Trudy Gold
Lord Alfred Douglas

Trudy Gold - Lord Alfred Douglas

- Okay, Emily, I’ll start. Well, good evening, everyone, from London. Tonight, I’m looking at the life of Lord Alfred Douglas, who was, of course, the boyfriend of Oscar Wilde, and you might well ask, “Why on earth am I doing this in my section, "which is really about Jewish history?” And the reason is one of the puzzles of Jewish history is the relationship between the Jews and the British and England, and there are threads in Bosie’s life that really is going to illustrate this, and also, on Saturday, Professor David Peimer is lecturing on Oscar Wilde, so I just thought that these threads would go together, so Emily, if you don’t mind, can we have a look at the picture of Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas, better known as Bosie, the beautiful, beautiful Bosie. He was an author. He was a poet. He was a translator. He was Wilde’s nemesis, and also, he was violently anti-Semitic, and that’s what I’m going to be talking about in the second half of this presentation, so who was he? Should we see a picture of Oscar Wilde first? There is Oscar at his most Oscarish, I suppose, one of the greatest poets of the English language, and, of course, a great satirist, incredibly famous in the 1890s, and tragically, a trial that brought him ruin and horror, so let’s go back to Bosie and have a look at his nemesis, who was his father, the Marquess of Queensberry. No, go on. I want to see the next one. Yes, this is John Douglas, Marquess of Queensberry, so Bosie, as he was known, was born in Worcester.

He was the third son of John Douglas, who was the ninth Marquess of Queensberry, and his first wife, Sybil, so he comes from an old aristocratic family. He was known as Bosie. He was his mother’s favourite. She divorced her husband. Sybil, the wife, divorces John Douglas, Marquess of Queensberry, because of his adultery, and the marquess married the following year, but again, the marriage was annulled. He was educated, Bosie was educated at Winchester and at Magdalen College, Oxford. Let me give you a picture of the privilege of the English upper classes. There you see Winchester and Magdalen College, Oxford, beautiful, beautiful Old England, and, of course, these are the schools and universities which made England, if you like, one of the centres of the academic world. It’s fascinating, the English and education. Only in England would it be an insult to say, “You’re too clever by half,” but on the other hand, with some universities, even today, they are amongst the best in the world. Now, Bosie became a very sort of louche student. He left without graduating. Whilst he was there, he edited a journal called “Spirit Lamp.” He had a huge conflict with his father. He was very effeminate. He was a poet. He mixed with other gay young characters, and I’m using the gay term euphemistically, and it’s quite likely he began his homosexual relationships when he was at Oxford. Now, why am I talking about this? Because it’s important to remember that at this time it was a crime. It was a punishable crime, which was not altered in England until the 1960s, so he’s engaging in practises which have terrible consequences.

His father was an extraordinarily fractured personality, and the family was riddled with insanity. His grandfather, the eighth marquess, had committed suicide. His widowed grandmother, who converted to Catholicism… Catholicism was the great solace of her life and later on of Bosie’s, and she went to live in Paris. One of his uncles, Lord James Douglas, was deeply attached to his twin sister Florrie. Let’s see a picture of Florrie. That’s Lady Florence Douglas. Her brother is so attached to her that when she married, he tried to abduct a young girl. He became completely mentally ill. He, in 1888, he became… He was an alcoholic. He went into deep depression and committed suicide by cutting his own throat, so you have a family that is terribly, terribly fractured. Now, so he gets no solace from his family. His mother is a religious Catholic, and, of course, to Catholicism, homosexuality is a sin, so at this time, he can have no succour from her, and it’s this stage that he actually meets Oscar Wilde. He meets Oscar Wilde. Why? Because… Can we see the next slide, please? There’s Lord Francis Douglas, the young man who tragically committed suicide. Yes, that’s the cousin who committed suicide. Can we go on, please? Here you see “Salome.” Oscar Wilde is already a very famous author, and David’s going to be talking about that on Saturday.

