Talk:Villa Rosebery

Oscar Wilde & Edward VII
I have removed the unreferenced statement "Some guests of Rosebery's during his residency included King Edward VII and Oscar Wilde."

I haven't been able to find any supporting evidence for either visiting Rosebery in Posilipo. There is a letter (30 Dec 1897) from the British consul in Naples, E Neville-Rolfe, to Rosebery warning him of Wilde's presence a few miles away at Villa Giudice: Oscar Wilde calling himself Mr Sebastian Nothwell [sic] is in a small villa at Posillipo [sic] fully some two miles from you. He and Alfred Douglas have definitely parted and Wilde lives a completely secluded life. He came here as Mr Nothwell for some business and I let him suppose that I did not know him by sight. He looks thoroughly abashed, much like a whipped hound. He has written a volume of poems, but no one in London would publish them and I hear he is printing them at his own expense. I really cannot think he will be any trouble to you, and after all the poor devil must live somewhere. (from The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Deviance, Morality, and Late-Victorian Society, M S Foldy, Yale University Press 1997)

If Oscar Wilde had been a previous visitor to Rosebery before his imprisonment, it would have been well known given the prominence of both men, and in that case the Neville-Rolfe's letter would surely have been very different in tone. There have been attempts to link Rosebery to the Wilde - Douglas scandal and again any previous association of the two men in Italy would be prominent in such allegations.

Similarly the friendship between Rosebery and Edward VII (including when he was Prince of Wales) is well documented. They were holidaying together at Bad Homberg (nr Frankfurt) when Lord Queensberry was discovered near Rosebery's hotel with a horsewhip and was assumed to be planning to assault Rosebery because of his unhappiness what he thought was Rosebery's bad influence on his elder son, Lord Drumlanrig. Rosebery later complained to Queen Victoria that one of the more taxing aspects of being Prime Minister was "to be pursued by a pugilist of unsound mind".(Great Parliamentary Scandals: Five Centuries of Calumny, Smear and Innuendo, Matthew Parris, Kevin MacGuire, Robson 2004) Both Rosebery's and Edward VII's travels are widely documented, if the King (or as Prince of Wales) had stayed with Rosebery one would expect to find some record of the visit fairly easily.

Dorset100 (talk) 19:27, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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