Edward II, (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), of Caernarfon, was
King of England from 1307 until deposed in January, 1327. His tendency to ignore his nobility – in favour of low-born favourites –
led to constant political unrest and his eventual deposition. Today, he is perhaps best remembered for his murder and its
connection to Edward's alleged homosexual behavior.
Edward II was the first monarch to establish colleges in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge; he founded Cambridge's
King's Hall in 1317 and gave Oxford's Oriel College its royal charter in 1326. Both colleges received the favour of Edward's son,
Edward III, who confirmed Oriel's charter in 1327 and refounded King's Hall in
1337.
Prince of Wales
The fourth son of Edward I of England by his first wife Eleanor of Castile, Edward II was born at Caernarfon
Castle. He was the first English prince to hold the title of the Prince of Wales,
which was formalized by the Lincoln Parliament of 7 February
1301. The story that his father presented Edward II as a newborn to the Welsh as their future
native prince is unfounded; the story first appeared in the work of 16th century Welsh
"antiquary" David Powel.
Edward became heir at just a few months old, following the death of his elder brother Alfonso. His father, a notable military
leader, trained his heir in warfare and statecraft starting in his childhood, yet the young Edward preferred boating and
craftsman work – activities thought beneath kings at the time.
It has been hypothesized that Edward's love for "low brow" activities developed because of his overbearing and ruthless
father. The prince took part in several Scots campaigns, but despite these martial engagements,
"all his father's efforts could not prevent his acquiring the habits of extravagance and frivolity which he retained all through
his life". The king attributed his son’s preferences to his strong attachment to Piers Gaveston, a Gascon knight, and Edward I exiled Gaveston from court after Prince Edward attempted to bestow his friend with a title
reserved for royalty. Ironically, it was the king who had originally chosen Gaveston to be a suitable friend for his son, in
1298. When Edward I died on July 7, 1307, the first act of the new King Edward II was to recall Gaveston; his next was to abandon the Scots campaign
that had been a hallmark of his father's reign.
King of England
Edward II, depicted in Cassell's History of England, published circa 1902
Edward was as physically impressive as his father, yet he lacked the drive and ambition of his forebear. It was written that
Edward II was "the first king after the Conquest who was not a man of business".[citation needed] His main interest was in entertainment, though he also took pleasure in
athletics and mechanical crafts. He had been so dominated by his father that
he had little confidence in himself, and was often in the hands of a court favourite with a stronger will than his own.
On 25 January 1308, Edward married Isabella of France, the daughter of King Philip IV of
France, "Philip the Fair," and sister to three French kings. The marriage was doomed to failure almost from the beginning.
Isabella was frequently neglected by her husband, who spent much of his time conspiring with his favourites regarding how to
limit the powers of the Peerage in order to consolidate his father's legacy for himself.
Nevertheless, their marriage produced two sons, Edward (1312–1377), who would succeed his father on the throne as Edward III, and
John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall (1316–1336), and two daughters, Eleanor
(1318–1355) and Joanna
(1321–1362), wife of David II
of Scotland. Edward had also fathered at least one illegitimate son, Adam FitzRoy,
who accompanied his father in the Scottish campaigns of 1312 and died on 18 September 1322.
War with the Barons
When Edward travelled to the northern French city of Boulogne to marry Isabella, he
left his friend and counsellor Gaveston to act as regent. Gaveston also received the earldom of Cornwall and the hand of the king's niece, Margaret of Gloucester. But these proved to be costly honours.
Various barons grew resentful of Gaveston, and insisted on his banishment through the Ordinances of 1311. Edward recalled his friend, but in 1312, Gaveston
was executed by the Earl of Lancaster and his allies, who claimed that Gaveston led the King to folly. (Gaveston was run through
and beheaded on Blacklow Hill, outside the small village of Leek Wootton, where a monument
(Gaveston's Cross) still stands today).
Edward immediately focused on the destruction of those who had betrayed him, while the Barons themselves lost impetus (with
Gaveston dead, they saw little need to continue). By mid-July, Aymer de
Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke was advising the King to make war on the Barons who, unwilling to risk their lives, entered
negotiations in September of 1312. In October, the Earls of Lancaster, Warwick, Arundel and Hereford begged Edward's pardon.
