The Rest Is History - 341: The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Sex and Scandal

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” As his most popular work, "The Importance of Being Earnest", hints at, Oscar Wilde’s life was a complicated one. Perhaps the most famous gay martyr in history, Wilde is often presented as a sacrificial victim destroyed by a bigoted and puritanical establishment. But the story of how Wilde came to prominence, and eventually sued his lover’s father for libel, is one as surprising as it is complex. Join Tom and Dominic as they explore Oscar Wilde’s journey from the heights of brilliant success to the depths of notoriety and suffering. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. I can't spell it right. So you just give a fake name, your cafe name, Julia. But the more you use it, the more it feels like you're in witness protection. Wait a minute. What kind of espresso drinks does Julia like anyway? Is it too late to change your latte order? But with an espresso machine by KitchenAid, you wouldn't be thinking any of this because you could have just made your espresso at home.

Shop now at KitchenAid.ca. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either. And modern literature, a complete impossibility. That wouldn't be at all a bad thing. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't try it. You should leave that to people who haven't been at a university. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You

are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know. Tom, what on earth do you mean? You have invented, Dominic, a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn't for Bunbury's extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's tonight,

for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week. So that was The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I think we can safely describe that as one of the ripest performances that we've heard for a long time in the rest of its history. Tom, we're out here in the sunshine in Washington, D.C. We are. Annoying Americans with your... Affected. Yeah.

Affected, indeed. Affected. Affected tones. So if you hear dogs... Helicopters. You know that's because we're out here in Washington. And Tom, our subject today, it's a cracking subject, isn't it? The Trials of Oscar Wilde.

The Trials of Oscar Wilde. And we began with Importance Being Earnest, which is his most famous play, gloriously funny play. Jack Worthing, Algernon Moncrief, two kind of young gentlemen about town in London. Algernon Moncrief's terrifying aunt Augusta, is lady bracknell as in a hundberg all that kind of i wondered how long it would take yeah well we get it straight in and i have a particular fondness for that play because it inspired the very first piece of writing for which i got paid which was a play called the importance of being frank which reworked the plot of the importance of being earnest to tell the story of oscar wilde himself so in that play, Jack Worthing became Oscar Wilde,

Algernon Moncrief became Bosie, Lord Alfred Douglas. You are an excellent Bosie, Tom. Thank you very much. Who was Wilde's lover. And Aunt Augusta, Lady Bracknell, became the Marquess of Queensbrook. Oh, very good. Who was Bosie's father and who was so furious about the affair that wild and douglas were having that he kind of went around london accusing wild of being a somdomite it's a misspelled opposing

somdomite yes and wild then charged him with libel yeah came to court the evidence that queensberry rustled up was so devastating for wild's case that he withdrew the libel accusation and then he wild in turn got arrested there were two trials and he ended up being sent to prison he did it's the story isn't it it's the it's the great 19th century martyrdom story i suppose certainly that's how it's perceived now there was the film with stephen fry as oscar wilde and oscar wilde is now i would say seen across the western world as this great martyr in the course of gay rights isn't he i mean that's pretty much how he's seen as the sacrificial victim destroyed by a repressive old-fashioned puritanical establishment which as we will see in these episodes, is actually not quite right.

The story is much more interesting and more complicated, isn't it? So, you criticise me for saying things that are always more complicated than they seem. Well, Dominic, yes. As Algernon said in the passage in Importance Being Earnest we just opened with, the truth is rarely pure and never simple. Very good. And in this case, it's absolutely true so tom oscar wilde born in dublin in 1854 the son of an ireland's leading ophthalmologist and lady wilde so that's sir william his father and lady wilde

was a nationalist poet under the pen name speranza so give us a sense for those people not massively familiar with him and his work why he mattered in the late 19th century and what he you know why do we remember him why was he such a big figure so he's intellectually very brilliant he takes degrees at trinity college dublin which is the of course the protestant university in dublin that we were talking about um only a couple of weeks ago uh he then goes to ox, does classics, wins all kinds of prizes there. And he leaves and becomes a kind of, he sets himself up really as a kind of professional East seat. Yes. To the degree that Gilbert and Sullivan write an opera about him. And they then take it to America and Wilde goes to America with the opera. And he kind of famously arrives wearing all kinds of

incredible clothing and is asked, you know, does he have anything to declare? And says, I have only my genius to declare. Which is what you said to the immigration official yesterday. Yes, and was then all the way. Do you know what I said to the immigration official? Said to me, which one are you? Because we'd had to explain who we were. He said to me, which one are you in the partnership?

