Editing Lord Alfred Douglas

{{Short description|English poet and journalist (1870–1945)}}
{{redirect|Alfred Douglas}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2022}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
|name = Lord Alfred Douglas
|image = Lord Alfred Douglas by George Charles Beresford (1903).jpg
|imagesize =
|caption = Douglas in 1903<br />(by George Charles Beresford)
|pseudonym =
|birth_name = Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas 
|birth_date = {{birth date|1870|10|22|df=y}}
|birth_place = [[Powick]], Worcestershire, England
|death_date = {{death date and age|1945|03|20|1870|10|22|df=y}}
|death_place = [[Lancing, West Sussex|Lancing]], Sussex, England
|resting_place = [[Friary Church of St Francis and St Anthony, Crawley]]
|occupation = Poet
|nationality = British
|spouse = {{marriage|[[Olive Custance]]|1902|1944|end=d}}
|children = 1
|parents = [[John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry]]
|period =
|genre =
|notableworks =
|influences =
|influenced =
|website =
|education = {{plainlist|
*[[Winchester College]]
*[[Wixenford School]]
}}
|alma_mater = [[Magdalen College, Oxford]]
}}

'''Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas''' (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945), also known as '''Bosie Douglas''', was an English poet and journalist, and a lover of [[Oscar Wilde]]. At [[Oxford University]] he edited an undergraduate journal, ''The Spirit Lamp'', that carried a [[homoeroticism|homoerotic]] subtext, and met Wilde, starting a close but stormy relationship. Douglas's father, [[John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry]], abhorred it and set out to humiliate Wilde, publicly accusing him of homosexuality. Wilde sued him for criminal [[libel]], but some intimate notes were found and Wilde was later imprisoned. On his release, he briefly lived with Douglas in Naples, but they had separated by the time Wilde died in 1900. Douglas married a poet, [[Olive Custance]], in 1902 and had a son, Raymond.

On converting to [[Catholicism]] in 1911, he repudiated homosexuality, and in a [[Catholic]] magazine, ''Plain English'', expressed openly [[antisemitic]] views, but rejected the policies of [[Nazi Germany]]. He was jailed for libelling [[Winston Churchill]] over claims of [[World War I]] misconduct. Douglas wrote several books of verse, some in a homoerotic [[Uranians|Uranian]] genre. The phrase "[[The love that dare not speak its name]]" appears in one ([[s:Two Loves (1894 poem)|''Two Loves'']]), though it is widely misattributed to Wilde.

==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>

==Relationship with Wilde==
[[File:Wilde Douglas British Library B20147-85.jpg|thumb|[[Oscar Wilde]] and Lord Alfred Douglas, May 1893]]

In 1891, [[Lionel Johnson]] brought Douglas to the home of [[Oscar Wilde]] in Tite Street, Chelsea, for afternoon tea. Wilde took an interest in Douglas but it was six months before they became intimate and their affair began.<ref>H. Montgomery Hyde, ''The Love That Dared not Speak its Name;'' p. 144</ref><ref>Ellmann (1988:98)</ref> In 1894, the [[Robert Smythe Hichens|Robert Hichens]] novel ''[[The Green Carnation]]'' was published, a ''[[roman à clef]]'' depicting satirically Douglas's dependent relationship on Wilde.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Garcia-Walsh |first1=Katerina |title=Oscar Wilde's Misattributions: A Legacy of Gross Indecency |journal=Victorian Popular Fictions Journal |date=2021 |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=188–207 |doi=10.46911/PYIV5690|doi-access=free|hdl=10023/26159 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

Douglas has been described as spoiled, reckless, insolent and extravagant.<ref name="Ellmann"/> He would spend money on boys and gambling and expected Wilde to contribute to funding his tastes. They often argued and broke up, but would always be reconciled.

Douglas had praised Wilde's play ''[[Salome (play)|Salome]]'' in the Oxford magazine ''The Spirit Lamp'', of which he was editor. Wilde had originally written ''Salomé'' in French, and in 1893 he commissioned Douglas to translate it into English. Douglas's French was very poor and his translation was highly criticised; for example, a passage that runs "''On ne doit regarder que dans les miroirs''" ("One should look only in mirrors") he rendered "One must not look at mirrors". Douglas was angered at Wilde's criticism, and claimed that the errors were in fact in Wilde's original play. This led to a hiatus in the relationship and a row between the two, with angry messages being exchanged and even the involvement of the publisher [[John Lane (publisher)|John Lane]] and the illustrator [[Aubrey Beardsley]] when they themselves objected to the poor standard of Douglas's work. Beardsley complained to [[Robbie Ross]]: "For one week the numbers of telegraph and messenger boys who came to the door was simply scandalous". Wilde redid much of the translation himself, but in a gesture of reconciliation suggested that Douglas be dedicated as the translator rather than be credited, along with him, on the title page. Accepting this, Douglas, likened the difference between sharing the title page and having a dedication to "the difference between a tribute of admiration from an artist and a receipt from a tradesman".<ref name="Ellmann"/>

