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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Edward II
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(1284–1327)
King of England from 1307; fourth but oldest surviving son of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile; married in 1308 Isabella, daughter of Philip IV of France.
It is not surprising that Edward's life, a dramatic blend of sexual and political intrigue, was made the subject of one of England's earliest history plays, Edward II by Christopher Marlowe. The resentment of the barons at the king's long-standing favourite Piers Gaveston, with whom he is assumed to have had a homosexual relationship, ended with the murder of Gaveston. Later the power of a new favourite, Hugh le Despenser, provoked Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer to a rebellion which ended in the imprisonment of Edward.
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He was deposed in January 1327 in favour of his son, Edward III (see the *royal house), and was moved to Berkeley Castle. He died there in September, almost certainly murdered. Within a few years the gory tradition was already in circulation, fuelled by rumours of the king's homosexuality, that the instrument of death had been a red-hot skewer up the anus.
The chief military problem of Edward's reign had been the presence of a strong ruler in Scotland, *Robert the Bruce, who inflicted a major defeat on Edward at *Bannockburn in 1314 and so was able to drive the English south of the border.
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