You know, are you his boss or is he yours? And I said, oh, well, I'm not his boss. He said, well, which one are you? I said, I'm the funny one and the one who knows about history he found that very entertaining did he so you declared your genius dominic exactly very nice exactly mr williams just shout out to mr officer williams of the u.s border force so wild did not need a straight man as i do so he just came on his own he kind of became kind of international star for being witty, for being funny, for incredible kind of intellectual brilliance. And his works, you really rate his

works. You know, it's not just about the persona. You think what he produced were works of tremendous literary elegance. Yes. So he comes back to Britain. He amazingly, he becomes the editor of the Ladies magazine and he turns it into a kind of proto spare rib. So he's back to Britain. Amazingly, he becomes the editor of the Ladies magazine and he turns it into a kind of proto spare rib. So he's very kind of progressive, very kind of feminist. And then he gets bored of doing that. And he, from basically from kind of 1890 onwards, he embarks on kind of one of the great sequences of literary successes in British cultural history. So he produces a novel, Dorian Gray, which will feature in the story of The Trials, because it's about a beautiful young man who is up to all kinds of sinister things that Wilde doesn't specify in the novel. And he has a picture

up in the attic, which all the kind of depravity and evil that he's doing is reflected in the painting. Dorian Gray maintains his beauty throughout. He writes a famous tragedy, Salome. He writes a series of brilliantly sophisticated and witty essays. And he writes a series of comedies. Lady Windermere's fan, A Woman of No Importance, and the most famous one of all, The Importance of Being Earnest, which is probably the lightest funniest freshest comedy in english i would say but let's get into the other side of wild's life so well or is it really another side because of course it's reflected

in his writings so obviously because this episode and the next episode are about his trials there's going to be a lot of sex so this probably isn't one for the kind of five and six year old listeners but the interesting thing about wild i discovered from matthew sturgis's biography so at university and as a very young man he's actually sexually very abstemious there's actually no hint of people say of him his friends say of him he's very prim yeah they talk of his purely refinement of nature one of them calls him one of the purest-minded men that could be met with. And actually, you know, even as he's establishing his reputation as an East Thete, there is no hint of scandal. And he marries Constance Holland.

Constance Holland, exactly. No relation. And they have two children. But the turning point seems to be, so in 1886, so just at the point where he's about to embark on this period of extraordinary literary output, you know, the high point of his genius, as it were. He meets a 17-year-old, I mean, we would say a boy or a young man called Robbie Ross, who is at a grammar school. He's preparing for Cambridge. And he is...

Absolutely proud. Exactly. He is what we would now call gay he's completely comfortable with it he's admitted that side of his nature to himself and as far as we can tell he seduces the old much older oscar he introduces him to this side of his nature yeah and and wild discovers he really enjoys it and i think he enjoys it on a physical level but i think he enjoys it also on an emotional level because if you think of the plot of dorian gray the idea of secrets and kind of a sense of elevated knowledge amplifying your status is something that he really enjoys and the great theme of wild's writing really is the fact that life is always paradox and yeah and that it's impossible to pin a person down if you can pin a person down then that person is basically dead so he's always

looking for ways to kind of complicate who he is and what his relationship is to his writings and to his kind of, you know, the world in which he's situated. And I think that he had studied classics at Oxford and he identifies very, very strongly with the notion that we talked about actually in our previous episode about Hadrian Antinous, the idea that the Greeks had an elevated understanding of what sexuality could be and that this was focused on same-sex relationships and so he comes to identify this i mean he rapidly becomes very very promiscuous and he seems to have identified this with the kind of cultural superiority that he had obtained by studying ancient greek yeah he thinks he's in

the tradition of the greeks there's a kind of platonic ideal of love which is represented by the love of two men he thinks that shakespeare yes he looks into shakespeare michelangelo marlo it's not just that he physically enjoys it as you say it's that it appeals it elevates yes it elevates him exactly now the interesting thing is that this is 1886 one year earlier there had been a change in the law so since 1533 the buggery act passed under emily the eighth had made sodomy the detestable and abominable vice of buggery as it was called and the act had made it a capital crime obviously by the mid-19th century people are no longer being executed for it. They're being sent to prison. But in 1885, and it's a very complicated story, so we'll just give a kind

of simplified version. There was legislation which was actually about techting women, because there was a great obsession at the time with what people called the white slave trade and young girls being trafficked. A liberal MP henry labouchere introduced an amendment it's still debated by historians whether he was sort of messing around and wrecking the bill he thought he was wrecking the bill or whether he genuinely believed it because he was a radical he was a sort of tub thumping campaigner but this amendment criminalized not just sodomy but any what they called gross indecency of one male person with another male person and made it a misdemeanor. So it's not a crime. It's a misdemeanor. And

the maximum sentence is two years with or without hard labor. So in other words, whereas previously you had to be, I mean, to be blunt about it, you had to be convicted of penetration to get into trouble with the law and then you get life imprisonment and then you get yeah a variety of sentences but from 1885 so a year before oscar wilde discovers this taste as it were any form of interaction so any kind of messing around and fumbling and whatever is now liable for prosecution and i think that that only enhances the pleasure for Wilde. So he will come to talk about his relationship with kind of male partners as

feasting with panthers. And I think that for Wilde, that sense of danger absolutely amplifies the pleasure. So he will call his series of relationships with young men feasting with panthers precisely because it is so dangerous. That is clearly, I think, a crucial part of this story. The story of Wilde's trials are situated against this change in the law. But Dominic, I think there's also another, potentially even more intriguing aspect, which is a crucial shift in the understanding of how sexuality functions, of what sexuality actually is. And we are the heirs of this revolution. And the revolution has triumphed

so completely that perhaps we don't even realize that there's been one. So essentially, that law of Henry VIII that you mentioned, what that is doing is operating on an assumption that sexual acts are moral crimes that they are deliberate actions taken by sinners who are so depraved so evil so much the creature of their lusts that they're not willing to operate within the the kind of the guidelines that god has set so it's moral And they're what you do rather than what you are. It's what you do. So there is no concept that you might, for instance, you might be gay. There's no concept of that at all. But in the second half of the 19th century, this has begun to change. And what you see is the kind of the medicalization of what had previously

been something that was seen as being a moral offense. And this is particularly associated with German psychology. And it's Germans who coined the phrase homosexuality. Yeah. So it's a kind of portmanteau word, mixture of Latin and Greek, like television. And the guy who popularizes it is a German psychologist called Richard von Kraft-Ebbing, who writes this great book about it called The Psychopathia Sexualis, which is translated into English in 1892. So that's three years before Wilde goes to trial. And the thing that's interesting about this is partly that

Kraft-Ebbing is kind of casting homosexuality, this idea that people have a particular condition, a kind of morbid condition, as he describes it, as a disease, as something that is as a morbidity. And therefore, there is a hint in Kraft-Ebbing that people should be treated with sympathy. And furthermore, by the end of his career, Kraft-Ebbing has come into such kind of contact with people who come to identify themselves as homosexual, that he's arguing that it should be decriminalized completely and that people who are homosexual can lead kind of the equivalent of a married life so he's always kind of prefiguring gay marriage now this matters i think for wild because even as he is sleeping around a lot with young men kind of casual affairs he does meet the great love of his life, who is Alfred Lord Douglas, the son of the Marquess of Queensbury.

And this sense that homosexual love can be something that is dignified, that it is something that is noble, that it is something that is pure, perhaps even purer and nobler than a kind of conventional heterosexual relationship is something that both wild and bozzi his name for alfred douglas really really get into and it kind of fuses with this greek roman idea well before we get into that before we get to bozzi let's get to the end of the 1880s so wild had sort of had discovered this taste as it were if that's i mean that's obviously not the right expression but you know what i mean in 1886 quite quickly he becomes increasingly reckless so he's having assignations with much younger men men 18 19 20 21 he's in his mid-30s and what's interesting so we have this image i think tom of the late victorians of the sort of the world of the criminalization of homosexual behavior we often think of it as almost totalitarian in its repression but that's not quite right so wild is obviously getting away with this behavior it's an open secret in literary and

theatrical circles in london and indeed elsewhere so rumors kind of spread so when his book the portrait of dorian gray which you mentioned earlier when that comes out in 1890, it's interesting how a lot of the reviews of Dorian Gray see it against the background, I think, of this kind of reckless behavior. So here's the Daily Chronicle. The Daily Chronicle says of Dorian Gray, it's a poisonous tale spawned by the leprous literature of the French decadence, heavy with the odors of moral and spiritual putrefaction. We've all had bad reviews like that. Well, that's what a lot of people say about this podcast.

Here's a much more interesting one. The Scots Observer says, it's the kind of tale that would appeal to none but outlawed noblemen and perverted telegraph boys. Now, why perverted telegraph boys? Well, because a year earlier in 1889, there has been a scandal called the Cleveland Street Scandal, when a homosexual brothel has been exposed. Telegraph boys, so basically messenger boys, are selling themselves to aristocrats. So the most famous example is a guy called Lord Arthur Somerset, who was the equerry to the Prince of Wales. He actually fled abroad to avoid prosecution.

So when the paper says this is a tale that will appeal to Telegraph Boys... They understand exactly what the code is in Picture of Dorian Gray. And many readers will also say, ah, so now we know. And of course, the thing about the Telegraph Boys and the aristocrats, also there's something else going on there, which is this suspicion throughout the 1880s, 1890s, 1900s. We talked about it with the Kaiser, actually, in Germany, Tom. This suspicion, which is very widespread in the Western world,

that rich and powerful people are part of this sinister homosexual elite who are secretly having assignations with rent boys. I mean, this is all around in that kind of late Victorian Edwardian world. And again, that feeds into the idea that there is something elevated about Greek love, as both Bosie and Wilde would call it. So Bosie kind of celebrates what he calls a frank paganism, because you have to have, you know, to study Greek and Latin at Oxford or Cambridge, you have to have the education and the class and the background to do it. So let's talk a little bit about Bosie. Bosie is Lord Alfred Douglas. He's the third son of

the Marquess of Greensbury. So he's the aristocrat who codifies the rules of boxing. Bosie had... And he's very much the kind of man who you would associate with codifies the rules of boxing. Bosie had... And he's very much the kind of man who you would associate with codifying the laws of boxing. He's got tremendous side whiskers, hasn't he? And he's terrifying. Yeah. He's a sort of hulking figure who crosses London,

falling out with people. He's a very keen secularist, Tom. Yes, he is. He disrupted an Alfred Lord Tennyson play because it had a disobliging portrait of an atheist. And he has been thrown out of the theatre for shouting. So he a very strange figure the marquis of greensbury eccentric maverick badly behaved dangerous enemy to have yeah very dangerous enemy so wild meets bozzi who's 20 in 1891 they start an affair in 1892 but i think think, Dominic, important just to emphasize that Bosie is much more experienced than Wilde in terms of gay relationships.

Yes, he is. So he's been having relationships at Winchester at school and at Oxford. They immediately strike up. I mean, what some people, so I mean, I'll put my cards on the table. I think Bosie was an absolutely terrible, terrible man. Terrible piece of work. Yeah. Yes. And they strike up what I think a lot of people including some of wild's friends would say is a

toxic relationship it's a relationship that is very bad for wild so they haven't actually been together very long as it were in august 1892 wild has taken a house in norfolk a sort of summer home for his family he invites invites Bosie along. He and Bosie stay there. And Bosie, from that point, it seems that Bosie basically introduces Wilde to this world in which Wilde had previously only dabbled, which is the world of,

there are places in London, despite the fact that homosexuality is criminalized, there are places in London where you can pick up rent boys there's a roller skating rink in knightsbridge the roller skate i mean it's so unexpected i know it's very 50s america milkshakes there's the bar at the st james's restaurant if you know you know and you go to these places and you pick up 17 18 19, 19-year-old young men. And they behave. It staggers me, you know, thinking about this story.

They behave with extraordinary recklessness. Knowing the climate of the time, they are picking up rent boys. We could give example after example, but the biographies are very similar. These are 19, 20-year-old clerks, office boys, servants, waiters. They're always inferior, socially inferior. But they are behaving, Tom. They are taking rooms at the Savoy and things. There's two brothers, Charlie and William Parker, for example.

Bozy lets them sleep in his bed. He lets them sleep in his bed so that the servants will see the next day. Wild at the Savoy, when the pages at the savoy come to bring him messages he thanks them by kissing them on the mouth which they find very alarming and then he gives them money yes so wild wild's approach to these boys i think you can call them boys because i mean they are pretty young is simultaneously he is a very kind. He's very generous. He's a great one handing out silver cigarette boxes. He does that all the time. I mean, he behaves well with them in that sense. He's a kind man. But at the same time, this is clearly very exploitative. He is much older. He's

much richer. He's in a position of power relative to them. And as we will find out in due course, when they are cited in the trial, Wilde's actions with them seems to have caused them quite a lot of psychological distress. So this is a fascinating question, which we, I mean, I guess listeners to the podcast will draw their own conclusions, and that will depend very much on your position, as it were.

But obviously there are two different ways of seeing this. One is to say Wilde is the victim of this incredibly censorious puritanical culture and he is martyr another way of seeing it which perhaps people in 2023 might be more inclined to do is to say wild is exploiting a power and wealth and i think wild himself would accept that so in due course you know he says about this time i grew careless of the lives of others which doesn't mean that he is regretting it, because for Wilde, the idea of paradox is incredibly important. The idea that you can be two things at once simultaneously is the whole essence of his understanding of what character is.

And also, he is very, very committed to the idea that genius, and particularly artistic genius, means that you are emancipated from the standards of kind of broader more conventional society so all of this is part of the kind of psychological mix of what is going on one quick thing tom some people may be wondering where's his wife and all this constance and the answer is she's at home with the kids he's constantly saying well i have to go to the savoy i have to go go and... And so hence the Bunbury thing. I mean, so when he comes to write The Importance of Being Earnest, you know, it's on the surface,

it seems a completely heterosexual play. But the moment you realize what all these jokes are about, the fact, you know, Bunbury and so on, this is exactly what Wilde is doing. But Tom, I mean, just on Constance, she's always left out of this story. She is innocent of all this.'s when i say innocent she has no conception of what is going on and she is distressed that wild is going off and leaving her and at one point she she's still

bringing him by the way his post so he will check into a hotel with bozie douglas she will bring him his post on one occasion she says to, when are you going to come home? And Wilde, in that flippant, dismissive way that he has, says, oh, I've been gone so long that I can't even remember the address.

And you sort of think there is a sad side to that story. It's funny and sad, exactly. So, meanwhile, Wilde's name is starting to be, become tainted by this in the view of the broader public. So here's one story.

They take a cottage in Goring by the Thames. The vicar comes around one day to see Oscar Wilde. Which is very important to being earnest. And Wilde is lying there in the garden without just a towel. Bosie is completely naked. They've been dousing each other with the hosepipe. They are perfectly Greek-seeming,

they describe it as. And there are stories that in Goring, it's an open secret at this point, the goes that at the pub the local pub the people are saying i'd like to go and punch that oscar wilde he's a terrible man what are they getting up to in that cottage so a lot of people now know and this is very like the plot of dorian gray where the reputation of dorian gray becomes steadily more and more evil and there's a sense in which Wilde is almost kind of reveling in the way that he is repeating the plot of that. But what really turbocharges the sense in the kind of general public that Wilde is indeed feasting with panthers is the behavior of Boese's father,

the Marcus of Queensbury. Oh, yeah. So the Marcus of Queensbury sees them. I mean, he has met Wilde and he's seen them together. He thinks, you know, my son has a friend who is a very famous and important man. But by the spring of 1894, you know, he's heard all the rumours.

He writes to Bosie, with my own eyes, I saw you both in the most loathsome and disgusting relationship as expressed by your manner and expression. You're disgusted, so-called father, Queensbury. To which Bosie's reply, sent by telegram, is, what a funny little man you are. Yeah, but Queensbury then says to him,

if I catch you again with that man, I'll make a public scandal in a way you little dream of. And a few weeks later, he actually goes around to Wilde's house. This is June 1894. Wilde says to him, I mean, Wilde is so, so reckless. He says him are you i mean wild is so so reckless he says are you seriously accusing me of sodomy and the marcus says i don't say you are but you look it and you poses it which is just as bad you know they have this massive argument queensbury says to him if i catch you and my son together in any public restaurant i will thrash you so this is that tells you the sort of man marcus queensberry is now even at that stage wild i mean just unbelievably self-destructively given what's to happen it's already

saying to his lawyers i'd like to sue the marquis of queensberry you know i'd like to take legal action against him for libeling me i mean this is crazy given that actually what the marcus of queensberry is saying is true yes so tom i mean the story gets so i mean it becomes the Marcus of Greensby is saying is true. Yes. So, Tom, I mean, the story gets so, I mean, it becomes the stuff of a pure Victorian melodrama, doesn't it? It does. The first night of the importance of being earnest. Yes. The libel case, the trial, and then subsequent trials.

So let's take a break before we plunge headlong into the seething stew of resentments, anxieties, accusations, and high melodrama. Wait a minute. What kind of espresso drinks does Julia like anyway? Is it too late to change your latte order? But with an espresso machine by KitchenAid, you wouldn't be thinking any of this because you could have just made your espresso at home. Shop now at KitchenAid.ca. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment.

It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.

Hello, welcome back to the rest is history we are talking the trials of oscar wilde and dominic we are approaching the first of those trials which is when wilde sues the marcus of queensbury the father of his lover bozzi for libel and it's a kind of mad thing for wilde to do isn't it it's completely mad it's completely mad so he's been threatened by the marcus greensbury the shadow the hulking shadow of this boxing enthusiast is hanging never take on a boxing enthusiast never is hanging over him and yet even now so by the way in the summer of 1894 just after he's had these threats wild is writing the play that we opened with the importance of being honest in worthing in worthing which so hence jack worthing and here's an example of wild's recklessness

he's in worthing that summer on the beach he's got bozzie douglas with him he's got his family his sons they pick up a trio of boys on the beach most famously a guy called alphonse conway who wild calls alfonso alfonso is 16 wild invites him out in dinghies and stuff you know going crabbing or whatever they do with wild's children but when they will get back you know when the children go to bed or whatever wild will go off with alfonso and there's a you know he will and i quote take hold of alfonso and fumble with him. How old is Alfonso? Alfonso is 16. So Alfonso, I think it's fair to describe Alfonso. He's not a young man.

He is a boy. And I think from the perspective of 2023, that's a story that makes uncomfortable reading. Don't you think, Tom, makes uncomfortable reading? And given the circumstances, so he knows this bloke is out there threatening to thrash him, to make a public scandal. I think just crazily reckless.