Conflict with Scotland
During this period, Robert the Bruce was steadily re-conquering Scotland. In June 1314, Edward led a huge army into Scotland in hopes of
relieving Stirling. On 24 June, his ill-disciplined and poorly-led force was completely defeated
by Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. Contemporary chroniclers considered it one
of the worst defeats sustained by an English army since 1066. Consequently, Bruce's position as King of Scots was secure, and he subsequently took vengeance for Edward I's activities by
devastating the northern counties of England. The English, learning from defeat, never again fielded an army which relied on
heavy cavalry charges, instead they fielded large numbers of longbowmen, dismounted men-at-arms and knights.
'Rule' of the Despensers
Following the death of Gaveston, the King increased favour to his nephew-by-marriage (who was also Gaveston's brother-in-law),
Hugh Despenser the Younger. But, as with Gaveston, the Barons were indignant
at the privileges Edward lavished upon the Despenser father and son, especially when the younger Despenser began in 1318 to
strive to procure for himself the earldom of Gloucester and the lands associated with it.
By 1320, the situation in England was again becoming dangerously unstable. Edward ignored laws of the land in favour of
Despenser: when Lord de Braose of Gower sold his Lordship to his son-in-law (an action entirely lawful in the Welsh Marches),
Despenser demanded that the King grant Gower to him instead. The King, against all laws, then confiscated Gower from the
purchaser and offered it to Despenser. In doing this, he invoked the fury of most of the Barons. In 1321, the Earl of Hereford,
along with the Earl of Lancaster and others, took up arms against the Despenser family, and the King was forced into an agreement
with the Barons. On 14 August at Westminster Hall, accompanied by the Earls of Pembroke and Richmond, the King declared the
Despenser father and son both banished.
The victory of the Barons proved their undoing. With the removal of the Despensers, many nobles in England, regardless of
previous affiliation, now attempted to move into the vacuum left by the two. Hoping to win Edward's favour, these nobles were
willing to aid the King in his revenge against the Barons and thus increase their own wealth and power. Edward himself therefore
not only desired revenge; he now had the means to attain it. In following campaigns, many of the King's opponents were murdered,
the Earl of Lancaster being beheaded in the presence of the King.
With all opposition crushed, the King and the Despensers were left the unquestionable masters of England. At the York
Parliament of 1322, Edward issued a Statute which revoked all previous Ordinances designed to limit his power and to prevent any
further encroachment upon it. The King would no longer be subject to the will of Parliament, and the Lords, Prelates, and Commons
were to suffer his will in silence. Parliament degenerated into a mere advisory council.
Isabella leaves England
A dispute between France and England broke out over Edward's refusal to pay homage to the French King for the territory of
Gascony and, after several bungled attempts to regain the territory, the King sent Isabella, the Queen, to negotiate for peace
terms.
Isabella was sent to France in March 1325, visibly overjoyed to be leaving England, which would not only allow her to visit
her family and native land, but also allow her to escape the Despensers and the King, all of whom she by now detested.
On 31 May 1325, Isabella agreed to a Peace Treaty. It favoured
France and required the King to pay homage, in France to Charles. But Edward decided instead to send his son who would pay homage
to Charles.
This proved a gross tactical error, and helped to bring about the ruin of both Edward and the Despensers as Isabella, now that
she had her son with her, declared that she would not return to England until Despenser was removed.
Invasion by Isabella and Mortimer
When Isabella's retinue (loyal to Edward, and ordered back to England by Isabella) returned to the English Court on 23
December, they brought further shocking news for the King: Isabella had formed a liaison with Roger Mortimer in Paris and they were now plotting an invasion of England.
Edward now prepared for invasion, but was betrayed by others close to him: his son refused to leave his mother (claiming that
he wanted to remain with her during her unease and unhappiness); his brother, the Earl of Kent, married Mortimer's cousin,
Margaret Wake; and other nobles, such as John de Cromwell and the Earl of Richmond, also chose to remain with Mortimer.
In September 1326, Mortimer and Isabella invaded England. Edward was amazed by their small numbers of soldiers, and
immediately attempted to levy an immense army to crush them. However, a large number of men refused to fight Mortimer and the
Queen; Henry of Lancaster, for example, was not even summoned by the King, and he showed his loyalties by raising an army,
seizing a cache of Despenser treasure from Leicester Abbey, and marching south to join Mortimer.
