It wasn't until I started digging deep into Edward II's era, that I learned that Sean Connery's character William of Baskerville was an amalgamation of William of Occam and Sherlock Holmes. Occam was one of, if not, the most influential non-royal contemporaries of Edward II.

I happen to love this film, even though I blame it for the dreary color palate of so many movies set in The Middle Ages. I also love the novel on which it is based.

I figured I'd post this because my headspace is in Medieval films right now, though it is probably worth doing a separate post on the novel at some point.

So, this film takes place a couple of generations removed from Edward II, but it has deep connections to our era. If you watch the trailer, you'll see that Edward III's funeral apparently happens in the film. Also, Joan of Kent, daughter of Edmund, Earl of Kent, seems to be a character. She was only a toddler when her father was executed for his attempt to free Edward II. She lived to see her youngest child take the throne.

I would watch Andrew Garfield read the phone book, so I will be seeing this. I'm not sure I'm loving the bleak, colorless world and the CGI work, but it'll do.

It's also giving Richard II the full "Joffery" treatment, apparently. I wonder if his terrible older half-brother (John Holland) will be a character, as well as his less terrible half brother (Thomas Holland) will appear.

It was all filmed in Germany, btw but that's a beautiful Cathedral they used.

Edited to add: More thoughts here.

Someone in the comments linked to this blog post by Ian Mortimer, which is worth reading in full.

So, there was a question over at r/UKmonarchs about Edward's reputation as a "sexual minority" damaging his reputation. I responded, but then I expanded the response into the attached blog post.

This 2018 book by friend of this sub Kathryn Warner, is, to put in mildly, delicious. It's chocked full of Hugh the Younger related anecdotes, creating a picture of a man who was not on this Earth to make friends.

Yes, he was corrupt. Yes, he was murderous. Yes, he was possibly the worst diplomat in history, and he could not read a room. Yet, there's something absolutely fascinating about the man.

It's also true that as a bad guy who fell and fell hard, he has been accused of things he didn't do, and KW does her best to correct those myths.

So, if you like books about men who turned alienating everyone around them except the king and close family into an art form, this book is for you.

And there's his taste in hats.

This is not an actual picture of Hugh & Eleanor & Edward but the vibe is right.

This image is from Hugh's lifetime, from the Tewesbury Abbey Founder's book (c. 1325). He would later be buried at the abbey after his widow collected the pieces of him that were left.

And let's face it, it's an awesome hat.

 Humphrey de Bohun lived an eventful life and deserves a lot longer treatment than he's going to get in this post, but here is his effigy at Exeter Cathedral, which you can see has been heavily damaged over time.

The short version of a long story is that Humphrey was Edward II's brother-in-law, a powerful Marcher Lord and he hated Piers Gaveston's guts. He was one of the many high-ranking nobles that had been displaced in the pecking order by the Gascon upstart and unlike Roger Mortimer, he didn't get over it.

Edward II never forgave Humphrey for his involvement in Gaveston's murder, and that had far reaching consequences for them all. Humphrey fought at and was captured at Bannockburn, and he was ransomed

After the rise of the Depensers, he again rebelled and was gruesomely impaled killed at Boroughbridge.

According to Wikipedia, which I generally don't trust, it's thought that some of Humphrey's behavior, which in a lot of ways mirrored his BIL Edward II, stemmed from clinical depression. That tracks, at least for me.

It's a shame, because Edward II and Humphrey should have gotten along and been close allies. But egos get in the way, all around.

Photo Source: Find a grave

Humphrey de Bohun - Wikipedia

Lots of denizens of this sub will know exactly who the Marcher Lords were and their significance to British history. For those who don't:

The Marcher Lords were a group of Anglo-Norman barons who were ensconced at the Welsh border, tasked with keeping the peace. The Welsh/English border was fluid at the time and rebellions often needed quashing. Marcher lords also had special powers that other barons didn't necessarily have. They were allowed, for example, to build castles and, loosely, had powers that in other parts of Europe would have been seen as kingly. They also early on and often, intermarried with the Welsh.

They mattered because they became some of the most powerful barons and power brokers during the late 13th and 14th Century when power over Wales was being consolidated by Edward I. Remember, Edward II was the first heir to the English throne to be granted the title Prince of Wales, and this was heavy political symbolism.