Wilde is very much part of the demimonde of London, but he’s also part of high society. He’s this Irish brilliant playwright and writer, and he’s obviously very attracted to the young Bosie, and Bosie translates “Salome” from the French into English. His translation was very poor, and, in fact, Wilde did correct him, but he falls for him. He falls for him very, very hard, and now I want to show you the next slide. This is Robert Hichens. Robert Hichens. Robert Hichens is a fascinating character. He was as a satirist of the naughty ‘90s. By the early '90s, there’s a huge change in Britain. Victorian morality is giving way to the Marlborough Set and the Prince of Wales, and I’m going to be talking about the Prince of Wales and his Jewish circle next week. It’s becoming far more louche. It’s also involved with the art of Aubrey Beardsley, the plays of Oscar Wilde, society scandals, also women beginning to take their place in society in terms of the beginnings of the suffragette movement. Anyway, Robert Hichens writes a novel, “The Green Carnation.” It’s a satire. Can we see the front cover? And it tells the story, really, of Wilde and Douglas and how Wilde is totally dependent on this very, very beautiful young man, so it’s very much becoming public knowledge. Now, can we have the next slide, please? Robbie Ross. Robbie Ross is kind of the hero in all of this. He was very, very close to Wilde. He was a Canadian British journalist. He is a pivotal figure in the London artistic and intellectual scene. He was openly homosexual, which made life very, very difficult for him.

He was probably Oscar Wilde’s first male lover, even before he went to university, and he also had an affair with Bosie. Later on, he’s going to be become Wilde’s literary executor, and he’s constantly worried about the relationship between Wilde and Bosie because Bosie was a very selfish young man, and obviously, he was hugely attractive, and he’s using, he’s very much using Oscar Wilde, and we know that in 1894, Douglas went to visit Wilde in Worthing, where he was staying with his wife and children, and on another occasion, he went to see Wilde in Brighton, and Douglas caught flu, and we know that Wilde tended him very, very carefully. He then got the flu. Instead of reciprocating, Bosie took himself to the Grand Hotel. Let’s have a look at the Grand Hotel, the Grand Hotel in Brighton, which is still there. I love these hotels of faded glory, but in its day, in that period, it would’ve been the grand hotel of the seaside town, and on Wilde’s 40th birthday, Bosie sent Oscar the bill for his stay at the Wilde. He also gave a lot of his old clothes to male prostitutes, but he didn’t remove incriminating letters exchanged between him and Wilde, and later, they were used for blackmail, so it’s important that you remember that. Now, Wilde was married. Let’s see a picture of his wife. Can we see the next slide, please? He was married to a woman called Constance.

She was the daughter of an Anglo-Irish barrister. She married Wilde in May, 1894, and they actually produced two sons. She’d already met Bosie in 1891. Obviously, she was aware of Wilde’s homosexuality. Interesting, according to his son Vivian, Wilde’s son Vivian, the boys had a relatively happy childhood. Of course, after the scandal of a trial, Constance is going to divorce him and change the children’s name, but at this stage, she’s going along with it, and one of the tragedies of homosexuals at that time, in order to preserve genteel respectability, they had no cause but to marry, and that’s exactly what Wilde had done, and now we have to turn to another scandal. The eldest son of John Douglas, a man called Francis Drumlanrig… Can we see him? Can we see? This is Bosie’s brother. This is Francis Viscount Drumlanrig. He is the eldest son of the Marquess of Queensberry and brother of Bosie. He had quite a glittering career. He was a very handsome man, and he served as private secretary to the liberal politician Lord Rosebery. He was very much under Rosebery’s patronage, and as a result of that, he has a seat in the House of Lords in his own right before that of his father. Now, on the 18th of October, 1897, he died of wounds after a shooting party.

