Well my biography of Edward is called the unconventional King because for the time
he lived in he was extremely unconventional and unusual so royal and
noble men of the Middle Ages always enjoyed jousting for example Edward never
jousted so Edward preferred to get dirty with peasants, so he jumped into
trenches and ditches and he picked up a spade and he joined in, he thatched roofs
he enjoyed working with metalwork so he he enjoyed like popping
into to chat to his blacksmith and to watch them work so not only did he
participate in these kind of jobs or occupations he also watched other people
doing them so this was it makes him an extremely unusual for his time because
Kings weren't supposed to do that sort of thing let's face it and another
aspect of Edwards behavior is that he very much enjoyed the company of the
people who performed these tasks so my own research has shown that you know he
often popped in to chat to his blacksmiths, when he sailed along the
River Thames he chatted to fishermen he even waded into the water of the Thames
to buy his own fish himself with his own hands so this is the kind of unusual
person that Edward was he was very much ahead of his time so his kind of
behavior wouldn't be so unusual today you know we might even see him as a
great role model you know a man who loved the outdoors, who enjoyed he
enjoyed rowing and swimming for example he enjoyed fishing so he enjoyed these
quite active outdoor pursuits and he also enjoyed the company of your
fishermen, carters, blacksmiths, shipwrights these kind of people and if
you were say Prince Harry you know we might approve of this we might
think great you know there's a prince with a common touch that's really great
he doesn't just hang out with you know the the upper-class people he gets down
you know he likes the lower-class people as well
but to Edward's contemporaries this was quite shocking and he actually got a lot
of criticism for it and I think in another way he was quite openly a lover
of men and I think that's also something which is perhaps seems more modern like
one Chronicle refers to him and his favorite or his lover Hugh Despenser as
the King and his husband and in a country where gay marriage is only recently been
made legal you know I think you know in so many ways Edward seems to me 700
ahead of this time. Edward's reign because it was kind of only 20 years so
it's comparatively short and it was it's kind of sandwiched between the much
longer and much more successful reigns of his father Edward the first and his son
Edward the third and because Edward was a failure as a king and he ended up
being deposed a lot of chronicles were written after his reign with the
knowledge that he had failed and they perhaps judged him more harshly than
they perhaps otherwise would have done so for example we have one Chronicle the
Vita Edwardi Secundi the author probably died or became incapacitated before
Edwards deposition so this is like a much more reliable source because he
tends at the end of 1325 a year before Edward's deposition without when it
wasn't written with the knowledge of Edwards later deposition but I think
like the chroniclers did really put the boot into him quite a lot and of
course a lot of modern writers have done as well, a lot of this is justified of
course I mean Edward was a disastrous ruler there's there's no denying that he
deserves criticism for a lot of his actions but I think a lot of the
criticism has been unfair and a lot of stories have been invented about him
that show him in a very bad light which when you look at them are actually just
complete modern inventions they're not based on any medieval source whatsoever.
