There has been much speculation about this Liberal prime minister, who held the highest political office briefly in 1894-5. Suspicions intensified after a tragic death in 1894, to which Alistair Lexden referred in a letter published in The Daily Telegraph on October 10.
SIR-- Lord Alfred Douglas and the Liberal prime minister Lord Rosebery were never lovers, as Madeline Grant implies (Sketch, October 5).
It was Lord Alfred’s elder brother, Viscount Drumlanrig, a “very good looking man with fair hair and blue eyes”, who is believed to have had a sexual relationship with Rosebery while working as his private secretary.
Drumlanrig shot himself in October 1894 at the age of 27. The coroner said it was an accident, but suicide was widely suspected, with the protection of Rosebery’s reputation as the motive. No evidence has ever emerged to settle the issue.
Lord Lexden