He was only a young man. He was 27 years old. At the inquest, accidental death was recorded, but the rumour was it was either murder or suicide, and the evidence shows that he was in a relationship with Lord Rosebery. Now, this is absolutely critical because Lord Rosebery is the prime minister of England, so I’m bringing Lord Rosebery and his wife Hannah into it now because this is also related to the position of Jews, so remember this, that Queensberry’s eldest son was almost certainly in a homosexual relationship with the prime minister of England, Lord Rosebery, so shall we have a look at Lord Rosebery? And this is going to make the Marquess of Queensberry desperate to try and save his youngest son, Bosie, save in inverted commas, so Rosebery, he’s going to be prime minister between 1894 and 1895. He was an extraordinary man. He was a sportsman. He was a writer. He was a historian. He was a collector. He also was one of the most brilliant speakers that the Commons had ever known. He married Hannah Rothschild in 1851, and Edward VII was, well, the Prince of Wales was at the wedding, and throughout his life, he’d been hounded by accusations of homosexuality, and it’s believed that Queensberry threatened to expose the prime minister if his government didn’t vigorously prosecute Wilde for his relationship with Bosie, Drumlanrig’s younger brother, and Queensberry put in a letter, “Snob queers like Rosebery had corrupted his sons,” and in fact, using a minor defeat in Parliament that certainly didn’t warrant such actions, Rosebery resigned as prime minister, and a few months after the death of Drumlanrig and a month after Wilde himself was convicted. It really, his life and his reputation were destroyed.

In fact, Queensberry even followed Rosebery to a spa town of Bad Homburg to give him a horse-whipping, but the Prince of Wales was there, and he made him desist, so it’s important to remember that Queensberry, he’s slightly… He’s unbalanced anyway, and he sees his elder son… He blames Rosebery for the death of his older son, but I want to deflect now quickly into Rosebery’s wife, Hannah. Can we see the next slide, please? Hannah. Hannah Rothschild née Hannah Rosebery née Rothschild. Now, Hannah Rothschild was the daughter of Baron Mayer and Juliana Cohen. She was their only child, and in 1874, she inherits her father’s fortune, which makes her the richest woman in Britain. She was the granddaughter of Baron Nathan Rothschild. He’s the English Rothschild and the great-granddaughter of the founder of the dynasty. Her father had built Mentmore, the great Rothschild home, when Hannah was only five years old. She had laid the foundation stone. They also owned a house 107 Piccadilly and a wonderful yacht. She, as I said, was the only daughter. She was brought up in this incredible world of luxury, and what happens is the majority of the Rothschilds moved to Buckinghamshire where Disraeli was a neighbour, and that’s where they build these incredible stately homes. Mentmore wasn’t just a stately home. It had one of the most incredible art collections, and remember, when her father dies in 1874, she inherits the lot plus two million pounds in cash, about 200 million, which makes her the richest woman in her own right in Britain.

Now, she is, of course, part of society. She had been received at court. She had been received as a debutante. She was first introduced to Rosebery at a race meeting at Newmarket. Rosebery was an incredible racer, and in fact, his horse later won the Derby. introduced her Mary Anne Disraeli, Disraeli’s wife, introduces Hannah Rothschild to Disraeli. It was a very controversial match. Rosebery was the, you know, he is an aristocrat, but like most aristocrats, he is short of money to maintain his incredible lifestyle, and it’s a controversial match. The queen’s equerry, Harding, referred to Rothschilds as resplendent with Hebrew gold, and he told a Russian visitor, quote, “You need a corrective visit to Westminster Abbey "before accepting Rothschild hospitality.” Even Queen Victoria, in 1873, she said, when it was suggested that Lionel Rothschild, Hannah’s uncle, be made a peer, she said, “That is a step too far,” but as we’re going to discover next week, and I’m sure many of you know, the Prince of Wales was close to all the Rothschilds. He is going to be at the wedding, and Disraeli is going to give the bride away. However, when they finally married, and there is a Christian ceremony, no male Rothschild attended, but not only that, “The Jewish Chronicle” expressed its poignant grief.

She was the third of the Rothschild women to marry into the world of the aristocracy and Christianity, so this is the story of Hannah and Rosebery, and remember, that scandal, and, of course, she dies young. It appears that Rosebery… They had children together. Rosebery was, she, Hannah, falls madly in love with him, and Rosebery, an incredibly attractive, brilliant man, it seems he allowed her to love him, but there was always this story of his homosexuality, and so this is the story. Hannah Rothschild is, of course, dead by this time, but it’s important to remember that even the Rothschilds are experiencing, with the old aristocracy, a certain amount of prejudice, even though they are regarded, really, and regarded themselves as the Jewish kings of Europe, and they were certainly the richest family in Europe at this time, and all the visiting dignitaries and heads of state came to visit them, so it’s at this stage that Queensberry is going to embark on a campaign to save his eldest son. He couldn’t save his , to save his youngest son. He couldn’t save his oldest. Now, remember, he’s got a terrible temper. He’s totally erratic, and at the first night… Can we see the next slide, please? At the first night of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” of course, such an important play.

