Edward II, (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327?)
called
Edward of Carnarvon, was
King of England from 1307 until he was
deposed in January 1327. He
was the seventh
Plantagenet king, in a
line that began with the reign of
Henry II. Interspersed between the
strong reigns of his father
Edward I and
son
Edward III, the reign of Edward II
was disastrous for England, marked by incompetence, political
squabbling, and military defeats. Although large in stature and
powerfully built, he was more interested in light entertainment and
simple pleasures than in the duties of governing.
Widely rumoured to have been either
homosexual or
bisexual,
Edward nevertheless fathered at least five children.
He was unable to deny
even the most grandiose favours to his male favourites (first a Gascon
knight named
Piers Gaveston, later a young English
lord named Hugh
Despenser) which led to constant political unrest and his
eventual deposition.
Whereas
Edward I had conquered all of Wales and the Scottish lowlands, and
ruled them with an iron hand, the army of Edward II was
devastatingly defeated at Bannockburn
, freeing Scotland from English control and allowing
Scottish forces to raid unchecked throughout the north of
England.
In
addition to these disasters, Edward II is remembered for his likely
death in Berkeley Castle, allegedly by murder; and for being the
first monarch to establish colleges in the universities of Oxford
and Cambridge
.
Prince of Wales
The fourth
son of Edward I by his first
wife Eleanor of
Castile, Edward II was born at Caernarfon Castle
. He was the first English prince to hold the
title
Prince of Wales, which was
formalized by the
Parliament of
Lincoln of 7 February 1301.
Escutcheon (heraldry)
The story that his father presented Edward II as a newborn to the
Welsh as their future native prince is
unfounded. The Welsh purportedly asked the King to give them a
prince who spoke
Welsh, and, the
story goes, he answered he would give them a prince that spoke no
English at all. This story first
appeared in the work of 16th century Welsh "
antiquary"
David
Powel.
Edward became heir at just a few months of age, following the death
of his elder brother
Alphonso. His father, a notable
military leader, trained his heir in
warfare
and
statecraft starting in his
childhood, yet the young Edward preferred
boating and
craftwork,
activities considered beneath kings at the time.
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 on his
friend a title reserved for royalty. Ironically, it was the
king who had originally chosen Gaveston in 1298 to be a suitable
friend for his son due to his wit, courtesy and abilities.
King of England
Edward I died on 7 July 1307 en route to another campaign against
the Scots, a war that became the hallmark of his reign. One
chronicler relates that Edward had requested his son "
boil his
body, extract the bones and carry them with the army until the
Scots had been subdued."
But his son ignored the request and had his
father buried in Westminster Abbey
. Edward II immediately recalled Gaveston,
created him
Earl of Cornwall, gave
him the hand of the king's niece,
Margaret of Gloucester, and withdrew from
the Scottish campaign.
Edward's Coat of Arms as King
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". 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 in Boulogne, the
daughter of King
Philip IV of
France, "Philip the Fair," and sister to three
French kings in an attempt to bolster an
alliance with France. While on 25 February the pair were crowned in
Westminster Abbey.
The marriage, however, 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, who would succeed his father
on the throne as Edward III, and
John of Eltham (later
created Earl of Cornwall), and two daughters,
Eleanor and
Joanna, 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 1322 and died shortly afterwards.
War with the Barons
When in
1308 Edward travelled to Boulogne
to marry
Isabella, he left Gaveston to act as regent.
Some English barons grew resentful of Gaveston's power, and began
to insist he be banished through the
Ordinances of 1311. Edward recalled his
friend, but could do little to prevent Gaveston being captured in
1312 under the orders of the
Earl of Lancaster
and his allies, who claimed that he had led the king to folly. He
was captured first by the Earl of Warwick, who he was seen to have
offended, and handed over to two Welshmen. They took him to
Blacklow Hill and murdered him; one
ran him through the heart with his sword and the other beheaded
him.
A
monument called Gaveston's Cross
remains on the site, outside Leek Wootton
.
Edward's grief over the death of Gaveston was profound. He kept the
remains of his body close to him for a number of weeks before the
Church forcibly arranged a burial.