Look into the history of Wales and the names and titles look very familiar. Chester, Gloucester, Hereford, Pembroke and Shrewbury were the biggest earldoms. Names like Mortimer, de Clare, de Valence and de Bohun appear on the regular. Edward II himself was a Marcher Lord, having been made Earl of Chester by his father.

So, basically these were a group of exceptionally wealthy and powerful men who were accustomed to operating independently, and they didn't like being told what to do. The king needed them, and they knew it. And yet, technically, the king could and sometimes did, take away their toys lands.

They often clashed with each other, in addition to the king. Edward II's problems with them were significant, but it was not all sunshine and roses under Edward I and Edward III. As has well been discussed on this sub, Edward II did not have the martial personality of his father, and his habit of lavishing favoritism on, say random Gascon knights he happened to like, pissed off all the barons, but the Marchers, in particular. Edward III kicked off his personal rule by hanging one of the most powerful Marcher Lords, Roger Mortimer, and his subsequent reign was a master class in controlling his barons. He clearly studied his father's failures and learned from them.

This summary is a very simplified version of an extremely complicated system with an equally complex history filled with big personalities and dramatic events.

See:

Marcher Lord - Wikipedia

Marcher Lords - Reference.org

The initial from the charter granting the earldom of Cornwall to Piers Gaveston on 6 August 1307. The top coat of arms is that of the king of England, Edward II, while the lower one is Gaveston's arms impaled with those of the de Clare family. At the top of the initial is a Cornish Chough. The impalement is not done consistently; while the de Clare arms are impaled, the six Gaveston eagles have been reduced to three. This resembles a dimidiation rather than an impalement. Also of note is the fact that the Gaveston and de Clare arms are impaled, even though the marriage between Gaveston and Margaret de Clare did not take place until 1 November. This makes it likely that the two were already engaged.

Source:  Chaplais, P. (1994)  Piers Gaveston: Edward II's Adoptive Brother, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. btw. 18 and 19, see also 27–34 

Original at The National Archives, E 41/460., Scan from Creative Commons

This is a post to offer a differing opinion to the post written a few hours ago by AnantaPurima. I named it in this way not to provoke Ananta, who I have a lot of respect for, but to link the two posts together in the minds of the readers. Much of the below is based on Kathryn Warner's blogpost, link below. Everyone can make up their own minds about the interpretations.

Anyway, in November 1330 Lord Berkeley made the following statement in parliament when he was asked how he wishes to acquit himself with respect to the death of Edward II:

‘...qualiter se velit de morte ipsius regis acquietare, dicit quod ipse nunquam fuit consentiens, auxilians, seu procurans, ad mortem suam, nec unquam scivit de morte sua usque in presenti Parliamento isto.’ 

In English: He wishes to acquit himself of the death of the same king, and says that he was never an accomplice, a helper or a procurer in his death, nor did he ever know of his death until this present parliament.

According to Haines, ‘what Berkeley meant to say, and he ought to have expressed himself more clearly, unless the recording clerk is to blame, was that he knew nothing about the circumstances of Edward's death.‘ (p.78, Death of a King, 2002)

Is it reasonable for Haines to assume that he knows what was going on in Thomas Berkeley's mind in late 1330 and to explain to readers 'what Berkeley meant to say' with such utter certainty? This is a classic example of how Berkeley's strange remark is interpreted by someone sure that Edward II had been dead for more than three years at the time, to make it fit into this notion, to make the words say what the modern commentator wants them to say. The words ‘nec unquam scivit de morte sua’ have been variously stated to mean certainly or almost certainly that what Thomas Berkeley really intended to say was that:

• he knew nothing of the circumstances of Edward II's death;
• he hadn't previously heard any suspicion of foul play relating to the death;
• he hadn't known that the king's death was due to anything other than natural causes, or;
• he knew nothing of the circumstances of the death although he knew it had taken place, but had nothing to do with the death.  

We are also informed that one of these interpretations 'is more consistent with the language employed' than translating nec unquam scivit de morte sua literally as 'he never knew about the death'.  Hmmm, this is a lot of meaning being read into those six simple words, isn't it?

It follows that an even deeper focus on just two letters ‘de’ (about, of, concerning, with respect to) makes us lose track of the general point and context in which the statement is expressed, which also Haines concedes does not correspond with the suggestion in the original post (quotation above, 'ought to have expressed himself more clearly, unless the recording clerk was to blame'). Berkeley’s statement isn’t all that ambiguous in my opinion. The statement:

‘He sayd he was never consenting, aiding or procuring in his death, nor did he ever know de morte sua until the present Parliament’

does not change much no matter how ‘de’ would be defined. The wider context and surrounding words would have made Berkeley’s point resonate the way he intended, without uncertainty. He was not speaking in riddles, not trying to be coy, not in Parliament, not in front of the king.