And so this play that he's written in Worthing while all this is going on, The Importance of Being Earnest, comes on stage at St. James' Theatre, 14th of February, so Valentine's Day, 1895. And it's this shimmering play about people leading secret lives in which nothing is quite as it seems. And it's a triumphant success. It's a brilliant play. Wilde is now the literary toast of London, but this shadow remains because the Marquess of Queensbury has been prowling around the theatre trying to get access. He can't get in and he has with him a grotesque bouquet of vegetables yeah which he he he wants to give to wild he can't get in and so he kind of storms off the description chattering like a monstrous ape so i mean it's kind of terrifying figure uh and so that's absolutely of course a shadow over the success of the importance

of the very next day tom the very next day wild again consults his lawyers and says i'd like to prosecute the marcus of queensbury get him off my case and so it's two weeks later isn't it tom that 28th of february he gets the provocation the fateful provocation that pushes him over the edge yes so he goes to the albemarle club and there a porter hands over this missive this note that has been left for him by the Marks of Queensbury. The porter has very discreetly put it in an envelope. Wilde takes it out. And here is this kind of

notorious accusation that Oscar Wilde is a ponce and a somdomite. Yeah, so it's at first, that's exactly what Wilde thinks it is. It's ponce and somdomite. But I think, I mean, the Marks of Queensbury has,

as monstrous apes tend to do, he has terrible handwriting. So I think the consensus is that actually it's posing sondermite or something like this. And Wilde goes to see Bosie and his friend, Robbie Ross, the very person who'd introduced him to homosexuality. And they say, yeah, go for it. Prosecute him. I mean, mad, by the way, completely mad. But the plan is that Wilde and Douglas are going to defend their relationship as something exalted, as something Greek, as something platonic, as something Shakespearean, and make the Marx of Queensbury look like a kind of gibbering ape. Yeah. It's basically the plan. It is the plan. And what, and Bosie, I mean, he says to Wilde, oh, sure,

it'll be very expensive, but don't worry, I'll pay for it. My family all hates my father. We'll all pay for it. We will basically put up the money for you to prosecute my father. So Wilde issues the writ and Marcus of Queensbury is arrested and he's brought to Marlborough Street Magistrate's Court and charged with publishing a criminal libel. Yeah. Now, the first thing that Marcuscus queensberry does is he engages somebody who will be well known to people who've listened to our recent episodes so he engages a

man who had been at university with oscar wilde who is edward carson later very famously the leader of the ulster unionists the great champion of anti-home rule ulster Unionism in the early 1910s. Now, this is always this sort of clash of the two men. It's almost always actually presented as kind of morality story with Carson as the villain. The interesting thing, actually, is that Carson didn't really want to take the case. First of all, he didn't like the idea of appearing against an old school friend. And also, he thought the Marquess of Queensbury's case was too weak. And the other interesting thing is that actually Wilde's solicitor had wanted to retain Carson for Wilde,

but had been beaten to the punch by the other side. Because Carson already has a reputation as this brilliant courtroom performer. Absolutely ruthless, devastating and placable and it's a bad way for wild that carson is on the other side i mean he gets a very very distinguished defense lawyer sir edward clark whose descendant tom is a member of the rest of history club it's wonderful to know isn't it peter clark kc so there you go so sir edward asks wild is there any truth in these accusations, as he has to? And Wilde says, absolutely none.

And so Clark prepares his defense on that assumption. On that assumption, exactly. But even at the very beginning, so the committal hearing, that's Saturday the 9th of March, even at that early stage, so when the Marcus of Queensbury has been committed for trial, Wilde is making a series of disastrous errors. So he turns up in this dark blue velvet overcoat, a white flower in his buttonhole, you know, the picture of aesthetic dandyism. His answers to the questions are flippant.

And, you know, are you a dramatist and author? I believe I am well known as a dramatist and author. And the magistrate says, just answer the question. Yes or no. There's all this kind of thing. Bosie, who's completely deluded, is going around saying everything is splendid. It's going to be a walkover. And actually, most people seem to assume that Wilde is going to lose.

So, yeah, even at this very, very early stage, they have a friend called Frank Harris, who's a publisher. And Wilde says to Frank Harris, will you give evidence on my behalf? And Frank Harris actually says, I don't think you're going to win. I mean, everybody knows you're... And starts to suggest, which will become a suggestion that is increasingly made to Wilde,

that he should basically run away to France. So even at this stage, some of Wilde's friends are saying, but we all know that you have no case but wild and bozzi bozzi is such a terrible person tom wild and bozzi are just in their little bubble aren't they they are consumed with contempt for the marquis of greensbury and i think for the kind of the philistinism of british society generally that doesn't have fine aesthetic feelings and doesn't know what it's like to be plato or shakespeare i think that's also a part of it there's a kind of a cultural elitism there's an arrogance actually and i think that well you

could call it you would call it arrogant i would call it elitist right you'd call it fine feelings elevated feelings but i think given the stakes given the danger it's crazy that they are charging ahead as they are so and it's a saturday morning the last saturday in march 1895 and the marcus of queensbury has to enter a plea of justification you know his lawyers have to present his case and to say why he's justified in making this claim. And to Wilde's shock and horror, they say, he thinks it's all going to be, has books, I mean, so self-deluding. And actually they say, we have a list as long as our arm. Of all these boys.

