The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde

by Neil McKenna

  `Can they examine me about anything and everything they choose?' he asked Clarke, and went on to inquire whether `they' could question him about an incident which had so far not been mentioned at all.

  `Certainly,' rejoined the advocate. `What is it that is in your mind?'

  `Well,' said Oscar, `some time ago 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 that!'

  By now it must have been patently obvious to all concerned that Oscar had been less than frank about his friendships with young men.

  The question was how to proceed. Should they continue with the prosecution? If they did, Oscar would face another gruelling cross-examination by Carson. More damaging revelations might emerge. Oscar would lose the case and face almost certain arrest and prosecution himself. Alternatively, Oscar could gracefully withdraw from the case. This would mean that he would lose the case by default and be forced to pay Queensberry's costs. He would face shame and opprobrium. But with luck that might be all. The evidence for the defence which Carson had presented so far was extremely damaging. But there had not - as yet - been any conclusive proof that Oscar was a practising sodomite. There was a chance - a good chance - that matters would be allowed to rest. Oscar would live quietly abroad, the details of the affair would fade, and he would perhaps in time be able to rehabilitate himself as a man of letters.

  Exactly how and by whom it was decided to continue with the prosecution is not recorded. Bosie was still determined to see his father imprisoned and no doubt vehemently urged Oscar to continue with the case. Clarke and Humphreys probably advised Oscar to withdraw before he did himself irreparable damage. Oscar hesitated and wavered and in the end sided with Bosie. He would fight on. Fate could not be cheated. `Nemesis has caught me in her net,' he wrote later. `To struggle is foolish.'

  The atmosphere in the Old Bailey on the morning of Thursday 4 April was electric as Oscar stepped into the witness box. He seemed more subdued and a little ill at ease and `did not look so fresh or so bright as on the previous day'. He knew he faced another furious onslaught from Carson. Carson took up his cross-examination by asking Oscar about his friendship with Alfred Taylor. Who was this Alfred Taylor and what kind of a person was he? How did he live? Was it true that he never opened his curtains? That his rooms were always artificially lit? That they were always strongly perfumed? And was it true that Taylor kept a lady's costume, a lady's fancy dress, in his rooms? Had Oscar ever seen him wearing such a costume?

  The jurymen appeared to be shocked, as Carson had intended them to be shocked, by these revelations about Taylor's manner of living. Highly perfumed and dimly lit rooms, endless tea parties for young men, and a lady's costume in a place where no ladies lived were all highly suspicious, highly sodomitical. It was clear to the jury that Oscar was intimate with the unusual Alfred Taylor, and that made him guilty by association. There was more. In a damaging exchange, Carson managed to extract an admission from Oscar that Taylor had introduced several young men to him.

  `How many young men did he introduce to you?' Carson demanded.

  `You can hardly ask me to remember,' Oscar replied.

  `In or about,' snapped Carson.

  `Do you mean people mentioned in the indictment?' Oscar said evasively.

  `No,' said Carson with growing impatience. `Young men with whom you afterwards became intimate?'

  `I should think six -seven - eight,' Oscar reluctantly replied.

  `Six, seven, or eight?'

  `Yes, I have constantly met young men.'

  `No, no, that you became intimate with?'

  Here Sir Edward Clarke interrupted to try and head off Carson. `Became friendly with, you mean?' he said helpfully.

  `Became friendly with, I think, is the better word - that I became friendly with. I think about five,' Oscar conceded.

  It was a damning admission. `Intimate' or `friendly' - it did not much matter - Taylor had introduced Oscar to five young men. More damning still was Oscar's further admission that he had given money and presents to all five. Carson now turned to one of these young men, Charles Parker. Oscar had met Charlie Parker when he entertained Alfred Taylor and the Parker brothers to dinner at Kettner's. On that evening Oscar had fed Charles Parker with preserved cherries from his own mouth, driven back with him to the Savoy, given him iced champagne and taken him to bed. The next morning he had given him money.