In 1894, Douglas came and visited Oscar Wilde in [[Worthing]], to the consternation of the latter's wife Constance.<ref>Antony Edmunds, ''Oscar Wilde's Scandalous Summer;'' p. 26 [http://www.oscarwilde.org.uk/chapter-1.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181128075207/http://www.oscarwilde.org.uk/chapter-1.html|date=28 November 2018}}</ref>

On another occasion, while staying with Wilde in [[Brighton]], Douglas fell ill with [[influenza]] and was nursed by Wilde, but failed to return the favour when Wilde himself fell ill having caught influenza in consequence. Instead Douglas moved to the luxurious [[Grand Hotel (Brighton)|Grand Hotel]] and on Wilde's 40th birthday sent him a letter informing him that he had charged Wilde with the hotel bill. Douglas also gave his old clothes to male prostitutes, but failed to remove from the pockets incriminating letters exchanged between him and Wilde, which were then used for [[blackmail]].<ref name="Ellmann">''Oscar Wilde'' by Richard Ellman, published in 1987.</ref>

Alfred's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, suspected the liaison to be more than a friendship. He sent his son a letter, attacking him for leaving Oxford without a degree and failing to take up a proper career. He threatened to "disown [Alfred] and stop all money supplies." Alfred responded with a telegram rudely stating: "What a funny little man you are."

Queensberry's next letter threatened his son with a "thrashing" and accused him of being "crazy". He also threatened to "make a public scandal in a way you little dream of" if he continued his relationship with Wilde.

Queensberry was well known for his short temper and threatening to beat people with a horsewhip. Alfred sent his father a postcard stating "I detest you" and making it clear that he would take Wilde's side in a fight between him and the Marquess, "with a loaded revolver".

In answer Queensberry wrote to Alfred (whom he addressed as "You miserable creature") that he had divorced Alfred's mother so as not to "run the risk of bringing more creatures into the world like yourself" and that when Alfred was a baby, "I cried over you the bitterest tears a man ever shed, that I had brought such a creature into the world, and unwittingly committed such a crime.... You must be demented."

Douglas's eldest brother [[Francis Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig|Francis Viscount Drumlanrig]] died in a suspicious hunting accident in October 1894, as rumours circulated that he had been having a homosexual relationship with the future Prime Minister, [[Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery|Lord Rosebery]], and that the cause of death was suicide. The Marquess of Queensberry thus embarked on a campaign to save his other son and began a public persecution of Wilde. Wilde had been openly flamboyant and his actions made the public suspicious even before the trial.<ref>Ellmann (1988:101)</ref> The Marquess and a bodyguard confronted Wilde in Wilde's home; later, Queensberry planned to throw rotten vegetables at Wilde on the first night of ''[[The Importance of Being Earnest]]'', but forewarned of this, Wilde was able to deny him access to the theatre.

Queensberry then publicly insulted Wilde by leaving at the latter's club a [[visiting card]] on which he had written, "For Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite {{sic}}". The wording is in dispute – the handwriting is unclear – although Hyde reports it as this. According to [[Merlin Holland]], Wilde's grandson, it is more likely "Posing somdomite", while Queensberry himself claimed it to be "Posing as somdomite". Holland suggests that this wording ("posing [as] ...") would have been easier to defend in court.

==1895 trials==
{{Main|Oscar Wilde#Trials}}
With Douglas's avid support, but against the advice of friends such as [[Robbie Ross]], [[Frank Harris]] and [[George Bernard Shaw]], Wilde had Queensberry arrested and charged with criminal [[libel]] in a [[private prosecution]], as [[sodomy]] was then a criminal offence. According to the libel laws of the time, since his authorship of the charge of sodomy was not in question, Queensberry could avoid conviction by demonstrating in court not only that the charge he had made was true but also that there was a public interest in having made the charge public. [[Edward Carson]], Queensberry's lawyer, portrayed Wilde as a vicious older man who preyed upon naive young boys and with extravagant gifts and promises of a glamorous lifestyle seduced them into a life of homosexuality. Several highly suggestive erotic letters that Wilde had written to Douglas were introduced as evidence; Wilde claimed they were works of art. Wilde was questioned closely on the homoerotic themes in ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'' and ''[[The Chameleon (magazine)|The Chameleon]]'', a single-issue magazine published by Douglas to which Wilde had contributed  "Phrases and Philosophies for Use of the Young".

[[File:Somdomite.jpg|thumb|The calling card, labelled Exhibit A in the trial (bottom left corner)|left]]

Queensberry's attorney announced in court that he had located several male prostitutes who were to testify that they had had sex with Wilde. Wilde's lawyers advised him that this would make a conviction on the libel charge very unlikely; he then dropped the libel charge, on his lawyers' advice, to avoid further pointless scandal. Without a conviction, the libel law of the time meant that Wilde was responsible for Queensberry's considerable legal costs which, along with other debts, left him [[bankruptcy|bankrupt]]. Based on the evidence raised during the case, Wilde was arrested the next day and charged with committing criminal [[sodomy]] and "[[gross indecency between men|gross indecency]]", a crime capable of being committed only by two men, which might include sexual acts other than sodomy.

Douglas's September 1892 poem "[[s:Two Loves (1894 poem)|Two Loves]]" (published in the Oxford magazine ''The Chameleon'' in December 1894) was used against Wilde at the latter's trial. It ends with the famous line that refers to male homosexuality as ''[[the love that dare not speak its name]]'', which is often attributed wrongly to Wilde. Wilde gave an eloquent but counter-productive explanation of the nature of this love on the witness stand. The trial resulted in a [[hung jury]].

In 1895, when Wilde was released on bail during his trials, Douglas's cousin [[Sholto Johnstone Douglas]] stood [[surety]] for [[pound sterling|£]]500 of the bail money.<ref>Maureen Borland, ''Wilde's Devoted Friend: A Life of Robert Ross, 1869–1918'' (Lennard Publishing, 1990) [https://books.google.com/books?id=j2lnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Sholto+Johnstone+Douglas%22 p. 206] at books.google.com, accessed 22 January 2009.</ref> The prosecutor opted to retry the case. Wilde was convicted on 25 May 1895 and sentenced to two years' [[hard labour]], first at [[HM Prison Pentonville|Pentonville]], then [[HM Prison Wandsworth|Wandsworth]], then famously in [[HM Prison Reading|Reading Gaol]]. Douglas was forced into exile in Europe.

While in prison, Wilde wrote Douglas a long and critical letter titled ''[[De Profundis (letter)|De Profundis]]'', describing how he felt about him. Wilde was not permitted to send it but it might have been sent to him after Wilde's release. It was given to Robbie Ross with instructions to make a copy and send the original to Lord Alfred Douglas. Lord Alfred Douglas later said that he received only a letter from Ross with a few choice quotations and did not know there was a letter until reference was made to it in a biography of Wilde on which Ross had consulted. After Wilde's release on 19 May 1897, the two reunited in August at [[Rouen]] but stayed together only a few months due to personal differences and various pressures on them.

==Naples and Paris==
The meeting in Rouen was disapproved of by the friends and families of both men. During the later part of 1897, Wilde and Douglas lived together in Naples, but they separated due to financial pressures and for other personal reasons. Wilde spent the rest of his life mainly in Paris; Douglas returned to Britain in late 1898. The cohabitation period in Naples later became controversial. Wilde claimed Douglas had offered a home, but had no funds or ideas. When Douglas eventually gained funds from his late father's estate, he refused to grant Wilde a permanent allowance, although he gave him occasional sums. Wilde was still bankrupt when he died in 1900. Douglas served as chief mourner, but there was reportedly a graveside altercation between him and Robbie Ross that developed into a feud and foreshadowed the later litigation between the two former lovers of Wilde.<ref>{{Cite book |title=World Review |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QvwIAQAAIAAJ |year=1970 |publisher=E. Hulton}}</ref>

==Marriage==
[[File:Lady-alfred-douglas.jpg|thumb|upright|Lady Alfred Douglas]]
After Wilde's death, Douglas made a close friendship with [[Olive Custance]], a [[bisexual]] heiress and poet.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Parker |first1=Sarah |title='A Girl's Love': Lord Alfred Douglas as Homoerotic Muse in the Poetry of Olive Custance |journal=Women: A Cultural Review |publisher=[[Taylor and Francis]] |location=London, England |date=September 2011 |volume=22 |issue=2–3 |pages=220–240 |doi=10.1080/09574042.2011.585045 |s2cid=191468238 |url=https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/22672}}</ref> They married on 4 March 1902. Olive Custance was in a relationship with the writer [[Natalie Clifford Barney|Natalie Barney]] when she and Douglas first met.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Parker |first1=Sarah |title=The lesbian muse and poetic identity, 1889–1930 |date=2013 |publisher=Pickering & Chatto |location=London |isbn=978-1848933866 |pages=71–100}}</ref> Barney and Douglas eventually became close friends and Barney was named godmother to their son, Raymond Wilfred Sholto Douglas, born on 17 November 1902.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Adams |first=Jad |date=2018 |title=Olive Custance: A Poet Crossing Boundaries |journal=English Literature in Transition |volume=61 |issue=1 |pages=35–65}}</ref>

The marriage grew stormy after Douglas became a [[Catholic]] in 1911. They separated in 1913, lived together for a time in the 1920s after Custance also converted, and then lived apart after she gave up her Catholicism. The health of their only child further strained the marriage, which by the end of the 1920s was all but over, although they never divorced.

==Repudiation of Wilde==
In 1911, Douglas embraced Catholicism as Wilde had done earlier. More than a decade after Wilde's death, with the release of suppressed portions of Wilde's ''De Profundis'' letter in 1912, Douglas turned against his former friend, whose homosexuality he grew to condemn. He was a defence witness in the libel case brought by [[Maud Allan]] against [[Noel Pemberton Billing]] in 1918. Billing had accused Allan, who was performing Wilde's play ''[[Salome (play)|Salome]]'', of being part of a deliberate homosexual conspiracy to undermine the war effort.

Douglas also contributed to Billing's journal ''Vigilante'' as part of his campaign against Robbie Ross. He had written a poem calling [[Margot Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith|Margot Asquith]] one "bound with Lesbian fillets", while her husband Prime Minister [[H. H. Asquith|Herbert]] gave Ross money.<ref>Philip Hoare. (1999). ''Oscar Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century''. Arcade Publishing, p. 110.</ref> During the trial he described Wilde as "the greatest force for evil that has appeared in Europe during the last three hundred and fifty years", adding that he intensely regretted having met Wilde and helped him with the French translation of ''Salome'', which he called "a most pernicious and abominable piece of work".

==''Plain English''==
In 1920 Douglas founded a [[Far-right politics|right-wing]], Catholic, and deeply antisemitic weekly magazine called ''Plain English'',<ref>{{Cite book |first=Nick |last=Toczek |title=Haters, Baiters and Would-Be Dictators: Anti-Semitism and the UK Far Right |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=London, England |date=2015 |isbn=978-1138853485 |page=239}}</ref> in which he collaborated with [[Harold Sherwood Spencer]] and initially [[Thomas William Hodgson Crosland]]. It claimed to succeed ''[[The Academy (periodical)|The Academy]]'', to which Douglas had been a contributing editor. ''Plain English'' ran until the end of 1922. Douglas later admitted that its policy was "strongly anti-Semitic".<ref>The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas (1929) p. 302</ref><ref>Brown, William Sorley ''The Life and Genius of T.W.H. Crosland'' (1928), p. 394.</ref>

From August 1920 (issue No 8) ''Plain English'' began publishing a long series of articles called "The Jewish Peril" by [[Arthur Cherep-Spiridovich|Major-General Count Cherep-Spiridovitch]], whose title was taken from the fore-title of [[George Shanks]]'s version of a fraudulent work, ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]''. ''Plain English'' advertised from issue 20 [[The Britons]]' second edition of Shank's version of the ''Protocols''. Douglas challenged the ''Jewish Guardian'', published by the [[League of British Jews]], to take him to court, suggesting they refrained from doing so because they were "well aware of the absolute truth of the allegations which we have made."<ref>The "Jewish Guardian" Again, ''Plain English'' No 21, 27 November 1920</ref> The magazine suggested in 1921, "We need a [[Ku Klux Klan]] in this country,"<ref>Lies, ''Plain English'' No 66, 8 October 1921</ref> but a promotion for ''[[Ostara (magazine)|Ostara]]'' magazine was generally not well received by readers.

Other regular targets of the magazine included [[David Lloyd George]], [[Lord Northcliffe|Alfred Viscount Northcliffe]], [[H. G. Wells]], [[Frank Harris]], and [[Sinn Féin]]. In December 1920 the magazine was the first to publish the secret constitution of the [[Irish Republican Brotherhood]].

From 25 December 1920 it began publishing notorious articles alleging that a "powerful individual in the Admiralty" had alerted the Germans at the [[Battle of Jutland]] that the British had broken their code, and that [[Winston Churchill]] had falsified a report in return for a large sum of money from [[Ernest Cassel]], who thereby profited. In May 1921 Douglas insinuated that [[Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener|Lord Kitchener]] had been murdered by Jews.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Stephen |last=Heathorn |title=Haig and Kitchener in Twentieth-Century Britain: Remembrance, Representation and Appropriation |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=London, England |date=2016 |isbn=978-0754669654 |pages=68–72}}</ref>

Douglas ceased to be editor after issue 67 in 1921, after a row with Spencer.<ref>Toczek, p. 34,</ref> He then produced a short-lived, almost identical rival called ''Plain Speech'' in 1921 with [[Herbert Moore Pim]]. Its first issue contained a letter from a correspondent in Germany praising "[[Adolf Hitler|Herr {{sic|hide=y|Hittler}}]]" (so spelt) and "[[Nazi Party|The German White Labour Party]]".

In 1920 he adhered to the idea of "the Jewish Peril", but noted, "Christian Charity forbids us to join in wholesale and indiscriminate abuse and vilification of an entire race."<ref>Christian Charity and the Jews, ''Plain English'' No. 4, 31 July 1920, p. 78.</ref> In 1921 he declared it was not acceptable to "shift responsibility" onto the Jews.<ref>"The Jews, 'The Britons' and the ''Morning Post''", ''Plain Speech'' No. 10, 24 December 1921, p. 149.</ref> In his 1929 ''Autobiography'' he wrote, "I feel now that it is ridiculous to make accusations against the Jews, attributing them qualities and methods which are really much more typically English than Jewish," and then indicated the country had only itself to blame if the Jews came in and trampled on it.<ref>''The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas'' (1929) pp. 303–304.</ref>

The historian [[Colin Holmes (historian)|Colin Holmes]] argued that while "Douglas had been to the forefront of anti-semitism in the early 1920s, he was quite unable to come to terms with the vicious racist anti-semitism in Germany" under the Nazis.<ref>Colin Holmes, ''Anti-Semitism in British Society, 1876–1939'' Routledge (1979) p. 218.</ref> Politically Douglas described himself as "a strong Conservative of the 'Diehard' variety".<ref>The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas (1929) p. 220.</ref>

==Libel actions==
Douglas started his "litigious and libellous career" by gaining an apology and 50 guineas each from the Oxford and Cambridge university magazines ''[[Isis magazine|Isis]]'' and ''Cambridge'' for defamatory references to him in an article on Wilde.<ref>(Murray p. 152.)</ref>

Douglas was plaintiff or defendant in several trials for civil or [[criminal libel]]. In 1913 he was charged with libelling his father-in-law. That same year he accused [[Arthur Ransome]] of libelling him in his book ''Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study''. He saw the trial as a weapon against his enemy Ross, not understanding that Ross would not be called to give evidence. The court found in Ransome's favour and Douglas was bankrupted by the failed libel suit.<ref>[https://www.thegazette.co.uk/Edinburgh/issue/12530/page/77 The Edinburgh Gazette Publication date:17 January 1913 Issue: 12530, Page 77].</ref> Ransome removed the offending passages from the second edition.<ref>Ransome, Arthur, ''Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study'', 2nd ed., Methuen, 1913.</ref>

The prime case was brought by the Crown on [[Winston Churchill]]'s behalf in 1923. Douglas was found guilty of libelling Churchill and sentenced to six months in prison. Churchill had been accused as cabinet minister of falsifying an official report on the [[Battle of Jutland]] in 1916, when although suffering losses, the Royal Navy drove the German battle fleet off the high seas. Churchill was said to have reported that the British Navy had in fact been defeated, the supposed motive being that when the news was flashed, British security prices would tumble on the world's stock exchanges, allowing a group of named Jewish financiers to snap them up cheaply. Churchill's reward was a houseful of furniture valued at [[Pound sterling|£]]40,000. The allegations were made by Douglas in ''Plain English'' and later at a public meeting in London. A false report of a crushing British naval defeat had indeed been planted in the New York press by German interests, but by this time (after the failure of his [[Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign|Dardanelles Campaign]]) Churchill was unconnected with the Admiralty. As the attorney general noted in court on Churchill's behalf, there was "no plot, no phoney communiqué, no stock market raid and no present of fine furniture".<ref>[http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,727630,00.html accessed 10/2/2017].</ref><ref>[http://www.jta.org/1923/12/13/archive/churchill-wins-libel-suit-against-douglas accessed 10/2/2017].</ref>

In 1924, while in prison, Douglas echoed Wilde's composition of ''De Profundis'' (From the Depths) during his incarceration and wrote his last major poetic work, ''In Excelsis'' (In the Highest) in 17 [[canto]]s. Since the prison authorities would not allow Douglas to take the manuscript with him on his release, he had to rewrite the work from memory. Douglas maintained that his health never recovered from his harsh prison ordeal, which included sleeping on a plank bed without a mattress.

==Later life==
Douglas's feelings towards Wilde began to soften after Douglas's own incarceration in 1924. He wrote in ''Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up'', "Sometimes a sin is also a crime (for example, a murder or theft), but this is not the case with homosexuality, any more than with adultery."<ref>(Murray pp 309–310)</ref> In 1933 he gave a talk about poetry to the Catholic Poetry Society on 'The Catholic attitude to certain poets.' Of Wilde, Douglas said: 'Many years [after Wilde's death] and after I had become a Catholic, I reacted violently against him...Converts are very apt to be censorious and to be more Catholic than Catholics...I hope I am now more charitable and broad-minded than I was...After swinging to two extremes in my estimate of Wilde I have now got into what I believe to be the happy mean.'<ref>{{cite book |last1=Murray |first1=Douglas |title=Bosie: The Tragic Life of Lord Alfred Douglas |date=2020 |publisher=Sceptre |page=266 |edition=2nd}}</ref> Similarly, in 1935 he wrote to the theatre manager Norman Marshall regarding Marshall's proposed production of a play about the Wilde scandal, closing his letter, 'Devoted as I still am and always will be to the memory of this brilliant and wonderful man and conscious as I am and always shall be about my own failings...Wilde was the author of what I consider to be, apart from Shakespeare, the finest comedy in the English language.'<ref>{{cite book |title=Ibid |page=281}}</ref>

Throughout the 1930s and up to his death, Douglas kept up correspondence with many people, including [[Marie Stopes]] and [[George Bernard Shaw]]. [[Anthony Wynn]] based his play ''Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship'' on the letters between Shaw and Douglas. One of Douglas's final public appearances was a well-received lecture to the [[Royal Society of Literature]] on 2 September 1943 on ''The Principles of Poetry'', published in an edition of 1,000 copies. He attacked the poetry of [[T. S. Eliot]]; the talk was praised by [[Arthur Quiller-Couch]] and [[Augustus John]].<ref>Murray pp. 318–319.</ref>

[[Harold Nicolson]] described his impression of Douglas after meeting him at a lunch party in 1936: {{blockquote|There is a little trace of his good looks left. His nose has assumed a curious beaklike shape, his mouth has twisted into shapes of nervous irritability, and his eyes, although still blue, are yellow and bloodshot. He makes nervous and twitching movements with freckled and claw-like hands. He stoops slightly and drags a leg. Yet behind this appearance of a little, cross, old gentleman flits the shape of a young man of the 'nineties, with little pathetic sunshine-flashes of the 1893 boyishness and gaiety. I had fully expected the self-pity, suspicion and implied irritability, but I had not foreseen that there would be any remnant of merriment and boyishness. Obviously the great tragedy of his life has scarred him deeply. He talked very frankly about his marriage and about his son, who is in a home at [[Northampton]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Harold Nicolson Diaries & Letters 1930–39 |author=Harold Nicolson |publisher=Collins |year=1966 |page=261}}</ref>}}

In the book, ''Secret Historian'', Samuel Steward (a professor, poet, and novelist) wrote in his diary that he met Lord Alfred Douglas when Douglas was 67; Steward was 27. Lord Alfred professed that he was beyond "sins of the flesh," yet ends up in bed with Steward. Douglas proclaims that Wilde and he did little more than kiss and find other men for each other.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Justin Spring |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|year=2010}}</ref>

Douglas's only child, Raymond, was diagnosed in 1927, at the age of 24, with [[schizoaffective disorder]] and entered [[St Andrew's Hospital]], a mental institution. Though decertified and discharged after five years, he suffered another breakdown and returned to the hospital. In February 1944, when his mother died of a [[cerebral haemorrhage]] at the age of 70, Raymond was able to attend her funeral, and in June he was again decertified. His conduct rapidly deteriorated, and he again returned to St Andrew's in November, where he stayed until his death on 10 October 1964.<ref>[http://www.anthonywynn.com/bosietimeline/ "Timeline to the Life of Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas" anthonywynn.com] Retrieved 24 August 2011.</ref>

==Death==
[[File:Lord Alfred Douglas's Grave.jpg|alt=Douglas' gravestone|thumb|The grave of Alfred Douglas (and mother) at the [[Friary Church of St Francis and St Anthony, Crawley]], Sussex, pictured in December 2021]]
Douglas died of [[congestive heart failure]] in [[Lancing, West Sussex]], on 20 March 1945 at the age of 74. He was buried on 23 March at the [[Friary Church of St Francis and St Anthony, Crawley|Franciscan Friary]], [[Crawley]], alongside his mother, who had died on 31 October 1935 at the age of 90. They share a gravestone.<ref name="Bastable1983-147">{{Cite book |last=Bastable |first=Roger |title=Crawley: A Pictorial History |publisher=Phillimore & Co |location=Chichester |year=1983 |isbn=978-0-85033-503-3 |page=§147|no-pp=y}}</ref>

The elderly Douglas, living a reduced life in [[Hove]] in the 1940s, appears in the diaries of [[Henry Channon]] and in the first autobiography of [[Donald Sinden]], whose son [[Marc Sinden]] claimed his father was one of only two people at the funeral.<ref>Libby Purvis interviews Freddie Fox. ''The Times'', 17 January 2013, p. 8.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Sir Donald Sinden: Legendary actor dies aged 90 |publisher=BBC News |date=12 September 2014 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29170107 |access-date=12 September 2014}}</ref> In fact the funeral report in ''[[The Times]]'' named some 20 mourners, including Sinden, with "other friends".<ref>"Funeral: Lord Alfred Douglas", ''The Times'', 24 March 1945, p. 7.</ref> He died at the home of Edward and Sheila Colman, who were the main beneficiaries in his will, inheriting the copyright to his work.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4266970/World-of-books.html A. N. Wilson in ''The Telegraph'' 26 November 2001]</ref>

==Writings==
Douglas published several volumes of poetry and two books about his relationship with Wilde, ''Oscar Wilde and Myself'' (1914, largely ghost-written by [[Thomas William Hodgson Crosland|T. W. H. Crosland]], assistant editor of the literary journal ''[[The Academy (periodical)|The Academy]]'' and later repudiated by Douglas) and ''Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up'' (1940). He also wrote two memoirs: ''The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas'' (1929) and ''Without Apology'' (1938).

Douglas edited ''The Academy'' from 1907 to 1910, during which time he had an affair with the artist [[Romaine Brooks]], who was also [[bisexual]]. The main love of her life, [[Natalie Clifford Barney]], also had an affair with Wilde's niece [[Dorothy Wilde|Dorothy]] and even, in 1901, with Douglas's future wife [[Olive Custance]], the year before the couple married.

Of the six biographies of Douglas, the earlier ones by Braybrooke and Freeman were forbidden to quote from his copyright work, while ''De Profundis'' was unpublished. Later biographies were by Rupert Croft-Cooke, [[H. Montgomery Hyde]] (who also wrote about Wilde), [[Douglas Murray (author)|Douglas Murray]] (who called Braybrooke's biography "a rehash and exaggeration of Douglas's book" [his autobiography]). The most recent is ''Alfred Douglas: A Poet's Life and His Finest Work'' by [[Caspar Wintermans]] in 2007.

In 1999, The University of Oxford established the Lord Alfred Douglas Memorial Prize for "...the best sonnet or other poem written in English and in strict rhyming metre."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/prizes-and-studentships#collapse385946 | title=Prizes and Studentships }}</ref> The award was established by Douglas's friend Sheila Colman, who, on her death, left a legacy of $36,000 to fund the award.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-25-me-8154-story.html | title=Sheila Colman, 82; Tended Wilde's Lover | website=[[Los Angeles Times]] | date=25 November 2001 }}</ref>

===Poetry===
*''Poems'' (1896)
*''Tails with a Twist'' "by a Belgian Hare" (1898)
*[https://archive.org/details/cityofsoul00douguoft ''The City of the Soul'' (1899).]
*''The Duke of Berwick'' (1899)
*''The Placid Pug'' (1906)
*''The Pongo Papers and the Duke of Berwick'' (1907)
*''Sonnets'' (1909)
*''The Collected Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas'' (1919)
*''In Excelsis'' (1924)
*''The Complete Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas'' (1928)
*''Sonnets'' (1935)
*''Lyrics'' (1935)
*''The Sonnets of Lord Alfred Douglas'' (1943)

===Non-fiction===
*''Oscar Wilde and Myself'' (1914) (ghost-written by [[T. W. H. Crosland]]<ref>{{Cite book |author=Jonathan Fryer |title=Robbie Ross: Oscar Wilde's Devoted Friend |year=2000 |publisher=Carrol & Graf, New York and Constable & Robinson, London |page=[https://archive.org/details/robbierossoscarw00frye/page/224 224] |url=https://archive.org/details/robbierossoscarw00frye/page/224 |isbn=978-0-7867-0781-2 |url-access=registration}}</ref>)
*Foreword to ''New Preface to the 'Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde''' by Frank Harris (1925)
*Introduction to ''Songs of Cell by Horatio Bottomley'' (1928)
*''The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas'' (1929; 2nd ed. 1931)
*''My Friendship with Oscar Wilde'' (1932; retitled American version of his memoir)
*''The True History of Shakespeare's Sonnets'' (1933)
*Introduction to ''The Pantomime Man'' by Richard Middleton (1933)
*Preface to ''Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris, and Oscar Wilde'' by Robert Harborough Sherard (1937)
*''Without Apology'' (1938)
*Preface to ''[[Oscar Wilde (play)|Oscar Wilde: A Play]]'' by [[Leslie Stokes]] and [[Sewell Stokes]] (1938)
*Introduction to ''Brighton Aquatints'' by John Piper (1939)
*''Ireland and the War Against Hitler'' (1940)
*''Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up'' (1940)
*Introduction to ''Oscar Wilde and the Yellow Nineties'' by [[Frances Winwar]] (1941)
*''The Principles of Poetry'' (1943)
*Preface to ''Wartime Harvest'' by Marie Carmichael Stopes (1944)