The whole of high society is there. He plans to throw rotten vegetables at Wilde. It’s announced publicly. Wilde manages to have him barred from the theatre, so what happens next is then Queensberry publicly insults Wilde. He goes to Wilde’s club, and he leaves a visiting card, and it says, “Wilde, posing as a sodomite.” Bosie hated his father. He hated his father so much. He wanted a real confrontation. Robbie Ross, who is close to Wilde, he’s his best friend, once his lover, he realises what Bosie’s up to, and he and Oscar’s other real friends, they say, “Don’t do it,” because Bosie’s saying, “You’ve got to sue my father. "Bring a case against him. "Accuse him of criminal libel,” and Wilde, because he’s so infatuated with Bosie, he decides to charge Queensberry with criminal libel in a private prosecution. Now, there is a defence, and that defence is proving it’s true. If he can prove that Bosie, that Bosie and Wilde had an affair, and if he can prove that Wilde is, in fact, a sodomite, then he will win. The charge against him will be dropped, and also, he wanted the case to become public. This was a private prosecution. He wanted it public because he wanted the whole world to know what sort of character he believed Oscar Wilde to be. Queensberry had a brilliant barrister who portrayed Wilde as a vicious, corrupt older man who habitually preyed on young boys. Suggestive letters were introduced, which Wilde… Those letters that had been found in the pockets by those young male homosexuals had been bought by Queensberry. Wilde, in court, claimed, in fact, they were works of art. Wilde… Can we see the next slide, please?

Another one of Wilde’s most important books is “The Picture of Dorian Grey,” a picture of a beautiful young man who gradually becomes more and more corrupt, but it doesn’t show on his face; it shows in the portrait, and what Queensberry’s barrister tries to prove is the homoerotic thread that runs through the whole of the book, and the barrister also announces he has several young male prostitutes who would testify they have sex with Wilde, and it’s at this stage Oscar Wilde is advised to drop the charge, and as a result of that, he had to pay Queensberry’s costs, which totally bankrupted him, and on this evidence, it’s a cruel, cruel period, this. Remember, this is a criminal offence, and on this evidence, Wilde was then arrested on a charge of criminal sodomy and gross indecency. Douglas’ poem… Can we see the next slide, please? Douglas had, himself… Remember, he himself was a writer. He had written a poem, “Two Loves,” which ends with the line, “I am the love that dare not speak its name.” Wilde tried to prove that, in fact, it was not about sexuality; it was about a platonic love affair, as in the Greek world there were those love affairs… There was those loves between the older and the younger man. However, Wilde was convicted in May 1895, and he was sentenced to two years hard labour, and tragically, this brilliant writer, who had brought so much to the London stage and so much, really, to literature, he is now imprisoned. He goes first to Pentonville. He’s in two, three jails. Can we see Pentonville? That is Pentonville prison, and then he finishes up in Reading Gaol, where, of course, he writes the incredible “Ballad of Reading Gaol.”

What happens is this: After Wilde’s release, he was totally broken in 1897. Bosie was waiting for him in Rouen, but they were only together for a few months, and Wilde, of course, spends his remaining time in Paris where he’s visited by his friends, by Robbie Ross, but he is broken, and in fact, but towards the end, he keeps his… He’s got very little money. He’s dependent on the largesse of friends, and he’s dying in a very seedy room in Paris, and evidently, his last words were, looking at the wallpaper, “One of us has to go,” but that was in 1900, and Douglas returned to Britain in 1898, but when Wilde died, Douglas served as chief mourner, but there was an altercation at the graveside between him and Robbie Ross. Robbie Ross was absolutely horrified by Bosie’s behaviour. Remember, he was Wilde’s executor. Because the divorce… Constance, of course, had had to divorce Wilde. Her parents had put so much pressure on her. He wasn’t allowed to see his children. He lost everything. Meanwhile, Douglas’s life goes on, and in 1902, he marries a woman called Olive Custance, who was a bisexual heiress. She had a lot of money, and she was also a poet, and they had a son together, Raymond, who was born in 1902, and Douglas decides, in 1911, to take on the faith of his mother.

