Subjects:

Legal History

On the 18th of February 1895, four days after the opening of The Importance of Being Earnest, the Marquess of Queensberrry deposited at the Albermarle Club a card on which was writteN: 'To Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite.' This misspelt but calculated challenge sounded the bell for the first round in one of the most bizarre contests ever staged at the Old Bailey.

The prosecution (for criminal libel) of the eccentric Queensberry had to be abandoned bySir Edward Clarke, and the Crown then took action against Oscar Wilde. At his second trial he was convicted of gross indecency with male persons and imprisoned for two years with hard labour. He died in Paris, bankrupt, in 1900.

These cases were remarkable for the disgraceful evidence of public jubilation over the verdicts; for the insane antics of Queensberry on behalf of his son, Lord Alfred Douglas, the young poet; and for the absurd vanity of Wilde himself, who tripped fatally during Carson's pitiless cross-examintion.