Immediately following this, Edward 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 1312.
In October, the Earls of Lancaster, Warwick, Arundel and Hereford
were forced to beg Edward's pardon.
Edward and Piers Gaveston
Several contemporary sources criticised Edward's seeming
infatuation with
Piers Gaveston, to
the extent that he ignored and humiliated his wife. Chroniclers
called the relationship
excessive,
immoderate,
beyond measure and reason and criticised his desire for
wicked and forbidden sex. The Westminster chronicler
claimed that Gaveston had led Edward to reject the sweet embraces
of his wife; while the Meaux Chronicle (written several decades
later) took concern further and complained that,
Edward took
too much delight in sodomy. While such sources do not, in
themselves, prove that Edward and Gaveston were lovers; they at
least show that some contemporaries and later writers thought
strongly that this might be the case.
Gaveston was considered to be athletic and handsome; was a few
years older than Edward and had seen military service in
Flanders before becoming Edward's close companion.
He was known to have a quick, biting wit, and his fortunes
continued to ascend as Edward obtained more honours for him,
including the
Earldom of Cornwall.
Earlier,
Edward I had attempted to control
the situation by exiling Gaveston from England. However, upon the
elder king's death in 1307, Edward II immediately recalled him.
Isabella's marriage to Edward subsequently took place in 1308.
Almost immediately, she wrote to her father,
Philip the Fair, complaining of Edward's
behavior.
Although the relationship that developed between the two young men
was certainly very close, its exact nature is impossible to
determine. The relationship may have had a sexual element, though
the evidence for this is not conclusive. Both Edward and Gaveston
married early in the reign. There were children from both marriages
- Edward also had an illegitimate son, Adam. While some of the
chroniclers' remarks can be interpreted simply as
homosexuality or
bisexuality, too many of them are either much
later in date or the product of hostility. It has also been
plausibly argued that the two men may have entered into a bond of
adoptive brotherhood.
The relationship was later explored in a
play by the dramatist
Christopher Marlowe. This is unusual in
making explicit reference to an open
sexual relationship between king and favourite.
More frequently the nature of the relationship between the two is
only hinted at, or is cited as a dreadful example of the fate that
may befall kings who allow themselves to be influenced by
favourites, and so become estranged from their subjects.
Defeat in Scotland
Robert the Bruce had been steadily
reconquering Scotland. Each campaign begun by Edward, from 1307 to
1314, had ended in Robert clawing back more of the land that Edward
I had taken during his long reign. Robert's military successes
against Edward II were due to a number of factors, not the least of
which was the Scottish king's strategy. He used small forces to
trap an invading English army, took castles by stealth to preserve
his troops and he used the land as a weapon against Edward by
attacking quickly and then disappearing into the hills instead of
facing the superior numbers of the English.
Bruce united Scotland against its common enemy and is quoted as
saying that he feared more the dead Edward I than the living Edward
II.
By
June 1314, only Stirling
Castle
and Berwick
remained under English control.
On 23 June 1314, Edward and an army of 20 000 foot soldiers
and 3 000 cavalry faced Robert and his army of foot soldiers and
farmers wielding 14-foot-long pikes. Edward knew he had to keep the
critical stronghold of Stirling Castle if there was to be any
chance for English military success. The castle, however, was under
a constant state of siege, and the English commander, Sir Phillip
de Mowbray, had advised Edward that he would surrender the castle
to the Scots unless Edward arrived by 24 June 1314, to relieve the
siege. Edward could not afford to lose his last forward castle in
Scotland. He decided therefore to gamble his entire army to break
the siege and force the Scots to a final battle by putting its army
into the field.
However, Edward had made a serious mistake in thinking his vastly
superior numbers alone would provide enough of a strategic
advantage to defeat the Scots. Robert not only had the advantage of
prior warning, as he knew the actual day that Edward would come
north and fight, he also had the time to choose the field of battle
most advantageous to the Scots and their style of combat.
As Edward moved forward on the main road to Stirling, Robert placed
his army on either side of the road north, one in the dense woods
and the other placed on a bend on the river, a spot hard for the
invading army to see. Robert also ordered his men to dig potholes
and cover them with bracken in order to help break any cavalry
charge.