He converts to Catholicism, which, of course, causes huge problems with his wife. Remember, she’s bisexual. She is an atheist. They separated in 1913. They did live together again in the 1920s after she converted to Catholicism. The guilt, but the marriage petered out, although they did never divorce. Now, by 1911, he, Bosie, had completely repudiated Wilde. He also began a campaign against Robbie Ross. He called Wilde the greatest source of evil that has appeared in the world during the last 350 years, and he regretted he had helped with the French translation of “Salome.” He said it was a pernicious and abominable piece of work, so he goes on with his career. He’s always been litigious, and in 1920, remember, he’s married an heiress, he founds a right-wing, deeply anti-Semitic weekly called “Plain English.” It ran until the end of 1922. Douglas himself later said that its policy was strongly anti-Semitic, and from August the 20th or August 1920, it published a long series of articles entitled “The Jewish Peril.” Can we see the next slide, please? This was written, “The Jewish Peril” was written by Major-General Count Cherep-Spiridovich, who was a major general in the Russian Imperial Navy.

He had been, of course, one of those followers of the Whites, the White Russians, after the Bolshevik Revolution. He was a monarchist. He believed in Pan-Slavism, and he blamed the Jews for everything that was wrong with Russia. He blamed the Jews for the revolution. His best-known book was written in America in 1926. It was called “The Secret World Government, or, ‘The Hidden Hand,’” and he put forward the notion… All these conspiracy theories after the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the fear of communism, just whenever there’s a crisis in society, I don’t have to tell you because we’re going through one at the moment, people look for conspiracies. All you’ve got to do is go on the Net, but I advise you not to because it will drive you crazy, and it’s not the real world. All these conspiracy theories. His particular one was that the world was run by 300 Judeo-Mongol individuals, and, in fact, he was a count. His count had been conferred on him by Pius X, a very conservative Catholic, because the count was deeply religious. He was Russian Orthodox, but what he wanted was an alliance between the Russian Orthodox Church and Catholicism. Now, going back to Douglas, this is the kind of character that Douglas is giving space to in his magazine. In Issue 20… Can we see the next slide, please? He advertised a version of the “The Protocols of Zion.” In an issue of 1921, he said, “We need a Ku Klux Klan in this country.” He had many targets, did Bosie.

His pet hates were H.G. Wells and Lloyd George. Now, something else very, very strange, and that is the story of Bosie and Winston Churchill. In the general election of 1922, Lloyd George had been defeated, and the entire conservative administration established. Now, Churchill lost his parliamentary seat at Dundee. He attempted to stand for West Leicester, and he was attacked with accusations that he did the bidding of wealthy Jews. “The Protocols” were in circulation, and also, there’s a huge rise in anti-Semitism, and as I’m sure you know, Churchill and his father, Randolph Churchill, had mixed a lot with Jews. In fact, after Randolph Churchill’s death, who did Churchill turn to for help? He turns to Lord Nathaniel Rothschild. He turned to Ernest Cassel, to Baron de Hirsch, all friends of Edward VII, and they took him under their wing, so know that Churchill has a lot of Jewish friends. Now, accusations arise because of an article by Bosie. He states that after the Battle of Jutland in 1916, rich Jews, headed by Ernest Cassel, engineered an official communique to report on the battle as a setback for Britain, and it led to the plummeting of British stocks on the New York Stock Exchange.