The invasion swiftly had too much force and support to be stemmed. As a result, the army the King had ordered failed to emerge
and the King, with Despenser, was left isolated. They abandoned London on 1 October, leaving the city to fall into disorder. The
King first took refuge in Gloucester, he then fled to South Wales, to make a defence in Despenser's misbegotten lands. But the
King was unable to rally an army. and on 31 October, Edward was abandoned by his servants, leaving him with only Despenser and a
few retainers.
On 27 October, the elder Despenser was accused of encouraging the illegal government of his son, enriching himself at the
expense of others, despoiling the church, and taking part in the illegal execution of the Earl of Lancaster. He was hanged and
beheaded at the Bristol Gallows. Henry of Lancaster was then sent to fetch the King and the younger Despenser from Wales and on
16 November he caught the King, Despenser and their soldiers in the open country near Neath. The soldiers were released and
Despenser was sent to Isabella at Hereford. The King was taken by Lancaster himself to Kenilworth.
End of the Despensers
Reprisals against the King's allies immediately began. The Earl of Arundel, an old enemy of Roger Mortimer, was beheaded. This
was followed by the trial and execution of Despenser.
(Despenser was brutally executed: a huge crowd gathered in anticipation at seeing him die. They dragged him from his horse,
stripped him, and scrawled biblical verses against corruption and arrogance on his skin, and then led him into the city,
presenting him in the market square to Roger, Isabella, and the Lancastrians. The list of charges was then read out, taking a
great time. He was then condemned to hang as a thief, be castrated, and then be drawn and quartered as a traitor, his quarters to
be dispersed through England).
Abdication
With the King imprisoned, Mortimer and the Queen faced the problem of what to do with him. The simplest solution would be
execution: his titles would then pass to Edward of Windsor, whom Isabella could control, whilst it would also prevent the
possibility of his being restored. Execution would require the King to be tried and convicted of Treason: and whilst most Lords
agreed that Edward had failed to show due attention to his country, several Prelates argued that, appointed by God, the King
could not be legally deposed or executed; if this happened, they said, God would punish the country. Thus, at first, it was
decided to have Edward imprisoned for life instead.
However, the fact remained that the legality of power still lay with the King. Isabella had been given the Great Seal, and was
using it to rule in the names of the King, herself, and their son as appropriate; nonetheless, these actions were illegal, and
could at any moment be challenged.
In these circumstances, Parliament chose to act as an authority above the King. Representatives of the Commons were summoned,
and debates began. The Archbishop of York and others declared themselves fearful of the London mob, loyal to Roger Mortimer.
Others wanted the King to speak in Parliament and openly abdicate, rather than be deposed by the Queen and her General. Mortimer
responded by commanding the Mayor of London, Richard de Bethune, to write to Parliament, asking them to go to the Guildhall to
swear an oath to protect the Queen and Prince Edward, and to depose the King. Mortimer then called the great lords to a secret
meeting that night, at which they gave their unanimous support to the deposition of the King.
Eventually Parliament agreed to remove the King. However, for all that Parliament had agreed that the King should no longer
rule, they had not deposed him. Rather, their decision made, Edward was asked to accept it.
On 20 January, Edward II was informed at Kenilworth Castle of the charges brought against him. The King was guilty of:
incompetence; allowing others to govern him to the detriment of the people and Church; not listening to good advice and pursuing
occupations unbecoming to a monarch; having lost Scotland and lands in Gascony and Ireland through failure of effective
governance; damaging the Church, and imprisoning its representatives; allowing nobles to be killed, disinherited, imprisoned and
exiled; failing to ensure fair justice, instead governing for profit and allowing others to do likewise; and of fleeing in the
company of a notorious enemy of the realm, leaving it without government, and thereby losing the faith and trust of his people.
Edward, profoundly shocked by this judgement, wept whilst listening. He was then offered a choice: he might abdicate in favour of
his son; or he might resist, and relinquish the throne to one not of royal blood, but experienced in government - this,
presumably, being Roger Mortimer. The King, lamenting that his people had so hated his rule, agreed that if the people would
accept his son, he would abdicate in his favour. The lords, through the person of Sir William Trussel, then renounced their
homage to him, and the reign of Edward II was ended by himself.
The abdication was announced and recorded in London on 24 January, and the 25th was proclaimed the first day of the reign of
Edward III - who, at 14, was still controlled by Isabella and Mortimer. The former King Edward remained imprisoned.
Death
Edward II's tomb at Gloucester Cathedral
The government of Isabella and Mortimer was so precarious that they dared not leave the deposed king in the hands of their
political enemies. On April 3, Edward II was removed from Kenilworth and entrusted to the
custody of two dependents of Mortimer, then later imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in
Gloucestershire where, it is generally believed, he was subsequently murdered.