  Carson dwelt at length on Charlie Parker. There were rich pickings to be had from Oscar's relationship with an unemployed gentleman's valet. Oscar's answers were guarded and, at times, appeared to the jury to be downright evasive, damagingly evasive.

  `How old was Parker?' Carson asked, knowing full well that he was seventeen when he met Oscar.

  `I don't keep a census,' replied Oscar evasively.

  `I am not asking you about a census.'

  `I don't know what his age was.'

  `What about was his age?'

  `I should say about twenty; he was young. That was one of his attractions, the attractions of youth.'

  And with this, Oscar was hoist with his own petard. Not only did it look as if he had something to hide, but his needless comments on Charlie Parker's youthful attractions in particular, and the attractions of youth in general, took on a decidedly sinister complexion.

  Carson wanted to know more about the nature of the friendship between Oscar and Charlie Parker. `What I would like to ask you is this,' he said. `What was there between you and this young-man-of this class?'

  `Well, I will tell you, Mr Carson,' said Oscar with a dangerous lack of caution. `I delight in the society of people much younger than myself. I like those who may be called idle and careless. I recognise no social distinctions at all of any kind, and to me youth - the mere fact of youth - is so wonderful that I would sooner talk to a young man for half an hour than even be, well, crossexamined in court.'

  Despite the titter of amusement that rippled through the court at his poor joke, Oscar's paean to the joys of youth - and youths - was damaging. Just as damaging were his views on social distinctions, which struck the jury as something akin to anarchism. Carson was quick to follow up his advantage.

  `Then, do I understand that even a young boy that you would pick up in the street would be a pleasing companion to you?' enquired Carson innocently.

  `Oh, I would talk to a street Arab if he talked to me, with pleasure,' said Oscar guilelessly.

  `And take him into your rooms?'

  `If he interested me.'

  Oscar had blindly stumbled into yet another trap. He had admitted that he would happily `pick up' a young street boy and take him to his rooms. Picking up young street boys could, to the jurymen, mean only one thing: prostitution.

  Carson interrogated Oscar in turn about his relationships with Fred Atkins, Ernest Scarfe and `Jenny' Mavor. The account of Oscar's trip to Paris with Fred Atkins, a bookmaker's tout and aspiring music hall artiste, plainly surprised the jury, particularly Oscar's explanation that he had taken Atkins to Paris as a favour to `a very great friend of mine'. The friend in question was Maurice Schwabe, and, to the great surprise of many of those present, his name was never spoken aloud in court. His name had been written down on a piece of paper and passed to the judge the previous day, and Schwabe was subsequently always referred to as `that gentleman whose name you handed up'. Why Schwabe alone merited such discretion and confidentiality was a mystery. There could be only one explanation. Maurice Schwabe was a nephew by marriage of Sir Frank Lockwood, the Solicitor General in Lord Rosebery's Liberal government, and heavy political pressure had clearly been brought to bear to keep Schwabe's name out of the proceedings.

  Oscar had been in the witness box for almost an hour and a half and was already exhausted when, at around noon, Carson turned to Oscar's relationship with Walter Grainger, the servant in Bosie's lodgings in Oxford. Carson began asking Oscar about his visits to Bosie at Oxford and his encounters with Walter Grainger ther
e. It was to be the climax of the trial.

  `Were you on familiar terms with Grainger?' Carson began, deliberately stressing the word `familiar'.

  `What do you mean by "familiar terms"?' retorted Oscar.

  `I mean to say did you have him to dine with you or anything of that kind?' said Carson.

  `Never in my life.' Oscar was emphatic.

  `What?'

  `No! It is really trying to ask me such a question.' Oscar was becoming extremely exasperated by Carson's refusal to accept his answers at face value, as Carson fully intended that he should. `No, of course not. He waited on me at table; he did not dine with me.'

  `I thought he might have sat down. You drew no distinction,' said Carson snidely.

  `Do you think in the case of Lord Alfred Douglas and Lord Encombe's room that would have happened with the servant?'