Of all these boys. Our solicitors have engaged investigators. They have tracked down Edward Shelley, Sidney Mavor, Fred Atkins, Maurice Schwab, Alfred Wood, Charles Parker, Walter Granger, Alphonse Conway, this list of three years' worth of assignations. And Wilde is absolutely stunned. And it's at that point for the first time that he thinks,

geez, if I lose this case, what will happen is the crown will immediately launch a case against me. The problem is, is that if he does flee abroad, then that's an admission of guilt as well. And again, he'll be ruined. So either way, both alternatives are disastrous. And so he decides he's the most articulate man of his generation. And I think he views Edward Carson as a second rate mind yeah he does knows him from school and thinks i'm going to trust my own oratory my own brilliance and hope that i can command the courtroom so the case opens the full trial opens on wednesday the 3rd of april 1895 at the old bailey at central Criminal Court in the Old Bailey.

For our overseas listeners, I mean, this is the great cockpit of the British legal system. You know, that gives you a sense of what a tremendous drama this is. From the start, Wilder's still playing the kind of flippant, the jokey remarks and all this, and he clearly,

he has contempt, as you said, for Carson. He thinks Carson's a second rate rate he does say to his counsel no doubt carson will perform his task with all the added bitterness of an old friend yes and he's right he's not wrong because wild is getting the laughs in court but carson is landing the blows which register with the jury because the jury are north london shopkeepers all men of course as was the way in those days wild is making the jokes carson is unsmiling he is cold he just asks his questions again and again so there's a thing right at the beginning carson is able to demonstrate that wild has been lying about his age that actually how old are you mr wild the wild lies and this is kind of riff on a joke in the Importance of Being Earnest, where Lady Bracknell

says that, you know, it's very bad form to give your real age. No one does this in polite society. But here it's not funny. Because Wilde says, I'm 39. And Carson says, but you're not, are you, Mr. Wilde? You're 40. And right from the start, it makes Wilde look unreliable. It accentuates the age gap between him and all these people.

But also all his witticisms are so brilliant. They kind of dazzle, but they don't build up a coherent, solid case. No. And Carson, his questions are implacable. Did you ask Ward to your house in Tite Street? Was your wife away? Did you have immoral practices with Ward? Did you open his trousers?

Did Shelley stay all night? Did you put your hand upon his person? Did you kiss Conway on the Lansing Road? Again and again, again names dates places and the impression is as you said it's one of complete implacability wild makes this totally catastrophic error doesn't he tom yeah they move on to this guy who's a servant called walter granger who was 17 who bozey had interfered with carson did you kiss him? Wilde says, oh no,

never in my life. He was such a peculiarly plain boy. Kind of flippant witticism tossed out. And Carson, he was what?

And then Wilde starts to stutter and says, oh, his appearance was so very unfortunately ugly. I pitied him for his appearance.

Very ugly, says Carson. And then, why did you mention his ugliness? And he says that question, it's very Jeremy Paxman, which our British listeners his appearance. Very ugly, says Carson. And then, why did you mention his ugliness? And he says that question. It's very Jeremy Paxman, which our British listeners will recognize.

It's a tigerish interviewer. He says again and again, why did you mention his ugliness? Why did you mention his ugliness? Again and again. And while complete, so you sting me and insult me and try to unnerve me.

And at times one says things flippantly when one ought to speak more seriously. I admit it. Yeah yeah you have the sense here that wild is suddenly realizing that wit is not enough now there's one other moment at this point and the carson interrogation which is day two of the trial carson reads out the letters of the marquis of queens Wilde. And in one of those letters, Queensbury has described Wilde as a damned cur and coward of the Rosebery type. Lord Rosebery is the leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister. So around Lord Rosebery, there have been swirling for months allegations and rumours that he too is gay. I mean, amazingly, Dominic, there is a further connection here with the Marquess of Queensbury, right? Exactly. Because the Marquess of Queensbury's eldest son,

Viscount Drumlinrig, had been Roseborough's private secretary. There had been allegations about the relationship between them and Lord Drumlinrig had been shot. Well, it's described as a mysterious shooting accident. A mysterious shooting accident. And people said, is this because he and Roseborough were having an affair? So at the point at which that letter is read out in open court, the prime minister, Tom, now the world is quite close to the liberal top brass. He's friends with Asquith. He's had dinner with the home secretary, Herbert Asquith, the future prime minister. At that point that that is read out in open court, suddenly this is no longer just a sort

of moral issue or a scandal about a celebrity. It's political. And the government, you know, immediately, they're like, oh, no, because now we are involved and we cannot go easy on this. You know, if Wilde doesn't win and if we don't act, people will say you were trying to cover up the fact that he's part of this conspiracy with the prime minister, sodomitical enterprise or whatever people would have said at the time so suddenly this now has this other dimension so this is all very very bad for wild so there's one other thing on day two our club member peter clark pointed this out to me sent me an email about this at this point

wild says to his barrister sir edward clark actually there is something i didn't tell you i was turned out of the albemarle hotel in the middle of the night and a boy was with me it might be awkward if they found out about it and it's at that point that his own barrister sir edward clark clearly thinks oh geez you know he Clearly thinks, oh, geez. You know, he has. Yeah. Why did you not? You know, this is not good. You have clearly been lying to me all along. So on day three, first thing that next morning, Sir Edward Clark asked for a conference with his client and says, I've been thinking overnight. This is a disaster.

