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Born in 1870, Bosie was raised by a loving mother and a father known for his open womanizing, love of boxing and horses, and harsh treatment of his family. It is said that he treated his horses with more kindness than his wife. The Marquess of Queensberry was notorious; today he is remembered chiefly for the establishment of “Queensberry’s Rules” for boxing.
While attending University at Oxford, Bosie was introduced to Oscar Wilde at the age of 21. Wilde was twice his age; nevertheless the two found much in common through music, literature, and poetry. The two formed a romantic relationship, at least initially, and were virtually inseparable. Were the two men homosexuals? That label didn’t exist in 1890s and Wilde, a married man with two children, certainly loved his family dearly. As well, Bosie was no innocent. At the age of 19 he had an affair with a prominent divorcée and other romantic involvements during his school years.
In response to Bosie's association with Wilde, the Marquess of Queenberry demanded that the two men end their friendship or else he would disown Bosie. In a fit of fury, he left a badly written card for Wilde at the Albemarle Club, either accusing the aesthete of "posing as a somdomite" (sic), or "ponce and somdomite" (sic). Whichever the case, he mis-spelled the word sodomite in his rage. Oscar Wilde, believing he now had a case against the Marquess, decided to pursue a charge of libel.
George Bernard Shaw and Frank Harris invited Oscar and Bosie to a luncheon at London’s Café Royal in late March 1895, just days before the trial was set to begin, to try and dissuade Wilde from pursuing his action against the Marquess of Queensberry. They were unable to persuade Wilde to change his mind, and both men left the restaurant together determined to fight Queensberry. Bosie was convinved that his father should pay and that they indeed would win the case. This however, was not to be. Bosie continued to maintain throughout his life that the case would have been won if he had been allowed to enter the witness box to give testimony against his father.
After three separate trials and spate of evidence brought against Wilde, proving his relationships with rent boys, Oscar was sentenced to two years of hard labor in prison. During the trial, Bosie remained loyal to Oscar when other friends turned their backs or fled to Europe, offering his continued financial support and personal friendship.
While in prison, Wilde wrote a long letter to Bosie, which was later released and published under the title of De Profundis. This bitter recrimination sets out the seemingly plausible argument (to the uninitiated) that Bosie is responsible for Wilde’s downfall. However, the long letter was written under the harsh conditions of prison life and in mind of the continuing pressure to sever his connection to Bosie. Upon his release from prison and departure for exile in France, Wilde instructed his literary executor to copy the letter and to deliver it to Bosie. Douglas maintained throughout his life that he had never received a copy of the damning letter.
Bosie and Oscar were able to reunite for a time in Italy in 1897, but renewed insistence from their families and friends soon forced their final separation from each other. They kept in contact via letter and Bosie continued to help Oscar financially, as Wilde had no regular income. Upon Oscar’s death in 1900, Bosie attended the funeral in Paris as chief mourner and paid the funeral expenses. Following this experience, Bosie wrote one of his most moving sonnets, The Dead Poet. Though dead, the spectre of Wilde would continue haunt Douglas to the end of his life.
Some two years later, Bosie met and married Olive Custance in a whirlwind romance. They had one child, a son Raymond, born that same year. In 1912, Bosie sued over libelous passages published in a new book on the life of Wilde, and subsequently became aware of the existence of the full-unedited text of De Profundis, held by the British Museum. The document was read out in court and published in the national newspapers, causing great distress to Bosie. For more than 10 years Bosie lived with a fierce loathing of Oscar Wilde and of everything Wilde stood for and represented.
During this period, Bosie converted to Roman Catholicism, and also became highly litigious, engaging in more than a dozen various court actions in attempt to clear his name and separate himself from Wilde. His wife, Olive, also left Bosie, taking their son with her. They remained on friendly terms and never divorced; but never lived together again. In 1924, after pursuing legal action against Winston Churchill, the future Prime Minister retaliated by persuing his own prosecution for criminal libel. Losing the case, Bosie was sentenced to Wormwood Scrubs prison. This experience proved to be one of change for Bosie as he now had first-hand knowledge of prison conditions and could feel pity for the suffering that Wilde endured during his incarceration. Following his release, Bosie’s writings showed a renewed love for Oscar and he was able to regard the memory of Wilde with fondness and affection, rather than bitterness.
Bosie's son Raymond was institutionalized and certified as a schizo-affective patient. Raymond would remain in hospital until his death in 1964. Bosie’s loss of wife and son, followed by the death of his mother, and abandonment by British society following the Wilde affair were undoubtedly devastating. As well, much of his poetry had been written as a young man and, after the First World War, many readers had turned away from the classical rules of metre and rhyme to which Bosie had long-subscribed. His strength was in highly polished and meticulously composed sonnets, of which he was the undisputed master. Indeed, Shaw himself compared Bosie’s work to Shelley, Frank Harris compared him to Shakespeare, and three of his works were included in the famed Oxford Book of English Verse.
Bosie, however, in his later years had the satisfaction of seeing a number of his books released, including: Complete Poems in 1928, The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas in 1929, Without Apology in 1938, and Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up published in 1940. As well, in 1931 author Patrick Braybrooke wrote the first biography of Bosie, entitled Lord Alfred Douglas: His Life and His Work. Bosie died on March 20, 1945 at the age of 74. He was buried at Worth Abbey, the Franciscan Montastery located in Turners Hill, Crawley, West Sussex.
by author and playwright Anthony Wynn
have been reproduced and adapted by courtesy of John Rubinstein and John Stratford. All Rights Reserved.
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The Unofficial Website of Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas