Editing Lord Alfred Douglas (section)

==Early life and background==
[[File:9th-marquess-of-Queensberry.jpg|left|thumb|267x267px|[[John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry|His father, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry]]]]
Douglas was born at Ham Hill House in [[Powick]], [[Worcestershire]], the third son of [[John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry]] and his first wife, Sibyl Montgomery. He was born on 22 October 1870.<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 September 2020 |title=Douglas, Alfred Bruce, 1870-1945 |url=https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50027698.html |access-date=13 February 2025 |website=Library of Congress}}</ref>

He was his mother's favourite child; she called him Bosie (a derivative of "boysie", as in boy), a nickname which stuck for the rest of his life.<ref name=odnb>{{Cite ODNB |id=32869 |title=Douglas, Lord Alfred Bruce (1870–1945)}}</ref> His mother successfully sued for divorce in 1887 on the grounds of his father's adultery.<ref>"The Queensberry Divorce Case", ''The Times'', 24 January 1887, p. 4.</ref> The [[Marquess]] later married Ethel Weeden in 1893 but the marriage was annulled the following year.

Douglas was educated at [[Wixenford School]],<ref>{{Cite book |first=Rupert |last=Croft-Cooke |title=Bosie: The Story of Lord Alfred Douglas, His Friends and Enemies |publisher=[[Bobbs-Merrill Company]] |location=Indianapolis, Indiana |date=1963 |isbn=978-1299419407 |page=33}}</ref> [[Winchester College]] (1884–88) and [[Magdalen College, Oxford]] (1889–93), which he left without obtaining a degree. At [[University of Oxford|Oxford]], he edited an undergraduate journal, ''The Spirit Lamp'' (1892–3), an activity that intensified the constant conflict between him and his father. Their relationship had always been a strained one and, during the Queensberry-Wilde feud, Douglas sided with Wilde, even encouraging Wilde to prosecute the Marquess for libel. In 1893, Douglas had a brief affair with [[George Cecil Ives|George Ives]].

In 1858 his grandfather, [[Archibald Douglas, 8th Marquess of Queensberry]], had died in what was reported as a shooting accident, but was widely believed to have been suicide.<ref>Linda Stratmann, The Marquess of Queensberry: Wilde's Nemesis, Yale University Press 2013 p. 25</ref><ref>Neil McKenna, ''The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde'', Random House 2011 p. 427.</ref> In 1862, his widowed grandmother, Lady Queensberry, converted to [[Catholic Church|Catholicism]] and took her children to live in [[Paris]].<ref name=schoolnet>[https://spartacus-educational.com/Fdixie.htm Lady Florence Dixie] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080320041127/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Fdixie.htm |date=20 March 2008}} at Spartacus-Educational.com (accessed 26 February 2019)</ref> One of his uncles, Lord James Douglas, was deeply attached to his twin sister "Florrie" ([[Lady Florence Douglas]]) and was heartbroken when she married a baronet, [[Dixie baronets|Sir Alexander Beaumont Churchill Dixie]]. In 1885, Lord James tried to abduct a young girl, and after that became ever more manic; in 1888, he made a disastrous marriage.<ref name=bosie>Douglas, Murray, ''Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas'', [https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/murray-bosie.html Chapter One] online at nytimes.com (accessed 8 March 2008).</ref> Separated from Florrie, James drank himself into a deep depression,<ref name=bosie/> and in 1891 committed suicide by cutting his throat.<ref name=schoolnet/> Another of his uncles, [[Lord Francis Douglas]] (1847–1865) had died in a climbing accident on the [[Matterhorn]]. His uncle Lord Archibald Edward Douglas (1850–1938) became a clergyman.<ref name=schoolnet/><ref>G. E. Cokayne ''et al.'', eds., ''The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant'', new edition, 13 volumes in 14 (1910–1959; new edition, 2000), volume X, page 694.</ref> Alfred Douglas's aunt, Lord James's twin [[Lady Florence Dixie]] (1855–1905), was an author, [[war correspondent]] for the ''[[Morning Post]]'' during the [[First Boer War]], and a [[feminist]].<ref>''Dixie, Lady Florence, poet, novelist, writer; explorer and a keen champion of Woman's Rights'' in ''Who Was Who'' online at [http://www.xreferplus.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=7345683 7345683]{{dead link|date=May 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} at xreferplus.com (subscription required), accessed 11 March 2008.</ref> In 1890, she published a novel, ''Gloriana, or the Revolution of 1900'', in which [[women's suffrage]] is achieved after a woman posing as a man named Hector D'Estrange is elected to the House of Commons. The character D'Estrange is clearly based on Oscar Wilde.<ref name=heilmann>Heilmann, Ann, ''Wilde's New Women: the New Woman on Wilde'' in Uwe Böker, [[Dick Corballis|Richard Corballis]], Julie A. Hibbard, ''The Importance of Reinventing Oscar: Versions of Wilde During the Last 100 Years'' (Rodopi, 2002) pp. 135–147, in particular p. 139.</ref>