Early Life
Born in Scotland at Cummertrees, Dumfries, Douglas was the son of Archibald William Douglas, 8th Marquess of Queensberry and his wife Caroline, daughter of General Sir William Robert Clayton, Bt. (1786–1866), member of parliament for Great Marlow. He had an older sister, Lady Gertrude Georgiana Douglas (1842-1893); an older brother, John Sholto Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig (1844–1900), later the ninth Marquess of Queensberry; a younger brother, Lord Archibald Edward Douglas (1850–1938), who became a clergyman; and a younger brother and sister, the twins Lord James Douglas (d. 1891) and Lady Florence Douglas (1855-1905), who married Sir Alexander Beaumont Churchill Dixie, 11th Baronet.
In 1860, Douglas's father, Lord Queensberry, died in what was reported as a shooting accident, but his death was widely believed to have been suicide. In 1862, his mother, Lady Queensberry, converted to Roman Catholicism and took her children to live in Paris.
Douglas was educated at the Edinburgh Academy.
Read more about this topic: Lord Francis Douglas
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)