Editing Cecil Rhodes (section)

== Personal relationships ==

=== Personal life ===
Rhodes never married, pleading, "I have too much work on my hands" and saying that he would not be a dutiful husband.{{sfn|Plomer|1984|p=}}{{page needed|date=December 2016}} According to his personal banker, Lewis Mitchell, Rhodes "took, on occasions, a singularly human interest in the welfare of young men, and read their characters with discernment... Once, when twitted [teased] with his preference for young men, he retorted, 'Of course, of course, they must soon take up our work; we must teach them what to do and what to avoid.'" According to his secretary, Philip Jourdan, he "seemed to have a liking for young men" and was "particularly partial to people with blue eyes."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Calderisi |first1=Robert |title=Cecil Rhodes and Other Statues: Dealing Plainly with the Past |date=2021 |publisher=Gatekeeper Press |isbn=978-1662916458}}</ref>{{sfn|Maylam|2005|p=22}} Graham Bower, the deputy to [[Hercules Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead|Sir Hercules Robinson]], described the relationship between Rhodes and his private secretary Neville Pickering as "an absolutely lover-like friendship."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aldrich |first1=Robert |title=Colonialism and Homosexuality |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0415196159}}</ref>

Rhodes' biographers have been divided on the question of his sexuality. John Gilbert Lockhart and [[Montague Woodhouse, 5th Baron Terrington|C.M. Woodhouse]] denied that Rhodes was homosexual, while [[Stuart Cloete]] and [[Antony Thomas]] took the view that he was [[Asexuality|asexual]]. [[Robert I. Rotberg]] and [[Brian Roberts (historian)|Brian Roberts]] have asserted that he was homosexual.{{sfn|Maylam|2005|p=22}} According to Rotberg, that Rhodes was homosexual is "indisputable on the basis of the available evidence."{{sfn|Rotberg|1988|pp=408–}} [[The BBC]]'s biographical drama series ''[[Rhodes (TV series)|Rhodes]]'' (1996), written by [[Antony Thomas]], treated him as gay. Robin Brown has claimed in ''The Secret Society: Cecil John Rhodes's Plan for a New World Order'' that Rhodes was [[homosexual]] who was in love with Neville Pickering, and that he established "… a homosexual hegemony—which was already operative in the Secret Society—[and] went on to influence, if not control, British politics at the beginning of the twentieth century".<ref>Robin Brown, ''The Secret Society: Cecil John Rhodes' Plan for a New World Order'' (Penguin: 2015).</ref> Paul Maylam of [[Rhodes University]] criticised Brown's book in a review for ''[[The Conversation (website)|The Conversation]]'' as "based heavily on surmise and assertion" and lacking "referenced source material to substantiate its claims", as well as being riddled with basic factual errors.<ref>{{Cite web |date=29 January 2016 |title=Rhodes: closet gay man who hatched a secret society to promote empire? |url=https://theconversation.com/rhodes-closet-gay-man-who-hatched-a-secret-society-to-promote-empire-53850 |access-date=7 March 2021 |website=theconversation.com}}</ref>

=== Princess Radziwiłł ===
In the last years of his life, Rhodes was [[stalking|stalked]] by Polish princess [[Catherine Radziwill|Catherine Radziwiłł]], born [[Rzewuski family|Rzewuska]], who had married into the [[szlachta|noble]] Polish family [[Radziwiłł]]. The princess falsely claimed that she was engaged to Rhodes, and that they were having an affair. She asked him to marry her, but Rhodes refused. In reaction, she accused him of loan [[fraud]]. He had to go to trial and testify against her accusation. She wrote a [[biography]] of Rhodes called ''Cecil Rhodes: Man and Empire Maker''.{{sfn|Radziwill|1918|p=}}{{page needed|date=December 2016}} Her accusations were eventually proven to be false.{{sfn|Lockhart|Woodhouse|1963|p=487}}