By contrast, Edward did not issue his writs of service, calling
upon 21,540 men, until 27 May 1314. Worse, his army was
ill-disciplined and had seen little success in eight years of
campaigns. On the eve of battle, he decided to move his entire army
at night and placed it in a marshy area, with its cavalry laid out
in nine squadrons in front of the foot soldiers.
The following battle,
the Battle of
Bannockburn, is considered by contemporary scholars to be the
worst defeat sustained by the English since the Battle of
Hastings
in 1066.
Reign of the Despensers
Following Gaveston's death, 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 its associated lands.
Westminster Hall
By 1320, the situation in England was again becoming dangerously
unstable. Edward ignored the law in favour of Despenser: when Lord
de Braose of Gower sold his title to his son-in-law, an action
entirely lawful in the Welsh Marches, Despenser demanded the king
grant Gower to him instead. The king, against all laws, then
confiscated Gower from the purchaser and offered it to Despenser;
in so doing, he provoked 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, 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. In following campaigns, many of the king's opponents
were murdered, the Earl of Lancaster being beheaded in the presence
of Edward himself.
With all opposition crushed, the king and the Despensers were left
the unquestioned 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.
Isabella leaves England
A dispute
between France and England then broke out over Edward's refusal to
pay homage to the French king for the territory of Gascony.
After several bungled attempts to regain the territory, Edward sent
his wife, Isabella, to negotiate peace terms. Overjoyed, Isabella
arrived in France in March 1325. She was now able to visit her
family and native land as well as escape the Despensers and the
king, all of whom she now detested.
On 31 May 1325, Isabella agreed to a peace treaty, favouring France
and requiring Edward to pay homage in France to her brother,
King Charles; but Edward
decided instead to send his son to pay homage. 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 prepared for the invasion but was betrayed by those close to
him: his son refused to leave his mother - claiming he wanted to
remain with her during her unease and unhappiness. Edward's
half-brother, the Earl of Kent, married Mortimer's cousin, Margaret
Wake; 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
both Edward and the Despensers were left isolated. They abandoned
London on 2 October, leaving the city to fall into disorder.
On the 15 October, a London mob seized and beheaded without trial
John le Marshal (a Londoner accused of being a spy for the
Despensers) and Edward II's Treasurer,
Walter de Stapledon Bishop of Exeter,
together with two of the bishop's squires.
The king first took
refuge in Gloucester (where he arrived on 9 October) and then fled
to South
Wales
in order to make a defence in Despenser's
lands. However, Edward was unable to rally an army, and on
31 October, he was abandoned by his servants, leaving him with only
the younger 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 Wales in order to fetch the King and the
younger Despenser; on 16 November he caught Edward, Despenser and
their soldiers in the open country near Tonyrefail
, where a plaque now commemorates the event.
The
soldiers were released and Despenser was sent to Isabella at
Hereford whilst the king was taken by Lancaster himself to Kenilworth
.
End of the Despensers
Execution of Hugh Despenser the
Younger
Reprisals against Edward's allies began immediately thereafter. The
Earl of Arundel, Sir
Edmund Fitz Alan, an
old enemy of Roger Mortimer, was beheaded on 17 November, together
with two of the earl's retainers, John Daniel and Thomas de
Micheldever. This was followed by the trial and execution of
Despenser on 24 November.
Hugh Despenser the younger was brutally executed and a huge crowd
gathered in anticipation at seeing him die—a public spectacle for
public entertainment. They dragged him from his horse, stripped
him, and scrawled Biblical verses against corruption and arrogance
on his skin. They then dragged him into the city, presenting him
(in the market square) to Queen Isabella, Roger Mortimer, and the
Lancastrians. He was then condemned to hang as a thief, be
castrated, and then to be
drawn and quartered as a traitor, his
quarters to be dispersed throughout England. Despenser's vassal
Simon of Reading was also hanged next to him, on charges of
insulting Queen Isabella.
