This is Henry Cyril Paget, 5th Marquess of Anglesey. This photograph was taken around 1900 by photographer John Wickens. Henry, you will note, is iconic.

Born in 1875, Henry attended Eton as a boy, served in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and married at 22, all in line with the expectations of his noble lineage. Then, at age 23, his father died and Henry inherited his title, estate, and fortune.

And so began the short and spectacular reign of Henry, Lord Paget de Beaudesert, known to his friends as Toppy.

Henry was not terribly interested in service, propriety, or marriage. His great love was theatre.

Henry converted the family chapel into the Gaiety Theatre and hired professional actors to put on free variety shows and performances of Wilde and Shakespeare for the locals. He took his Marquess of Anglesey Company on a three year tour of the UK and Europe.

In every production, Henry claimed a starring role that would allow him to perform a signature dance in a billowing silk robe. For a production of Little Red Riding Hood, for example, the program alludes to his showcase "snow dance".

His costumes were made with real jewels, including a jacket of emeralds. The BBC reports that his Aladdin costume would be worth $1m today. Even his underwear contained gold thread and was made with gold buckles.

Henry's other great love was spending money. He owned 100 dressing gowns. He kept poodles, dyed pink. He fitted his cars with lavish 18th century decor and silver fixtures and had the exhaust pipes modified to emit rose perfume.

His marriage to his cousin Lillian did not last. Lillian was a beautiful ivory-skinned redhead whom Henry lavished with jewels, but they never consummated the marriage. They separated after six weeks and were estranged within two years.

According to legend, Henry was attending the first ever theatrical adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes tale when his valet stole thousands of pounds worth of jewels from his hotel room so as to run away with a French demimonde named Mathilde.

Naturally, Henry recruited Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself to help him track down the missing jewels, to some success. Several of the jewels were tracked to a fence, and the valet was arrested, but Mathilde slipped away into the night.

Unfortunately, Henry's spendthrift ways caught up with him. In 1904, he was declared bankrupt and had to auction everything he owned, including his dogs and his 100 dressing gowns. The auction lasted 40 days.

Henry retired to France and took up gambling in Monte Carlo. It was here that he succumbed to pneumonia and died with his ex-wife by his side. He was 29.

His cousin and heir, Charles, tried to wipe Henry from history. Chuck reverted all the changes Henry made to the family estate, destroyed his private papers, and tried to pretend that he had never been the marquess.

History has remembered Henry as a "notorious homosexual". There's no evidence that he ever took a lover of any gender, but his excess, his style, and his defiance of his times certainly mark him as a queer legend. Here's to you, Toppy.