Now, this is the whole story that Bosie is saying. The Jewish conspirators then bought the stocks at cut-down prices. Churchill, according to Douglas, in return for a huge bribe, issued a second Jutland missive, which stated that the battle was more favourable than previously thought, so the stocks rose, and the conspirators made a fortune, and Churchill, according to Douglas, was rewarded with 40,000 pounds worth of furniture, about one million pounds today. Now, the reality was that when Churchill had married Clemmie, he had a present of furniture, and that was back in 1908. I believe it was 1908. I’ll check that for you. He was given furniture by Sir Ernest Cassel as a moving-in present, to the tune of about 500 pounds. Now, so “The Morning Post” then called these vile insults against the Jews, so Douglas sued. Now, the trial begins on July 1923. During cross-examination, the newspaper’s barrister asked Douglas, “Do you mean that Churchill was indebted to the Jews?” “Yes, certainly,” replied Douglas. “Do you want to persist in this now,” Hastings continued. “Of course I do,” was the reply. Churchill himself was asked about the second communique. “Had it anything to do with stock market manipulation?” Churchill replies, “Such an idea never entered my head.” He was then asked, “Did you make any money out of it?” His reply was, “No.” The verdict.

“The Post” could not prove that… They didn’t have enough proof, but so they were guilty of libel, but they were fined a farthing and had to pay Churchill’s cost, which is basically saying to Douglas that, “You are completely at fault,” so that’s what happened, and furious, Douglas was absolutely furious, so he published the text of his accusatory lecture as a pamphlet, and he had 30,000 of them distributed throughout London, and it’s at this stage that the British government take action and bring a criminal case against Douglas, and the case for the prosecution this time, they’re prosecuting Douglas. It’s conducted by the attorney general, and both Churchill and Arthur Balfour, who, of course, was close to Chaim Weizmann and had been very close to Randolph Churchill, was called as witnesses. The verdict of the jury… It took eight minutes to decide that Douglas was, that Douglas was guilty of libel, and he was sentenced to six months in jail. At the end of the trial, the attorney general proclaimed in court on Churchill’s behalf, no plot, no phoney communique, no stock market raid, and no present of fine furniture. Now, Churchill’s secretary at the admiralty… Can we go on with the slides, by the way?

Can we look at… There you see Winston, of course, and let’s have a look at Sir Ernest Cassel. I’m going to be talking about him in much more depth in a couple of weeks. He’s a fascinating character. He, of course, was one of the richest men in the world, a close friend of Edward VII, and his daughter, his granddaughter, became the wife of Lord Mountbatten and the last vicereine of India, that Jew from Germany. Fascinating man, but anyway, Churchill’s secretary at the admiralty wrote to him, “It’s largely due to those unjustifiable claims "that you lost your seat at Dundee and failed at Leicester.” Now, whilst he is in prison, he writes some terrible, terrible things about the Jews. He says this: “It’s strange that the Jews, "with all their race memory, "forgets the lessons of the past "and heads again for destruction "by exasperating the people amongst whom he drails,” and this is a poem he wrote during his time in jail. It’s horrible. “The leprous spawn of scattered Israel "spreads its contagion in your English blood. "Teaming corruption rises like a flood "whose fountains swelter in the womb of hell. "You Jew-kept politicians buy and sell "in markets redolent of Jewish mud, "and whilst the learned elders chew the cud "of liquidation’s fruits, "they weave their spell.

"They weave their spell that binds the heart’s desire "to golden gluttony and sweating lust. "In hidden hold, they stew the mandrake’s nest "that kills the soul, that turns desire to dust, "and postulates the abyss of nothingness,” so bad poetry and horrific sentiments. He also had some ghastly quotes about other races. This is what he said, and I’m using his terms: “The Negroes of the U.S.A. "are being organised by the Jew Seligman,” so in America, the Jews are organising the Negroes to destroy the white race, and he says, “There are more kikes in the U.S.A. "than in Warsaw.” Now, however, after his time in prison, his attitude to Oscar Wilde does begin to soften. In 1933, he gave a talk about poetry to the Catholic Poetry Society. It’s fascinating. He wasn’t blackballed by many groups within English society. The Catholic Poetry Society thought he was wonderful, and he said, on Catholic attitudes to certain poets, “Many years after Wilde’s death "and after I became a Catholic, "I reacted violently against him. "Converts are apt to be censorious "and to be more Catholic than Catholics. "I hope I’m more charitable and broad-minded than I was.” It’s interesting because he talked about, also, “in his paper, he talked about Hitler, Hisler. He brought up him. He was one of the first to bring Hitler to the attention of the British, but as the Nazis rose to power, he began to change his mind about anti-Semitism. He softened somewhat, and he began to change his mind, certainly about Hitler.