Edward
II's Chancellor, Robert Baldock, was
placed under house arrest in London, but a London mob broke into
the house, severely beat him, and threw him into Newgate
Prison
, where he was murdered by some of the
inmates.
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, while it would also prevent the possibility of his
being restored.
Execution would require the King to be tried and convicted of
treason: and while 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 House of
Commons
were summoned, and debates began. The
Archbishop of York,
William Melton 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
Lord Mayor of London, Richard
de Betoyne, 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 1327, 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 judgment, wept while 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 ended.
The abdication was announced and recorded in London on 24 January
1327, and the following day was proclaimed the first of the reign
of
Edward III—who, at 14, was still
controlled by Isabella and Mortimer. Edward II remained
imprisoned.
Death
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 3 April, Edward II was removed from
Kenilworth and entrusted to the custody of two subordinates of
Mortimer, then later imprisoned at Berkeley Castle
in Gloucestershire where, it was generally
believed, he was murdered by an agent of Isabella and
Mortimer.
On the night of 11 October while lying 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 anus so that
it burned the inner portions beyond the intestines. — Thomas de la Moore.
De la Moore's account of Edward's murder was not written until
after 1352 and is uncorroborated by other contemporary sources.
No-one writing in the 14th century knew exactly what had happened
to Edward. 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-1430s was the story of a
copper rod in the anus widely circulated.
Ian Mortimer has put
forward the argument that Edward II was not killed at Berkeley but
was still alive at least until 1330. In his biography of Edward III
he explores the implications of this, using evidence including the
Fieschi Letter, concluding Edward II
may have died in Italy around 1341. In her biography of Isabella,
Alison Weir also considers the
Fieschi Letter narrative - that Edward
escaped imprisonment and lived the rest of his life in exile. Other
historians, however, including
David Carpenter have criticised
Mortimer's methodology and disagree with his conclusions.
Following the public announcement of the king's death, the rule of
Isabella and Mortimer did not last long. They 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.
Edward in popular culture
Edward II of England has been portrayed in popular culture a number
of times. The most famous fictional account of Edward II's reign is
Christopher Marlowe's play
Edward II (c. 1592). It depicts Edward's reign as a single
narrative, and does not include Bannockburn.
In 1991 English filmmaker
Derek Jarman
adapted the Christopher Marlowe play into a
film featuring
Tilda Swinton,
Steven Waddington,
Andrew Tiernan,
Nigel
Terry, and
Annie Lennox. The film
specifically portrays a homosexual relationship between Edward II
and Piers Gaveston.
Ancestors of Edward II of
England
Titles, styles, honours and arms
See also
References
- Flores Historiarum
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford
University, 2004
- Ian Mortimer The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger
Mortimer, Ruler of England 1327-1330 (London, 2004) pp.
155-156
- Ian Mortimer The Greatest Traitor' p.154'
- The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215; Adams and Weis; pg 111
- Ian Mortimer The Greatest Traitor'pp. 160-162 '
- Ian Mortimer The Greatest Traitor pp. 159-162.
- Ian Mortimer The Greatest Traitor p. 162.
- Ian Mortimer, 'The Death of Edward II in Berkeley castle',
English Historical Review cxx
(2005), pp. 1175-1224
- Mortimer, The Perfect King
- http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n15/letters.html#letter9
Sources
- Blackley, F.D. Adam, the Bastard Son of Edward II,
1964.
- Doherty, Paul. Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward
II. Constable and Robinson, 2003. ISBN 1841193011
- Fryde, Natalie. The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II:
1321-1326
- Mortimer, Ian. The Greatest Traitor: the Life of Sir Roger
Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, Ruler of England 1327-1330.
Thomas Dunne Books, 2003. ISBN 0-312-34941-6
- Mortimer, Ian. The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III
Father of the English Nation. Jonathan Cape, 2006. ISBN
9780224073011 Appendix 2: The fake death of Edward II; Appendix 3:
A note on the later life of Edward II
- Mortimer, Ian. 'Note on the deaths of Edward II' (2008)
- Weir, Alison, 'Isabella, She-Wolf of France', Jonathan Cape,
2005, ISBN 0224063200
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