So my aim as a historian has also been to really go back to the sources to look
at what's true about Edward and what isn't, for example a story that he stole
his wife's children from her in 1324 when he went to war against her brother
the king of France and wanted to punish her emotionally, this was invented in the
late 1970s for example and it's been repeated ever since as though it's a
certain fact and it's it was just invented you know in modern times, so
this is like one example of the things I've been trying to do with Edward to
get back to the truth mmm. The chroniclers of the 14th century all say that Edward
was an enormously strong man he was immensely physically powerful one
chronicler calls him one of the strongest men in England whereas like in
'Braveheart' he's portrayed as this foppish feeble weak hopeless character I mean
it's like completely entirely and utterly wrong and and I think you know
some of the criticism of Edward has perhaps been and I'm not saying that all
of it or even most or much of it but some of it in my opinion has been rooted
in this kind of homophobia where he is judged
more harshly because he wasn't heterosexual he was you know homosexual
or bisexual and I think sometimes that has been an element in the in the
criticism of him. What I've often noticed is that we don't know for sure that
there's a Bella and Mortimer were lovers we don't know for sure that Edward II
and his male favourites such as Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser were lovers
but in in modern times yeah Roger Mortimer is always inevitably called
Isabella's lover whereas the Edward II's men are always just called his favourite
so there's this like I think a real I don't know almost a prejudice here or
like a kind of heteronormativity which which I find quite irritating to be
honest, so I think in modern times the relationship of Isabella and Mortimer
has been excessively romanticised I mean I wouldn't say for sure that
I know they weren't lovers they might well have gone to bed together sometimes
but we don't know that, we certainly don't know that they were madly in love
I mean there's no source that tells her they were madly in love, so I think it's
been very much overwritten and over romanticized in later centuries
whereas Edwards relationships with his men which were perhaps also you know
quite intense long-lasting and you know quite powerful relationship kinda tend
to be underplayed, so again I'm not saying for sure that I know Edward you
know had sex with his male favourites, I'm just saying it's possible and that these
relationships were very intense very important and because Edwards
relationship with Hugh Despenser actually brought him down in 1326/27 so
this same-sex relationship actually brought about the downfall of a
king of England for for the first time, you know if I think like we need to
maybe like focus a bit more on Edwards relationships rather than underplaying
them is like oh no they were just friends no they probably know they
weren't lovers no. So I do find a lot of double standards between the same sex
relationships and the opposite sex relationships in the way these
relationships are written about even in the 21st century. We have a lot of
evidence that Edward did die at Berkeley castle in 1327 and we have also an awful
lot of evidence that he didn't die and this evidence really seems
irreconcilable, so all the chroniclers say that he would that he died at
Berkeley castle in September 1327 even if they didn't know how and they
speculated wildly as to the cause of the death and of course it's beyond all
doubt that Edward was buried or let's say his
funeral was held at Gloucester in December 1327 and that a lot of people acted as
though he was dead, but then two three years later a lot of people,
influential people including the Archbishop of York for example started
to act as though they believed that Edward was not in fact dead after all, and
the Archbishop of York stated outright in a letter "Our Liege Lord Edward of
Caernarfon is alive and in good physical health and in a safe place." And then we
have the Fieschi letter written by an Italian bishop in the 1330s explaining
to Edward the third how Edward the second escaped from Berkeley and ultimately
ended up in a hermitage, south of Milan in Italy. So the real the question is
like how on earth do we reconcile these two positions and it's very difficult;
for a long time I tended to believe that Edward did die in 1327 I now tend to the
belief that he probably didn't because I can understand why a king would have
been presented as dead because there were a lot of plots to save him so
saying that he was dead actually saves the position of his son and and his wife
but I can't see why there would be all this evidence that he was that people
believe that he wasn't dead if he actually was, so I tend now to come down
on the side that he survived past 1327, I'm not sure that he necessary ended
up in Italy, but maybe he did it's a nice thought it makes me happy! I think you
know Edward just made so many mistakes you know both as a ruler as a king you
know and as a war leader you know he couldn't conquer Scotland and this was a
major factor you know in his downfall you know he couldn't control his own
nobles he did so many things wrong and I just and I don't ever want to like you
know to gloss over all his many faults and his mistakes that I find him a very
likable person perhaps because he was such a likeable person he was also a
disastrous ruler he just didn't have that capacity for ruling that his father
in his son had, so I think you know we should you know we should acknowledge
all his faults and his errors but you know perhaps we should also remember
that he was born into a hereditary monarchy he didn't choose that position
he was born into it so although yes he failed but he didn't
have any choice about becoming King of England, so perhaps we shouldn't judge
him quite as harshly as we would say a modern disastrous politician who
actually chose to be in that position, and as I know as I said I
think a lot of the stories that are told about Edward II are actually just much
more recent or modern inventions so I really want to go back to the primary
sources and I don't think the other way no what no one he's ever gonna say oh
dude was a good King, but I hope I can show with my work that you know he was
he was a fatally flawed man, but he was a fascinating one, he was a very likeable
one in many ways, so he had a lot of contradictions in his character, his
reign is incredibly dramatic you know it's a really fascinating period of
English history, so although that no I always think that he will come you know
fairly near the bottom of the list of English monarchs and yeah but that's okay,
you know as long as people treat him fairly you know and don't you know
repeat all these silly stories invented about him in much later centuries you
know that sits well with me.