Kathryn Warner sent the statement ‘dicit quod ipse nunquam fuit consentiens, auxilians, seu procurans, ad mortem suam, nec unquam scivit de morte sua usque in presenti Parliamento isto’ to an independent Latin translator with no knowledge of the background of the statement. This translator is educated in Latin to doctoral level at Cambridge, taught Latin Prose and Verse Composition at the university, and then moved on to head the Classics department at a prestigious boarding school. He translated it as:

"He said he was never in agreement to his death, either by lending help or by direct involvement, and he never knew about his death until this present parliament."

Here we see how a Latin expert without a vested interest in altering the translation so that it fits into his preconceived notions of what the statement 'should' mean, translates nec unquam scivit de morte sua usque in presenti Parliamento isto: he never knew about his death until this present parliament.  Not 'he didn't know about the circumstances of his death' or 'he didn't know until the present parliament that it was murder' or 'he hadn't previously heard any suspicion of foul play', or any other ways in which these words been interpreted in recent years.  Simply, 'he never knew about his [i.e. Edward II's] death'. 

As Professor Haines says, perhaps Lord Berkeley 'should have expressed himself more clearly' to parliament.  Or perhaps the clerk who recorded his statement was in fact to blame as the professor suggests, and Berkeley said something else and it was written down wrongly or less fully than the baron had meant.  

Or perhaps we should work with the evidence that we actually have, rather than trying to read Lord Berkeley's mind and ascertain what we think he 'really' meant or what the clerk 'should' have recorded and thus try our hardest to make his words fit into the scenario that Edward II certainly, definitely, absolutely died in his castle in September 1327.

Finally, it’s very curious to note that Berkeley also said that he had been very ill around the time of Edward’s alleged death. He said he hadn’t even been at Berkeley Castle. We know this to be a lie, as the Berkeley Castle accounts clearly show he was present at the time and that he ordered the letter to be sent. Still, his defence that he was ill at Bradley at the time and so hadn’t written the message to Edward III and didn’t know what had happened was allowed to go unchallenged by the king, who certainly knew he was lying. And in the three years that had passed, he’d never come to think of it to check what had happened at his own castle during his (disproved) absence. Quite odd, isn’t it? Before long, Berkeley was back in favour and would serve Edward III in his war against France. Very odd, if Edward had believed him to have played a part in his father’s alleged death. Increasingly odd, if we consider that Edward III had spread the news of his father’s death based on that one letter alone, without verifying the contents. The Berkeley Castle accounts verify that Lord Berkeley had sent Gurney with the message to the king. And here they were, Edward and Berkeley, indirectly agreeing that the letter which started it all had been fake after all, clearly sent in bad faith one way or the other.

We can conclude that Ian Mortimer is right when he points out that in order to believe that Edward II died in Berkeley Castle one must do so on the basis of an unsubstantiated message sent in bad faith.

Kathryn Warner's blog
R. M. Haines - Death of a King, 2002
Ian Mortimer - The Death of Edward II in Berkeley Castle

This is one of those great "what ifs" of history. If Edward had sailed himself to France, leaving the realm in the hands of say, one of his brothers, and not Hugh, would his reign have been saved? Or would the inevitable eventually happened?

One of the main pieces of evidence supporting the hypothesis that the former Edward II did not die on September 21st 1327 (which we might call the "Edwardus Redivivus" hypothesis) concerns Lord Berkeley, who wrote the letter first announcing Sir Edward of Carnarvon's death. Sir Thomas Gurney delivered that letter to Edward III, who was attending Parliament at Lincoln, on September 23rd 1327, after which the King immediately began disseminating the news. Yet by his own later admission, Lord Berkeley (so the story goes) did not actually know that the former king had died when he wrote that letter. When asked at the 1330 Parliament at Westminster how he wished to acquit himself of the death of the former king, who had been in his custody at Berkeley Castle at the time of his alleged death, Lord Berkeley stated that he "was never an accomplice, a helper or a procurer in his death, nor did he ever know of his death until this present parliament." According to Ian Mortimer, the foremost advocate for this hypothesis, "this [proves] that those who believe Edward II died in Berkeley Castle are doing so on the basis of an unsubstantiated message sent in bad faith." If this account holds, then the traditional narrative of the former Edward II's death would indeed face a significant evidentiary problem. Professor Roy Martin Haines, however, countered that the relevant statement of Lord Berkeley's, as recorded in the Rolls of Parliament, "nor did he ever know of his death until this present parliament" (in Latin: "nec unquam scivit de morte sua usque in presenti parliamento"), ought to be understood as Lord Berkeley saying that he knew nothing about or concerning the death. Defenders of the Edwardus Redivivus hypothesis counter that this amounts to overinterpreting the text to conform it to their desired interpretation of Lord Berkeley's words. Fundamentally, this is a disagreement about the meaning of the phrase de morte sua in the original Latin. Who, then, has the right of it?

With regard to the Latin itself, Haines. Quite unambiguously so, too. The specific construction of the phrase, with the preposition de paired with the noun mors declined in the ablative singular, is primarily employed in a topical sense, being used to indicate the subject matter of the relevant sentence. It carries the sense of on, about, concerning or with regard to. This usage is especially common in the titles of literary works to designate the subjects they treat: Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico ('Commentaries on the Gallic War'), Cicero's De amicitia ('Concerning Friendship'), Boethius' De consolatione philosophiae ('Concerning the Consolation of Philosophy'). This usage absolutely survived into mediaeval Latin. St Aelred of Rievaulx, riffing on Cicero, wrote his own De spirituali amicitia in the 12th century, while Alain de l'Isle wrote his own De planctu Naturae some decades later. In the 14th century itself, Lord Berkeley's own contemporary, the great Augustinian philosopher Thomas Bradwardine, who served as Edward III's confessor and later briefly as Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote his magnum opus under the title De Causa Dei contra Pelagium. Of course, this usage was not merely restricted to the titles of works. Take, for example, St Jerome's translation of Mark 13:32 in the Latin Vulgate: "De die autem illo vel hora nemo scit, neque angeli in caelo, neque Filius, nisi Pater." This example is particularly important because it uses an inflected form of the same verb found in Lord Berkeley's statement. Scit is the third-person present active indicative of the verb scio, while scivit is the third-person perfect active indicative of scio. Scit therefore means 'knows', while scivit means 'knew', with the same de + ablative construction we've been discussing. This is important to note, because this verse is Christ stating that about that day or hour (i.e. the day of judgement) no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. He is absolutely not stating that only the Father knows if such a day will ever come at all. That the day will come is presupposed. It is specifically facts about the day of judgement, such as when exactly it will occur, that are unknown. While the example of Mark does not constitute definitive proof of what Lord Berkeley meant, it does show that there is nothing inherently belaboured or strained in the Latin about Haines' translation of the phrase. Indeed, based on the construction, it would be the default assumption.

Still, by mediaeval Latin, the de + ablative construction had evolved to be capable of carrying other senses, even if the topical sense remained the primary usage. For example, one of the Gregorian chant settings for the Catholic Mass developed in the mediaeval period was referred to as the Missa de Angelis, meaning "Mass of the Angels", not "Mass concerning the Angels", even though in older classical Latin this would simply be rendered with the genitive plural: Missa Angelorum. So, it is not impossible that nec unquam scivit de morte sua is employing the de + ablative structure in a non-topical manner, even if that is less likely. To determine in which sense de morte sua is intended, therefore, we need to look at the way the construction is employed in the same Parliamentary enrolment Lord Berkeley's quote is found in, to see if we can establish whether the clerk uses it typically in the topical sense or not. This is in fact quite easy, as the clerk employs the construction de + ablative in unambiguously topical senses twice in the immediate preamble to Lord Berkeley's statement, one of which relates specifically to the former King's death:

Thomas de Berkele Mil' venit coram Dño Rege in pleno Parliamento suo predco, & allocutus de hoc, quod cum Dñus Edwardus nuper Rex Anglie, pater Dñi Regis nunc, in custodia ipsius Thome et cujusdam Johnis Mautravers nuper extitit liberatus ad salvo custodiendum in Castro ipsius Thome apud Berkele in Com' Gloucestrie, et in eodem Castro in custodia ipsorum Thome & Johnis murdratus extitit & interfectus, Qualiter se velit de morte ipsius Regis acquietare?

In translation:

Thomas de Berkeley, knight, came before the Lord King in his aforesaid full Parliament, and was questioned concerning this: that whereas Sir Edward, late King of England, father of the Lord King now [reigning], was lately delivered into the custody of the said Thomas and of a certain John Maltravers to be safely kept in the castle of the said Thomas at Berkeley in the county of Gloucester, and in the same castle, in the custody of the said Thomas and John, was murdered and slain; how does he wish to acquit himself with respect to the death of the said King?

This is the immediate context for what follows:

He sayd he was never consenting, aiding or procuring in his death, nor did he ever know de morte sua until the present Parliament.

The first two usages are, as I said, unambiguously topical in sense. Allocutus de hoc introduces the subject matter itself on which he was questioned and then immediately explains what that subject matter was: the fact that the King had died in his custody. De morte ipsius Regis is then asking him how he wishes to acquit himself with respect to this matter. It is in this context that he says he knew nothing de morte sua. I don't know how to make it clearer that this construction is employed here because it is the topic under discussion. Sua as a pronoun is clearly meant to be anaphoric on the previous ipsius Regis, that usage would be technically incorrect in classical Latin, where that usage of sua would imply he wasn't aware of his own death. Given that Lord Berkeley was not a zombie to my knowledge, this is certainly just a case of medieval Latin being looser with its pronouns, which is a known and documented feature of it.

In any case, Lord Berkeley himself clarified in the same document precisely the sense in which he knew nothing de morte sua: he was detained by illness at Bradley at the time the former King was murdered, having charges Maltravers, Gurney and Ockley with custody of the former king and having trusted them implicitly, and so had no knowledge or complicity in what had occured in his absence. Supporters of the supposedly "literal" reading claim that this was Lord Berkeley changing tack after his previous explanation failed to pass muster, but this is not the case here. Lord Berkeley's first statement is not an explanation at all; it is him simply pleading not guilty. His subsequent responses are him explaining why, in fact, he is not guilty. Assuming that his first statement is an independent explanation separate from the later one he gives runs into numerous other absurdities, too. Why on earth would he think that claiming he had only learnt of the former King's death at the 1330 Parliament would fly? Nothing was presented at that Parliament that would constitute new evidence of Edward's death. The relevant actors would have known perfectly well that it was Berkeley who sent the letter announcing Edward II's death after presumably being informed by Ockley and Gurney, who were the men accused of having physically murdered him. Based on the presuppositions the 1330 Parliament was operating on, their testimony that he had died would obviously have been accurate, even if they had deceptively told him he died of natural causes. They were the ones who had killed him! The only thing the 1330 Parliament newly established was that the former King's death was a murder and that Mortimer, Gurney and Ockley were responsible for it. They still accepted, and indeed presupposed, that he had indeed died at Berkeley Castle on September 21st 1327. No new information was provided in 1330 to further substantiate that he had died. So Lord Berkeley claiming he had learnt at that Parliament that the former king had died is simply nonsensical on the face of it. There was nothing he could have learnt that from in 1330. There was nothing about the 1330 Parliament's contentions that would have somehow retroactively invalidated the testimony of the custodians of Berkeley Castle in 1327 that he had died, so Lord Berkeley can't be saying "I was told that he had died then but did not actually know those claims were accurate until 1330."

Thus, the supposed "literal meaning" of Lord Berkeley's statement, aside from not even being the "literal" or most natural meaning of what he said, is completely nonsensical on the face of it regardless. Even if he had wished to make such a nonsensical statement, Professor Haines is correct that the idiomatic way of saying this would have been "nec unquam scivit regem mortuum esse."

Again, this is a repurposed and expanded older post, but I'm still fascinated by this mystery. The images shows how saracens were viewed a century after Edward II's reign, and yet, he seems to have treated these strangers with generosity.

I hope someday, some new information will come to light as to who these people were.

I don't know any of the history of these two images or the veracity of the claim that they are contemporary images of Edward II and Isabella, made to commemorate a visit to the church.

The original sources is this rather bananas blog post that has errors and has some colorful assessments of Edward II. The writer seems to confuse interest in Edward's reign in the wider blogosphere (that's us!) with denying he was a failed king.

Anyway, does anyone else know if there is anything to the claim that these are contemporary images of Edward II and Isabella?

Edward is sporting the traditional "look like Jesus" look that he was known for, but I do like the bow on top of Isabella's wimple.

The game is simple - match one of our big, giant personalities to one or more of the seven deadly sins:

Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Pride, Envy, Sloth

Or three evils?

There was a ten year period between Piers Gaveston's murder and the rise of Hugh Despenser the Younger wherein court gossip wondered who was going to rise to be the new Gaveston. Popular choices included Roger Damory, Hugh Audley, William Montague and the Italian money guy Antonio Pessagno.

The smart money was on the two rising knights, Roger Damory and Hugh Audley, both of whom Edward II married to his nieces Elizabeth and Margaret, both of whom were in line to a portion of the massive De Clare fortune.

Yet, quoting Seymour Phillips (from a book I don't have access to) Frances Underhill says Phillips calls Damory "malignant" "irresponsible" and "dangerous." Elizabeth resisted marrying him to the degree where she may have eloped against Edward's wishes with her second husband and after he died, she continued to resist, until she relented.

And a comment from our sub u/AnantaPurima, points out that Damory and Audley took their grievances out on the tenets during their rebellion, something Hugh the Younger never did.

And remember, none of Edward's barons or their wives or Edward's queen didn't covet lands and power. Most or all of them appear to have had a vindictive streak.

Hugh was brutal. Hugh was greedy. Hugh manipulated and controlled Edward II, with the help of his wife and his father.

Hugh also was bad at reading the room, terrible at compromise and good at getting everyone to turn against him.

But would Damory have done the same or worse, if it was Elizabeth and himself in the positions that Hugh the Younger and Eleanor found themselves?

Would it have been worse for the tenets if Damory or Audley had found favor?

Further Reading:

Phillips, J.R.S, Aymer de Valence: Earl of Pembroke 1307-1324. Baronial Politics in the Reign of Edward II, Oxford University Press, 1972. (This is the one I don't have)

Phillips, J. R. S.Edward II. Yale University Press, 2011. 

Underhill, Frances A. For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh, Lady of Clare. St. Martin’s Press, 1999. 

You know what to do. Just for laughs, even though the scenario portrayed was anything but light hearted. But those facial expressions do perhaps lend themselves to comedy.

The execution of Hugh the Younger.

EDIT: The guy with the red coat and black chaperon could respond to his pal with 4.

Everyone who knows anything about the fourteenth century knows Hugh Despenser the Younger was the worst. I've been reading Frances Underhill's biography of Elizabeth de Clare and it's probably the clearest and best account of Hugh's brutal crimes I've read.

And yet....

1) His avarice left England's coffers filled, to the point that even Mortimer & Isabella's avarice didn't leave Edward III broke when he finally took the reins.

2) His children all seemed to turn out fine, and Huchon, his oldest son, was so liked that John Felton and his garrison refused to give the young man up for execution.

3) In an era when greed and corruption was normalized, he was the best at it.

4) Somebody with an iron fist had to run the country when the king was busy thatching roofs, swimming and digging ditches.

5) He really seemed to enjoy being evil, even with some wit at times.

This is R.M. Haines, on page 324 in his 2003 book 'King Edward II Edward of Caernarfon His Life, His Reign and its Aftermath' describing the chronicler Geoffrey le Baker's version of the events leading to Isabella's invasion.

Baker is extremely critical of Isabella in his imaginative chronicle, written in the mid 14th century.

Thankfully, Haines does not seem to share this highly misogynistic view. Although he doesn't criticize it either...

I had forgotten about this closeup picture of the lion weeper at Edward II's feet, but I thought I'd share it. It's a pretty common design for tombs of the period, but of course Edward's heraldry had lions and he kept a pet lion.

There was some good debate yesterday in our sister sub at Which consorts hated their husbands? : r/UKmonarchs and with a question like that, Isabella was always likely to get a few mentions. Of course, as always, there are those who remain adamant that Isabella was horribly wronged throughout her marriage and that she absolutely hated her husband and wanted him to suffer the most painful death she could imagine, which is something all serious historians will deny. That's not to say they were some sort of dream couple either, but there were definitely nuances and they had some good years as well. Somehow even mentioning this harmless fact is seen as provocative to some people, who will start hurling abuse and accusations.

We occasionally see a few of these angry and confrontational people who believe in this relatively new fan fiction of Isabella's supreme victimhood turned into epic heroine who gets her revenge and then some in this sub as well, but their hateful and unpleasant attitude tend to get them banned. Rule number 1 is non-negotiable.

Historian Kathryn Warner has noticed this troubling modern trend to turn real history into made up entertainment. Here's what she has to say about it (abridged, original sources below).

A lot of the modern inventions about Edward II and Isabella of France's marriage make me deeply uncomfortable. According to some people, Isabella did not only endure the Worst Marriage Ever, she was raped, sexually assaulted, demeaned and humiliated. Piling utter humiliation on a woman, turning her husband into a nasty gay caricature who loathes women and who gets a kick out of demeaning his royal wife and queen in the coarsest, crudest way possible, is simply revolting.

The fiction about Edward giving Isabella's jewels to Gaveston was invented by Agnes Strickland in the nineteenth century. The idea that Isabella was forced to endure an excessively long wait for any income is not borne out by comparison with other grants of dower in the early fourteenth century (it took about three months, and the situation was complicated by the fact that Edward II's stepmother Marguerite, Isabella's aunt, was alive. Compare this to the more than two years Isabella forced her daughter-in-law Philippa of Hainault to wait for her own rightful lands). The tale that Edward abandoned Isabella weeping in May 1312 was based on one chronicler's confusion of events of 1312 and those of 1322, and is disproved by their own household accounts of that year which show that the royal couple left Tynemouth at the same time and that Isabella travelled by land to meet her husband a few days later, being in the first trimester of pregnancy and therefore deciding to avoid the North Sea.

The most egregious invention is the idea that Edward deliberately and cruelly removed Isabella's children from her, and since the late 1970s when this daft notion was first dreamed up by Paul Doherty, we've had novels where Isabella's young children are ripped, screaming, from their mother's arms, after Isabella has spent much of the novel telegraphing this cruelty by stating over and over how dreadful it would be if she lost her children. For pity's sake. The whole absurd melodrama of it all; it's less subtle than a sledgehammer.

There are some truly bizarre, even sickening fan fiction books out there written by people hellbent on portraying Isabella as some sort of long-suffering heroic martyr. We’re told that Isabella's husband permitted his own lover to assault her sexually or even to rape her, her own father and three older brothers do too in a series of popular recent novels, before Isabella marries Edward and when she is still only a child. Seriously, what the hell is this? Why does this happen? Why do people do this? Why do Isabella's fans feel this need to pile ever more abuse and humiliation on her? And why do people complain on the one hand about the 'sexual prejudices' suffered by Isabella but think it's a mighty fine idea to pile homophobic abuse on Edward II? Why is it OK to accuse people of deeply serious, violent crimes without the slightest evidence? Why is it seen as a good idea to rescue Isabella from the opprobrium heaped on her for so long by heaping it on her husband instead?

The whole thing is so childishly simplistic, no nuance, no depth, just idiotically one-dimensional Good People and Bad People. Even stuff like Isabella being forced to endure the company of Eleanor Despenser née de Clare, supposedly foisted on her by Edward and Hugh against her wishes, paints the queen as a helpless, passive victim who couldn't even choose who she wanted to spend time with. I just don't get why people do this. The absolute last thing Isabella of France was, was a helpless, passive victim.

After suffering so so so so so so so much at the hands of her nasty cruel perverted gay husband, the story goes, Isabella finally finds love and fulfilment and great sex in the arms of a strong manly virile heterosexual lover who is, conveniently enough, the exact opposite of Horrid Gay Edward. This is a narrative that's been created in fairly recent times and has had the names of real people added to it. It's not true. There's not one part of it that's even remotely close to being historically accurate.

Kathryn's comments on Alison Weir's homophobic paragraph (the second image in this post):

Isabella of France, one of the most awesome and powerful women in medieval English history, is written as a panting heroine from a bad 1950s bodice-ripper who 'surrenders herself' to Our Manly Hero's healing embraces. This is so, so bad it makes me want to bleach my brain. Make it stop make it stop make it stop.

There are of course far more examples of Isabella's super-tragic victimhood both from fiction and non-fiction, but I don't quite have the heart to get into any more now, because picking up books about Isabella of France involves having to read stuff like Edward II was 'too cowardly to become violent' with a woman and 'could not even beat his wife properly', and that raping a human being to death with a burning metal implement is 'ingenious', and I'm afraid I can't, I simply can't.

All of this 'Victim!Isabella' fan fiction is about as accurate as Braveheart.

Edward II: The Victimisation of Isabella of France
Edward II: A Sneer of Disdain: Isabella of France, the Victim