Edward II of England: Encyclopedia II - Edward II of England - Fictional accounts of Edward II

Edward II of England - Fictional accounts of Edward II

The most famous fictional account of Edward II's reign, of course, is that of Christopher Marlowe in his 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. Jean Plaidy's The Follies of the King is a rather plodding look at the reign, though it livens up when it comes time for the red-hot poker. In A Secret Chronicle by Jane Lane, Edward II's youngest daughter sends a trusted servant to investigate the circumstances of her father's death. Jean Evans' A Brittle Glory is narrated mostly by the king's fool. Chris Hunt's Gaveston is a sexually explicit account of the king's relationship with his first favorite, while Sandra Wilson's Alice breaks tradition with an emphatically heterosexual Gaveston, whose mistress is the title character. In Cashelmara, Susan Howatch updates the story to 19th century Ireland. Shootings, stabbings, and poisonings replace beheadings and red-hot pokers. There has also been a ballet of his story produced by Birmingham Royal Ballet, which adheres to the red hot poker myth.

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 Paul Doherty and Michael Jecks have set a number of their books against the backdrop of Edward II's reign.

A Victorian novelist, Emily Sarah Holt, set several historical novels during this period. Holt's appendices to her books show that she researched her novels thoroughly, though her religious prejudices (she appears to have been strongly anti-Catholic) and her strong sense of propriety make her books rather odd reading. She is far harsher on Isabella than on Edward II, and she seems to have had a soft spot for Hugh le Despenser.

Edward II appears in Maurice Druon's series of novels The Accursed Kings (in French: Les Rois Maudits). There, his homosexuality is not at all hidden; Isabella describes how she had to endure Hugh the younger Despenser's presence during sex with her husband. Volume 5, La Louve de France (The She-Wolf of France), describes Isabella's and Roger Mortimer's overthrow and murder of Edward II, the executions of the Despensers, and the installation of Edward III. The novel describes these as part of the circumstances leading to the Hundred Years' War and the end of the Capetian dynasty.

Cinematically, the Mel Gibson feature, Braveheart, shows Edward as the weak, fey weakling son who cannot get in Longshanks' good graces. Many facets of this fictional Edward II have basis in fact, including his ignorance of his wife and his military incompetence, although Longshanks did not throw his son's lover out of a window to his death. The film implies that William Wallace was the father of Edward III through his fictional affair with Isabella in the film.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Fictional accounts of Edward II", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki