Another of his uncles, Lord Francis Douglas (1847–1865) had died in a climbing accident on the Matterhorn. Separated from Florrie, James drank himself into a deep depression, and in 1891 committed suicide by cutting his throat. In 1885, Lord James tried to abduct a young girl, and after that became ever more manic in 1888, he made a disastrous marriage. 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, Sir Alexander Beaumont Churchill Dixie. In 1862, his widowed grandmother, Lady Queensberry, converted to Roman Catholicism and took her children to live in Paris. 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.

In 1893, Douglas had a brief affair with George Ives. 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. At Oxford, he edited an undergraduate journal, The Spirit Lamp (1892–3), an activity that intensified the constant conflict between him and his father. The Marquess later married Ethel Weeden in 1893 but the marriage was annulled the following year.ĭouglas was educated at Wixenford School, Winchester College (1884–88) and Magdalen College, Oxford (1889–93), which he left without obtaining a degree. His mother successfully sued for divorce in 1887 on the grounds of his father's adultery. 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. His father, The 9th Marquess of Queensberryĭouglas 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. The phrase ' The love that dare not speak its name' appears in one, ( Two Loves), though it is widely misattributed to Wilde. Douglas wrote several books of verse, some in a homoerotic Uranian genre. He was jailed for libelling Winston Churchill over claims of World War I misconduct. On converting to Roman Catholicism in 1911, he repudiated homosexuality, and in a high Catholic magazine, Plain English, expressed openly anti-Semitic views, but rejected the policies of Nazi Germany. Douglas married a poet, Olive Custance, in 1902 and had a son, Raymond. On his release, he briefly lived with Douglas in Naples, but they had separated by the time Wilde died in 1900. Wilde sued him for criminal libel, but some intimate notes were found and Wilde was later imprisoned.

Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, abhorred it and set out to humiliate Wilde, publicly accusing him of homosexuality.

At Oxford he edited an undergraduate journal, The Spirit Lamp, that carried a homoerotic subtext, and met Wilde, starting a close but stormy relationship. 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.

Oscar wilde and alfred douglas