Queensberry, WILLIAM DOUGLAS, DUKE OF,

Queensberry, WILLIAM DOUGLAS, DUKE OF, 'Old Q,' was born in 1724, and succeeded his father as Earl of March, his mother as Earl of Ruglen, and his cousin in 1778 as fourth Duke of Queensberry. He was famous for years as a patron of the turf, and infamous always for his shameless debaucheries. He is said to have 'displayed great taste in a song,' but to-day lives solely through Wordsworth's indignant sonnet, composed at Neidpath, whose venerable trees 'degenerate Douglas' had felled, to spite his heir or to dower one who he flattered himself was his daughter. After long fear of death he died unmarried, worth over a million sterling, on 23d December 1810, and was buried beneath the communion-table of St James's Church, Piccadilly. See Life by J. R. Robinson (1895).