He, towards the end, his only son, Raymond, tragically, was also diagnosed with mental illness, and when he was 24, he was put into a home, and he spent much of his life in an institution. Douglas himself died in Lancing, West Sussex, age 74. He was buried in a Franciscan priory in Crawley, alongside his mother, and they share a tomb. Can we go on, please, to the last slide? This is from Harold Nicholson. He met Bosie in 1936. Harold Nicholson himself, a very famous writer. It’s interesting because Bosie was always fascinating to so many writers. As an old man, he wrote to Murray Stokes. He wrote to all the top writers. They were still interested in him. He lost much of his money, but this is what Harold Nicholson wrote of him: "There is little trace of his good looks left. "His eyes, though still blue, are yellow and bloodshot. "He makes nervous and twitching movements "with freckled, claw-like hands. "He stoops slightly and drags a leg, "yet behind the appearance of a little cross old gentleman "flits the shape of a young man of the ‘90s "with little pathetic sunshine flashes "of the 1893 boyishness and gaiety,” so that’s an outline of the life of Lord Alfred Douglas, an absolute horror in many ways, who was the nemesis of Oscar Wilde, the nemesis of Jews, and a thoroughly dislikable individual, but I thought I would bring him into the picture so you get an image of the sharp edge of anti-Semitism and also, a view of how the Rothschilds themselves, the kings of the Jews, fitted into British society. Shall we see if we have any questions?

Q&A and Comments:

Yes, David, it is the same marquess who was involved in boxing.

Q: Am I going to do something on the Mitfords?

A: Definitely, later on in the course.

Q: Did Hannah Rothschild convert?

A: Yes, she married in Westminster. Yes, of course. That’s why none of the… That’s why none of the Rothschild men would attend the marriage. Yes, he did misspell it. Yes, of course. Yes, on the visiting card. He was known as Bosie, not Boise. Thank you.

Q: Why was he called that?

A: That was his mother’s nickname for him. It was his mother’s nickname, and it stuck.

Any other questions from anyone?

Q: Is there a Jewish Rothschild left?

A: That’s an interesting one. The Rothschild family still feel a great deal of… What’s the word? They feel that they owe a lot to the Jewish community, and, in fact, Lord Rothschild has just purchased a wonderful picture of King David. There’s an article in “The Jewish Chronicle” about it. You can see it on a back issue. I think it’s really worth a read, and a long time ago, when I was teaching at Eton, I actually taught Lord Rothschild’s son Nat, and he took an AO11 in modern Jewish history, and he said, “I need to know it "because one day I might give the address "at the Balfour dinner,” so there is a great sense of responsibility amongst the Rothschild family.

Q: Are they religiously Jewish anymore?

A: No, they’re not. Not as far as I know. I don’t think any of them are, and, of course, the banking house is now only in Paris. They were an extraordinary family, and have still, the reputation still goes on.

Yes, Monty, the Grand Hotel Brighton. It is the one blown up by the IRA. Yes, of course, it is. It still exists, but it’s not quite as… I loved it when it was real faded glory, but they’ve done it up a bit now, so I don’t like it so much. I love those kind of old hotels. Anyway, I hope you found Bosie an interesting character, and also, I wanted to give you the edge of what was actually going on with Jews, the upper section of Jewish society.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to look at Edward VII and his Jewish crowd, but then I’m going to look at Israel Zangwill and some of the Jewish intellectuals of London, and also, we’ve looked at the Eastern Europeans coming in, and can we come, can we really deal with the riddle of Anglo Jewry? Yes, of course, there’s a Jewish Rothschild from Paris, Ellie, but is he religious? I don’t know the answer to that, but I know someone who will. I don’t know if any of them are religious, but they do feel a deep responsibility to the Jewish community and to Israel, which is fascinating. You see, when you have the name Rothschild, you do have a responsibility. That’s what they seem to show.

Anyway, I wish you all a very good night, and thank you very much, Hannah.