  `You told me yourself-'

  `It is a different thing,' Oscar interrupted. He was now thoroughly irritated. `If it is people's duty to serve, it is their duty to serve; if it is their pleasure to dine, it is their pleasure to dine and their privilege.'

  `You say not?'

  `Certainly not.'

  `Did you ever kiss him?' Carson slipped the question in like a rapier, and Oscar answered before he realised the full import of what he said.

  `Oh no, never in my life; he was a peculiarly plain boy-'

  `He was what?' Carson leapt on Oscar's answer. Oscar was visibly flustered. He knew he had made a terrible mistake and had allowed himself to be ambushed by Carson. He tried desperately and without success to explain away his remark. For the first time in the trial Oscar was almost incoherent.

  `I said I thought him unfortunately - his appearance was so very unfortunately - very ugly - I mean - I pitied him for it.'

  `Very ugly?' repeated Carson grimly.

  `Yes,' faltered Oscar.

  `Do you say that in support of your statement that you never kissed him?'

  `No, I don't; it is like asking me if I kissed a doorpost; it is childish.' But Carson was not to be deflected.

  `Didn't you give me as the reason that you never kissed him that he was too ugly?

  `No,' said Oscar warmly. `I did not say that.' Carson repeated his question. He knew this was the deciding moment of the trial.

  `Why did you mention his ugliness?'

  `No, I said the question seemed to me like-' Oscar had lost his thread and had to begin again. `Your asking me whether I ever had him to dinner, and then whether I had kissed him - seemed to me merely an intentional insult on your part, which I have being going through the whole of this morning.'

  `Because he was ugly?' Carson rapped out.

  `No.'

  `Why did you mention the ugliness?' Carson demanded. `I have to ask these questions.'

  Oscar tried, in vain, to evade answering Carson's question.

  `I say it is ridiculous to imagine that any such thing could possibly have occurred under any circumstances,' he said.

  `Why did you mention the ugliness?' It had become a battle of wills between them, and Carson was determined that Oscar would answer.

  `For that reason. If you asked me if I had ever kissed a doorpost, I should say, "No! Ridiculous! I shouldn't like to kiss a doorpost." Am I to be crossexamined on why I shouldn't like to kiss a doorpost? The questions are grotesque.'

  `Why did you mention the boy's ugliness?' Carson rasped.

  `I mentioned it perhaps because you stung me by an insolent question,' said Oscar, trying to deflect Carson's focused fire.

  `Because I stung you by an insolent question?' Carson's tone was undisguisedly sarcastic.

  `Yes,' said Oscar. `You stung me by an insolent question; you make me irritable.'

  `Did you say the boy was ugly because I stung you by an insolent question?'

  `Pardon me, you sting me, insult me and try to unnerve me in every way,' blustered Oscar. `At times one says things flippantly when one should speak more seriously. I admit that, I admit it - I cannot help it. That is what you are doing to me.'

  Oscar was - for once - telling the truth. He really could not help it. He had been stung, insulted, unnerved and made irritable by the relentless crossexamination, just as Carson had intended him to be. Thoroughly exasperated and thoroughly irritated, Oscar had incriminated himself. He had as good as admitted that he would have kissed Walter Grainger had he not been so ugly. It was now obvious to the jury that Oscar was not merely posing as a sodomite, he was a sodomite. Oscar had lost the case. He knew it and everyone present in the court knew it. Montague Crackanthorpe, a solicitor who was present in court that day, told his wife that he had never witnessed `anything so horrible' as Carson's cross-examination. Oscar, he said, `was like a tortured, hunted animal':

  His whole demeanour altered, he literally collapsed. No more impudent repartee, no more insolent epigram. He became livid, a lividness that changed from grey to green and then to dark purple.

  Though the case might be lost, the trial had to continue. Sir Edward Clarke tried desperately to salvage Oscar from the ruins of the case. In a skilful reexamination of his client, he attempted to wrench the case back to Queensberry's vicious and prolonged persecution of Oscar over his relationship with Bosie. He read aloud five of Queensberry's foul letters to Bosie, together with his letter to Alfred Montgomery in which he had classified Oscar as a `damned cur and coward of the Rosebery type'. Queensberry's comments about the Prime Minister caused a sensation in court.

