The Evening News - Wednesday, May 22, 1895

QUEENSBERRY
Has a Maul With His Son in Piccadilly.
BOTH ARRESTED
And Will Appear in a Small Ring at Marlborough-street.

The Marquis of Queensberry said his son, Lord Douglas of Hawick, met in Piccadilly yesterday evening, and fought, creating a scene which cannot be regarded otherwise than as one of the most disgraceful episodes of the unsavoury history surrounding the lamentable changes for which Oscar Wilde enters on his trial again at the the Old Bailey to-day.

The marquis was returning to his hotel in Albemarle-street from the Old Bailey, where he had sat all the afternoon waiting the verdict of Guilty declared against Wilde’s ex-associate, Taylor. At the bottom of Old Bond-street, in Piccadilly, Lord Douglas of Hawick, who, with the Rev. Stewart Headlam, is a bailee for Wilde, met the marquis and accosted him with a remark which was afterwards repeated to the crowding spectators of the quarrel as follows:

"Ever since I became bail for Mr. Wilde, that man (the marquis) has persisted in sending letters to my wife. I wrote to him and told him to desist, but he has continued his persecution. I had no option but to thrash him as soon as I met him."

The father is said to have cried out that he would "Fight his son for £10,000 in any part of the country, but not in Piccadilly." Fight they did, however, and the people round, making the mistake of imagining the young man to be Lord Alfred Douglas, cheered and applauded the marquis. In the struggle the father had HIS HAT SMASHED, and the son one of his eyes blackened. Onlookers cheered and cried out to incite the combatants in their hateful attacks on each other, and the whole business was treated as a great joke.

It is impossible, however, to speak of the scene with levity. The noble marquis and his son were taken by the police to Vine-street Police-station, followed by a howling mob. On the way to the police-station Lord Douglas is reported to have said, "I’m Lord Douglas of Hawick, son of the Marquis of Queensberry, and that’s my father."

To which the marquis replied, "That’s my son, Lord Douglas of Hawick, and I’ll fight him anywhere in the three kingdoms for £10,000."

Father and son were charged before the police inspector on duty with "disorderly conduct and fighting in Piccadilly, in the parish of St. George’s." They were released on their own bail, to surrender for trial at the Marlborough-street Police-station this morning.

The communication sent to Lady Douglas of Hawick, which gave rise to the quarrel, is said to be a cutting from one of the weekly illustrated newspapers containing a picture of the antediluvian reptile "the Iguanadon," with the words written beneath the picture. "This is Oscar Wilde’s ancestor." The marquis seems to have thought this was a good joke.