Oscar Wilde
And then the dragon awoke. Bosie's father, the violent, eccentric, cantankerous Marquess
of Queensberry, became aware that Bosie, whose "unmanly" and careless behaviour he
despised, was cavorting around London with its greatest playwright, Oscar Wilde.
In 1895, days after the triumphant first night of "The Importance Of Being Earnest",
Queensberry stormed into Wilde's club, The Albemarle, and finding him absent left a card
with the porter, addressed "To Oscar Wilde posing Somdomite". Bosie, who hated his father,
persuaded Oscar to sue the Marquess for libel. As homosexuality was itself illegal,
Queensberry was able to destroy Oscar's case at the trial by calling as witnesses rent boys who
would describe Wilde's sexual encounters in open court.
Oscar lost the libel case against Queensberry and was arrested by the crown. With
essentially no credible defence against charges of homosexual conduct, he was convicted and
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