Archibald Philip Primrose was born in 1847 into an aristocratic family in Mayfair. His father died in 1851. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He was intelligent and seemed destined for a very bright future.

He is reputed to have remarked that he had three aims in life: to win the Derby, to marry an heiress, and to become Prime Minister. He achieved all three and, in doing so, became a cautionary tale in wish fulfilment.

When his grandfather died in 1868, Rosebery inherited his peerage and 15,000 acres of Midlothian. He left Oxford without a degree and entered the House of Lords shortly afterwards aged 21. His family was traditionally Whig therefore it was natural for him to join the Liberal benches.

Over 1879-80, Rosebery played a key part in sponsoring and planning William Gladstone’s famous Midlothian campaign. He modelled the campaign on events he had witnessed while travelling in the United States. He would regularly take the stage and was considered a very effective public orator. The campaign was an enormous success and helped to win the Liberals the election in 1880.

Gladstone asked him to join the government, and Rosebery fulfilled several roles before being promoted to Foreign Secretary in 1886. It was during this time that Rosebery elaborated his support for ‘Liberal imperialism’.

During the 1880s, Rosebery helped to set up London County Council, and was elected the first chairman of the Council. He worked with socialist reformers to promote housing and education policies.

In 1878, he married Hannah de Rothschild, one of the wealthiest heiresses of her day, and they had four children. She died in 1890, leaving Rosebery devastated. At this point, Rosebery considered ending his political career.

But Gladstone asked Rosebery to return as Foreign Secretary, and he served in that position over 1892-94. When Gladstone resigned in 1894, Queen Victoria chose to ask Rosebery to become Prime Minister. The reasons why are unclear, but most likely concerned her dislike of the other candidates.

From the beginning, Rosebery struggled. There were few Liberals in the Lords, because many had defected to the Unionists over Home Rule, leaving Rosebery very isolated. Additionally, many important Liberals felt snubbed by the circumstances of his appointment, believing that it was simply improper for him to have become Prime Minister over other, better candidates. In order to control the Commons, Rosebery had to deal with Chancellor Sir William Harcourt, who often simply ignored the Prime Minister.

Consequently, almost all of the Rosebery’s initiatives failed. His government was unable to pass legislation. And while it did pass an important budget in 1894 that introduced high inheritance duties, Rosebery opposed these changes, but was unable to offer anything but token resistance. In Cabinet, Rosebery was indecisive and petulant, often straining, rather than smoothing over, relations with his fellow ministers.

By 1895, Rosebery’s government was in deep trouble. It was politically divided and directionless, led by a figure with plummeting political support. Rosebery himself was struggling with insomnia and illness, which he treated with morphine. In June 1895, he resigned after a defeat in the Commons.  His premiership had lasted for just one year and 109 days.

Like so many former Prime Ministers, Rosebery hoped that one day circumstances would deliver him back into power. Those circumstances never transpired. He made occasional political interventions.

He would spend the rest of his life writing books, an activity that better suited his talents. His son, Neil Primrose, was killed during the First World War in 1917, and Rosebery himself had a stroke in 1918. Though he recovered his mental faculties, he was impaired for the rest of his life. Rosebery died in 1929.