upon the aged king the necessity of placing his son under restraint, and induced him to issue an order for his temporary confinement. Rothsay was accordingly arrested near St. Andrews, conveyed in a most ignominious manner to the royal palace of Falkland, and thrust into a dungeon, where he soon after died, it was generally believed of starvation, 27th March, 1402. The ill-fated prince was in his twenty-fourth year at the time of his death. His titles have ever since been invested in the eldest son and heir-apparent of the sovereign.— (See Sir Walter Scott's Fair Maid of Perth.)—J. T.
ROTHSCHILD, the great monetary house of, was founded by Mayer Anselm Rothschild, born of humble Jewish origin in 1743, at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. Losing his father at the age of eleven, and having received some schooling at Fürth, he was placed in a counting-house at Frankfort, from which he removed to a large exchange-broker's at Hanover. Returning to Frankfort, he married and started on his own account as a money-changer and exchange-broker, with the slender capital which he had accumulated by thrift and industry. Steadily rising in the world, he became the financial agent of the landgrave, afterwards elector of Hesse-Cassel, who, when forced to fly from his states in 1806, after the battle of Jena, placed his money, some six or eight hundred thousand pounds, in Rothschild's hands, where it did not fail to fructify. Mayer Anselm died in 1812, leaving ten children, five of them sons, born in the following order:—Anselm, 1773; Solomon, 1774; Nathan Mayer, 1777; Charles, 1788; and James, 1792. Anselm remained at Frankfort, while Solomon resided chiefly at Vienna; Nathan Mayer settled in England, Charles at Naples, and James at Paris. By their combined operations, and with agencies in all parts of the world, they became the chiefs of European finance. Of the five sons of Anselm only one now survives—the head of the house in Paris, Baron James de Rothschild, who, like his brothers, was ennobled by the emperor of Austria. Though not the eldest son, the leader of the operations of the house of Rothschild after the death of the founder was Nathan Mayer. The following conversational autobiography of Nathan Mayer was given by him to the late Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, at a dinner at Hain House, in February, 1824, and is chronicled in Sir Thomas' published memoirs:—"Rothschild told us his life and adventures. He was the third son of the banker at Frankfort. There was not room enough for us in that city. I dealt in English goods. One great trader came there who had the market to himself; he was quite the great man, and did us a favour if he sold us goods. Somehow I offended him, and he refused to show me his patterns. This was on a Tuesday. I said to my father, 'I will go to England.' I could speak nothing but German. On the Thursday I started. The nearer I got to England the cheaper goods were. As soon as I got to Manchester I laid out all my money; things were so cheap, and I made good profits. I soon found that there were three profits, the raw material, the dyeing, and the manufacturing. I said to the manufacturer, 'I will supply you with material and dye, and you will supply me with manufactured goods;' so I got three profits instead of one, and I could sell goods cheaper than anybody. In a short time I made my £20,000 into £60,000. . . Another advantage I had; I was an off-hand man. When I was settled in London the East India Company had £800,000 worth of gold to sell. I went to the sale and bought it all. I knew the duke of Wellington, then Sir Arthur Wellesley, and commanding in Portugal, must have it. The government sent for me and said they must have it. When they had got it they did not know how to get it to Portugal. I undertook all that, and I sent it through France; and that was the best business I ever did." By his large loan contracts, and still more perhaps by his dealings in bullion, Rothschild became the leading capitalist of the world. He united caution with boldness. He would never speculate in loans, either with Spain or her revolted colonies in America, and refrained from joining any of the joint-stock companies of his time, with a single and successful exception. He was honourable and liberal in his commercial dealings, and munificent in his charities. The title of baron, conferred on him by the emperor of Austria in 1822, he never used. He died during a visit to Frankfort, on the 29th September, 1822 leaving a colossal fortune. Of his four sons, the eldest, Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, born in London in 1808, died in 1870, was educated at Göttingen. He was head of the firm, and a deputy-lieutenant of London. He was first elected in 1847 one of the members for London, and re-elected on four successive occasions, but was not allowed to take his seat until July, 1858, when he was enabled by the house of commons to omit in the oath the words "on the true faith of a christian," to which as a Jew he objected. The second son, * Sir Anthony Rothschild, born in 1810, was created a baronet in 1846, and in 1858 appointed Austrian consul-general in London. The third son, * Baron Mayer de Rothschild, born in 1818, and educated at Trinity college, Cambridge, has since 1859 represented Hythe in the house of commons.—F. E.
ROTROU, Jean de, a celebrated French dramatic poet, styled by Voltaire "the founder of the theatre," born of an ancient family at Dreux in 1609. He enjoyed the esteem and patronage of Cardinal Richelieu; and, though in consequence of his expensive habits most of his works were written under the pressure of immediate want, Corneilie used to call him his father in tragedy. De Rotrou ultimately obtained an inconsiderable post under government in his native place, and died there in 1650.
ROTTECK, Karl von, a distinguished German historian and political character, was born at Freiburg in the Breisgau, 18th of July, 1775, where his father stood at the head of the medical faculty. He received a careful education, and devoted himself to the study of law and history in the university of his native town. Here he obtained in 1798 the chair of history, which twenty years later he exchanged for that of politics. Both as a teacher and as a writer he professed most liberal principles, and these he stoutly defended in the Baden diet, in which from the year 1819 he sat for his university. He even originated a periodical, Der Freisinnige, for the purpose of promoting the cause of constitutionalism. By these endeavours, however, he became so obnoxious to government, that in 1832 he was removed from office, and for the space of five years was forbidden to edit any periodical. This raised him to the height of popularity; addresses, testimonials, and civic crowns were showered upon him from all parts of Germany. He was chosen mayor of Freiburg, but was rejected by government, and on his immediate re-election voluntarily declined the honour, in order to avoid disturbances. He died November 26, 1840, and a monument was erected to his memory by his fellow-citizens, which was afterwards removed by government, but has lately been replaced. His fame as a histo-