You are going to have to withdraw from the prosecution. There is no way we can win. Probably the best thing is for us to try to do a deal. And Clark goes to see Sir Edward Carson and says to Carson, look, Wilde will drop the case. You know, can you do your best to make the Marquess of Queensbury pursue this no further? And it seems that Carson says, I'll do my best i can't guarantee it but carson later says he did not want world pursued over this yeah i think it's absolutely plausible i know

a lot of historians now view sir edward carson as a baddie because of his role in the home rule crisis and unless of course they are sort of they're still unionists yeah unionists exactly so sir edward carson gets a generally bad press, but I think it's very plausible that he did say, sure, we'll try to do a deal. I don't want to pursue my old classmate. Of course, the Marquess of Greensbury, this great chattering ape...

He's not in favour of that. It's not a man in favour of doing deals. He wants to destroy Wilde and destroy his own son, actually. I think to some extent. I mean, there's partly an issue of him wanting to save his son but also his son has been so rude to him the marcus queensberry has been maddened by his son's conduct that he is determined to to pursue it so this is exactly what happens so wild drops the case but straight away mentioned lord roseberry queensbridge solicitor sends the Crown prosecutor

a transcript of the trial, a transcript of all what their witnesses have been saying, all the boys. The government's top brass are kind of meeting in sort of emergency conclave.

Herbert Asquith, the Home Secretary, the Attorney General Sir Robert Reid, the Solicitor General Sir Frank Lockwood. So when people tell the story of the trials of Oscar Wilde, the instinctive way of doing it is to say he's the victim of a repressive, cruel, puritanical establishment. But these people know

Wilde, Asquith had had him around for dinner. And they are in a position where they think, we cannot let this go. He has broken the law. He appears to have broken the law. Our prime minister has been dragged into it. Dominic, the intriguing detail that at this point and for the duration of the trials that follow, Rosebery seems to be basically kind of out of action. He seems to have had a kind of breakdown. Yeah. Unexplained. Nobody knows what it is. But it is a kind of intriguing, very suggestive detail that this exactly maps onto the process of the trials. Exactly. And so Asquith, as Home Secretary,

he agrees to apply for a warrant for Wilde's arrest. He gives orders that if Wilde tries to leave the country, he should be stopped wherever he is found. But again, there is this kind of amazing detail that the magistrate who issues the writ, he finds at what time, when does the train leave

that will link up to the ferry that will go over to France? And he issues it for 15 minutes after that train. So I think, Tom, actually,

and this will surprise, I imagine, a lot of people who think they know the story. I think there is an argument that actually, far from wanting to hammer wild

the establishment are actually giving him slightly special treatment they want him to get away they've had dinner with him they like him they're the kind of people who go to see his plays and find them funny i don't think they are actually trying to make an example of him i think also there is this kind of i think the whole roseberry thing i think is not wholly implausible that Rosebery is somehow mixed up with this and that maybe the Marx of Queensbury has incriminating evidence showing that. Right. I think that's absolutely very plausible. But Walt doesn't go, does he, Tom?

He's paralyzed. I mean, it's extraordinary. He's seized by this passivity, this inertia in the face of disaster. He could have taken the boat train to France that night, but he doesn't. He's still in, where is he? He's still sort of hanging around. He's at the Cadogan Hotel.

With Bosie. Yeah. Drinking hock and seltzer. Hock and seltzer. Shall we finish this episode by reading the account of what happens that day that was written by John Betjeman, the poet laureate. Tom, I mean, you asked that question as though there's some possibility that

I could say no. You can't say no because I've got it all lined up and ready here. So Dominic, we will be back with Wilde's arrest, the two trials, and his conviction and imprisonment. Now Tom, it would be remiss of me not to point out that if you are a member of the Restless History

Club, you can of course listen to that right now. And if you're not, sign up at rest is history pod.com incredible value but for now here is john betcherman's great poem the arrest of oscar wilde at the cadogan hotel a thump and a murmur of voices oh why must they make such a din as the door of the bedroom swung open, and two plain-clothes policemen come in. Mr. Wilde, we have come for to take you, where felons and criminals dwell. We must ask you to leave with us quietly, for this is the Cadogan Hotel. He rose, and he put down the yellow book. He staggered and terrible-eyed. He brushed past the plants on the staircase and was helped to a handsome outside.

We'll see you next time. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment.

It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com.

That's therestisentertainment.com.