  Carson opened the case for the defence late in the afternoon. He knew that Oscar had already lost the case, but he had to go through the formality of defending Queensberry. Lord Queensberry, said Carson, neither regretted nor withdrew anything he had said or done. He had acted as any father would have acted. `He has done what he did premeditatedly and he was determined, at all risks and all hazards, to try and save his son.' Carson pointedly referred to the fact that Lord Rosebery's name had cropped up during the trial. `For my own part,' he told the jury, `I say with absolute sincerity that I am very glad those letters have been read here.' It was quite clear from the letters, Carson went on, that any suggestion that `distinguished persons' were in some way `mixed up' in the charges against Oscar Wilde was entirely groundless. Though it was an accomplished smoothing away of an awkward problem, Carson's protestations clearly failed to convince everyone in court.

  Carson turned to boys and young men whose names had come up in the trial. `You will hear from these witnesses,' declared Carson dramatically, `and let me say that nothing can be more painful than to ask witnesses ... to go through the various descriptions of the manner in which Wilde acted towards them.' Carson's promise to produce in court the boys that Oscar had had sex with sent an audible murmur of shock through the court.

  Carson had not finished his opening speech when the court rose for the day. Oscar and Bosie must have debated what to do about the trial with Clarke and Humphreys long into the night. There was no longer any hope that Oscar would be spared a criminal prosecution. He could continue to fight a case he was now bound to lose, or he could flee abroad for his life and hope that he would not be stopped at Dover. Clarke outlined the stark choices to Oscar:

  I said that, if the case went to its end and the jury found that the accusations were justified, the judge would unquestionably order his arrest. He listened quietly and gravely, and then thanked me for my advice and said he was prepared to act upon it. I then told him that there was no need for his presence in Court while the announcement was being made. I hoped and expected that he would take the opportunity of escaping from the country, and I believe he would have found no difficulty in doing so.

  There was not a seat to be had in court the next morning. People had queued for hours to hear the evidence of the boys Oscar was alleged to have had sex with. Oscar and Bosie were conspicuous by their absence. They were in fact in a small room elsewhere in the court. Oscar had seemingly delayed his decision to withdraw from the case until the very last minute. Carson rose to continue out
lining the case for defence. He had been on his feet for some twenty minutes when Sir Edward Clarke signalled that he wished to confer with him. The two counsel whispered inaudibly together, and then Clarke addressed the court.

  Mr Oscar Wilde, he said, wished to withdraw from the case and would accept that he had `posed as a sodomite' - at least as far as the literary part of the case was concerned. But Mr Justice Collins was having none of it. If Sir Edward Clarke for the prosecution wished to accept a verdict of `Not guilty' for Queensberry, he was entitled to do so, but there could be no restricting this verdict to just the literary part of the case. Either Oscar had posed as a sodomite or he had not. Queensberry was either guilty of libelling Oscar or he was not. Not only that. Queensberry's Plea of Justification must be found `true in substance and fact' and it must be found that his accusations had been `published for the public benefit'. The jury took only minutes to return a verdict of `Not Guilty'. There was loud and prolonged cheering in court from the public gallery, cheering which Mr Justice Collins made no attempt to silence. `Lord Queensberry may be discharged?' Carson enquired of Mr Justice Collins, shouting above the din in court. `Oh certainly,' the judge replied. And with those two very ordinary words, one of the most extraordinary trials of its time came to a humiliating end.

  As soon as he returned to the judge's room, Mr Justice Collins sat down and wrote a brief note to Carson. `I never heard a more powerful speech or a more searching cross-exam,' he wrote. `I congratulate you on having escaped most of the filth.' Carson had done his job well, but he was left with an abiding sense of regret at what he knew would be the consequences of his actions. `I have ruined the most brilliant man in London,' he said sadly to his wife that evening.