Lord Alfred Douglas to him in an article on Wilde. Douglas was either plaintiff or defendant in several trials for civil or criminal libel. In 1913 he was charged with libelling his father-in-law. Also in 1913 he accused Arthur Ransome of libelling him in his book "Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study". He saw this trial as a weapon against his enemy Ross, not understanding that Ross would not be called to give evidence. The court found in Ransome's favour and Douglas was bankrupted by the failed libel suit. Ransome did remove the offending passages from the second edition of his book. In the
Lord Alfred Douglas suppressed portions of Wilde's "De Profundis" letter in 1912, Douglas turned against his former friend, whose homosexuality he grew to condemn. He was a defence witness in the libel case brought by Maud Allan against Noel Pemberton Billing in 1918. Billing had accused Allan, who was performing Wilde's play "Salome", of being part of a homosexual conspiracy to undermine the war effort. Douglas also contributed to Billing's journal "Vigilante" as part of his campaign against Robbie Ross. He had written a poem referring to Margot Asquith "bound with Lesbian fillets" while her husband Herbert, the Prime Minister, gave money to