The suspicion was elaborated in a later history by Sir Thomas More:-
| “ |
On the night of October 11 while lying in on a bed [the king] was suddenly seized and,
while a great mattress... weighed him down and suffocated him, a plumber's iron, heated intensely hot, was introduced through a
tube into his secret parts so that it burned the inner portions beyond the intestines. |
” |
It was rumoured that Edward had been killed by the insertion of a piece of copper into his rectum (later a red-hot iron rod, as in the supposed murder of Edmund
Ironside). Murder in this manner would have appeared a natural death, as a metal tube would have been inserted into the
anus first, thus allowing the iron rod to penetrate the entrails without leaving a burn on the
buttocks.
According to Norman F. Cantor (In the Wake of the Plague, p. 75):
| “ |
This savagery partly reflected hostility on the part of the Church and other
opinion-makers to the king's homosexuality and his favoritism towards his young French male lover, but it also reflected the
general malaise, anger, and pessimism of the new age of global cooling. |
” |
However it should be noted that this gruesome account is uncorroborated by any contemporary source and no-one writing in the
fourteenth century knew exactly what had happened to Edward II. The closest chronicler to the scene in time and distance, Adam
Murimuth, stated that it was 'popularly rumoured' that he had been suffocated. The Lichfield chronicle, equally reflecting local
opinion, stated that he had been strangled. Most chronicles did not offer a cause of death other than natural causes. Not until
the relevant sections of the longer Brut chronicle were composed by a Lancastrian (anti-Mortimer) polemicist in the
mid-1330s was the story of a copper rod in the anus widely circulated. In her biography of the king's wife Isabella,
Alison Weir puts forward the theory that Edward actually escaped imprisonment
and lived the rest of his life in exile. Ian Mortimer, in his biography of Edward III, also supports the theory that there is
some evidence that Edward II lived for at least another 11 years after his supposed death in 1327.
Following the public announcement of the king's death, the rule of Isabella and Mortimer did not last long. Mortimer and
Isabella made peace with the Scots in the Treaty of Northampton, but
this move was highly unpopular. Consequently, when Edward III came of age in 1330, he executed
Roger Mortimer on fourteen charges of treason, most significantly the murder of Edward II (thereby removing any public doubt
about his father's survival). Edward III spared his mother and gave her a generous allowance, but ensured that she retired from
public life for several years. She died at Hertford on 23
August 1358.
Fictional accounts of Edward II
King Edward II of
England. The scene on the lower part shows the king being murdered.
Ca.
1700 AD
The most famous fictional account of Edward II's reign is Christopher Marlowe's
play Edward II. In recent years, several acclaimed productions have been staged
in the United Kingdom, although the play is seldom performed in the United States outside of large cities and university towns.
Derek Jarman's cinematic version of the play has
much more to do with twentieth-century sexual politics than it does with Marlowe's drama.
Margaret Campbell Barnes' Isabel the Fair, Hilda
Lewis' Harlot Queen, Maureen Peters' Isabella, the She-Wolf, and
Brenda Honeyman's The Queen and Mortimer all focus on Queen Isabella. Eve Trevaskis' King's Wake starts shortly after the fall of the Despensers and ends with the fall of
Mortimer.
Most recently, Susan Higginbotham in The Traitor's Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward
II looks at the reign and its aftermath through the eyes of Hugh le Despenser's wife, Eleanor de Clare. Medieval mystery novelists P. C. Doherty and
Michael Jecks have set a number of their books against the backdrop of Edward II's
reign.
Cinematically, the Mel Gibson feature, Braveheart, shows Edward II as highly effeminate. This portrayal is inaccurate, as Edward II's appearance
was similar to his father's great stature and drooping eyelid. He was however generally believed to be homosexual and did not,
however, care for warcraft; when he became king, Edward II was just as weak a military leader against the Scots as the film shows
him to be. In the film, a Gaveston-like character (Edward clearly favored him over his wife and said he was his military adviser)
was pushed through a window to his death by Edward I. This sequence is historically inaccurate to the real Gaveston. Other
details in the film including Edward II being cuckolded by William Wallace are definitely false - although his wife was, as the above recounts, extremely capable
of diplomatic intrigue, military initiative and political leadership - see the article on Isabella of France for details.
Ancestry