==In Popular Culture==
In the films ''[[Oscar Wilde (film)|Oscar Wilde]]'' and ''[[The Trials of Oscar Wilde]]'', both released in 1960, Douglas was portrayed by [[John Neville (actor)|John Neville]] and [[John Fraser (actor)|John Fraser]] respectively. In the 1997 British film ''[[Wilde (film)|Wilde]]'', Douglas was portrayed by [[Jude Law]]. In the 2018 film ''[[The Happy Prince (2018 film)|The Happy Prince]]'', he was portrayed by [[Colin Morgan]].

In the BBC drama ''[[Oscar (TV serial)|Oscar]]'' (1985) he was portrayed by [[Robin McCallum|Robin Lermitte]] (credited as Robin McCallum); [[Michael Gambon]] played Wilde.

The queer history podcast [[Bad Gays (podcast)|Bad Gays]] covered Douglas in Episode 2 of their first season.<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 2019 |title=Episode Archive |url=https://badgayspod.com/listen |access-date=August 4, 2024 |website=Bad Gays Podcast}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
*Patrick Braybrooke, ''Lord Alfred Douglas: His Life and Work'' (1931)
*Richard Ellmann, ''Oscar Wilde''. New York: Vintage Books (1988) {{ISBN|978-0-394-75984-5}}
*William Freeman, ''Lord Alfred Douglas: Spoilt Child of Genius'' (1948)
*Marquess of Queensberry, [Francis Douglas] and Percy Colson. ''Oscar Wilde and the Black Douglas'' (1949)
*[[Rupert Croft-Cooke]], ''Bosie: Lord Alfred Douglas, His Friends and Enemies'' (1963)
*Brian Roberts, ''The Mad Bad Line: The Family of Lord Alfred Douglas'' (1981)
*Mary Hyde, ed., ''Bernard Shaw and Alfred Douglas: A Correspondence'' (1982)
*[[H. Montgomery Hyde]], ''Lord Alfred Douglas: A Biography'' (1985) {{ISBN|0-413-50790-4}}
*Douglas Murray, ''Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas'' (2000) {{ISBN|0-340-76771-5}}
*Trevor Fisher, ''Oscar and Bosie: A Fatal Passion'' (2002) {{ISBN|0-7509-2459-4}}
*[http://www.mmkaylor.com Michael Matthew Kaylor, ''Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde'' (2006)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230604143426/http://mmkaylor.com/ |date=4 June 2023 }}, a 500-page scholarly volume that considers the Victorian writers of [[Uranian poetry]] and prose, such as Douglas
*Timothy d'Arch Smith, ''Love in Earnest. Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English 'Uranian' Poets from 1889 to 1930.'' (1970) {{ISBN|0-7100-6730-5}}
*[[Caspar Wintermans]], ''Alfred Douglas: A Poet's Life and His Finest Work'' (2007) {{ISBN|978-0-7206-1270-7}}
*Molly Whittington-Egan, "Such White Lilies: Frank Miles & Oscar Wilde" Rivendale Press, January 2008

==External links==
{{Commons category|Alfred Douglas}}
{{wikisource author}}
*[http://www.AlfredDouglas.com Unofficial website of Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas]
*{{Gutenberg author |id=Douglas,+(AKA+The+Belgian+Hare)+Alfred}}
*{{Internet Archive author |sname=Lord Alfred Douglas}}
*{{Librivox author |id=2725}}
*{{UK National Archives ID}}
*[http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/?q=(alfred+douglas)+AND+personsort%3A%22Douglas%2C+Alfred+Bruce%2C+Lord%2C+1870-1945.%22 Numerous archival resources relating to Lord Alfred Douglas] are listed in [http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid ArchiveGrid]
*[https://www.victoriainstitutions.com/douglas/00] by Lord Alfred Douglas (with commentary by VED from Victoria Institutions)
*[https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4078457 Finding aid to Alfred Bruce Douglas papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.]

{{Oscar Wilde|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

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