23/02/2021
đđđđIt's those blokes I waffled on about onceđđđđ
This , we thought weâd look at the question of Edward IIâs sexuality. This is something that lots of visitors ask about here at the Centre, and it remains an important aspect of the public perception of King Edward. There is certainly a case to be made for Edward being homosexual, or perhaps more likely bisexual. But, as we will explore, the question of Edwardâs sexuality is complex and is complicated further by seven centuries of often misleading â and frequently hostile â historical writing on the subject.
Much of the discussion of King Edwardâs sexuality centres around his relationship with two men â Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser the Younger. Gaveston was a young Gascon knight who befriended Edward around 1300 and was summarily executed by a group of disgruntled nobles in 1312. Despenser became close to Edward shortly after Bannockburn and suffered a similar fate to Gaveston in 1326. Many histories â both popular and scholarly â of King Edwardâs reign have viewed these relationships as homosexual (âhomosexualityâ is essentially a modern term, but it has existed for as long as there have been people). Such interpretations have also tended to treat the grisly deaths inflicted on Gaveston and Despenser as reflecting a contemporary revulsion towards Edwardâs sexuality.
Edward was undoubtedly close to both of these men. He referred to Gaveston as âmy brother Perrotâ and an anonymous, probably contemporary chronicle talks of the two men entering âa covenant of constancyâ. This has been interpreted as a somewhat coy way for the chronicler to record the existence of a homosexual relationship between the two. However, more recently historian Pierre Chaplais has argued this âcovenantâ should be understood as a formal bond of knightly brotherhood rather than a romantic or sexual relationship. Various forms of adoptive brotherhood were practiced in medieval Europe. Robert Bruce himself is credited by the late fourteenth-century poet John Barbour with having had a beloved foster-brother and being âwondre will of waynâ (i.e. âovercome with griefâ) when this man was killed (Bk. 7, ll. 227).
Demonstrating that Edward and Gaveston ever engaged in sexual activity is enormously difficult to do. Edward and his queen Isabella had four children â Edward, John, Eleanor and Joan. This does not particularly prove anything, as the provision of heirs to succeed him was a political necessity for a medieval king. The existence of legitimate offspring does not therefore tell us much about Edwardâs sexuality. Much has been made of the fact Edward and Isabellaâs eldest child was not born until 1312, four years after their marriage and, crucially, after Gavestonâs death. But given that Isabella was only twelve at the time of their marriage she could hardly have been expected to give birth much earlier than this.
Edwardâs two sons and two daughters with Isabella were not his only children. He also had an illegitimate son named Adam, described in 1322 as âAde filio domini Regis bastardoâ (âAdam, bastard son of our lord the kingâ). As Kathryn Warner has observed, the existence of an acknowledged âbastardâ suggests a long-standing relationship with a mistress, because the shorter the relationship was the less certain the king could be that the child was his. This strongly suggests he had slept with at least one woman with whom he was not socially obliged to do so. At the very least this would imply Edward was bisexual. Gaveston too had two daughters â Joan, with his wife Margaret de Clare (a sister of the earl of Gloucester), and Amie, with an unknown mistress. This too complicates the view that the relationship between Edward and Gaveston was straightforwardly homosexual.
Contemporary comment on Edwardâs sexuality is vague at best. A continuation of the âFlores Historiarumâ (âThe Flowers of Historyâ) written in the 1320s observes that the relationship between Edward and Gaveston went âbeyond the bounds of moderationâ. In context however this remark likely refers to the favouritism Edward showed to Gaveston, rather than implying a romantic relationship between the two. Favouritism was the worst possible failing for a medieval king. As the ultimate legal authority in the kingdom, his job was to ensure patronage â in terms of land, titles, revenue etc. â was distributed evenly among the nobility. If he allowed a few of his closest associates to accumulate massive wealth and accolades at the expense of others he would soon find â as Edward ultimately did â his most powerful subjects turning against him.
The âVita Edwardi Secundiâ (âThe Life of Edward IIâ) is another chronicle written in the 1320s by an anonymous courtier at Edwardâs court. When commenting on Edwardâs association with Gaveston the author says, âI do not remember to have heard that one man so loved anotherâ but he compares their relationship to that of King David and Jonathan in the Bible, a relationship that medieval theologians interpreted as being purely platonic. The author of the âVitaâ does identify Despenser as the reason for estrangement of Edward and Isabella. At the time the work was written, Isabella was residing with her brother King Charles IV in France and the author states 'she will not (so many think) return until Hugh Despenser is wholly removed from the king's side'. Yet again though, Isabellaâs frustration with Despenser seems to have been more political than personal. Despenserâs closeness to Edward interfered with her ability to fulfil her traditional queenly role as the chief intercessor to the king at court and thus diminished her ability to influence governmental decision-making.
Contemporary evidence for Edward being homosexual is therefore ambiguous at best. It is not until after his death that âaccusationsâ of homosexuality become explicit (and accusations they often are). Writing probably in the 1360s, the Continental chronicler and traveller Jean Froissart attributes the gruesome nature of Despenserâs ex*****on to the fact he was a âsodomiteâ. A chronicle written at Westminster Abbey in the last decades of the fourteenth-century condemns King Edward for indulging in âwicked and forbidden sexâ. Similarly, a chronicle produced by the monks of Meaux Abbey in Yorkshire during the early fifteenth-century observes that âEdward took too much delight in sodomyâ. Of course, the further removed a writer was from Edwardâs own time the more cautious we should be about uncritically accepting their claims.
Historically, the assertion that Edward II was homosexual has been used as a pejorative and this has poisoned the historiography of Edwardâs reign. Only recently has scholarship sought to redress this, and this process is still ongoing. This has influenced popular perceptions of King Edward as well. Probably the most striking example can be seen in the portrayal of Edward in the 1995 âBraveheartâ. In one particularly shocking scene, âPhilipâ, who it is strongly implied is Edwardâs lover and is perhaps modelled after Gaveston, is thrown out of a window to his death by Edwardâs father, who wishes to remove Philipâs undue influence over âmy gentle sonâ. In David Hilliamâs âKings, Queens, Bones, and Bastardsâ, a popular history book on the kings and queens of England, the section on Edward II begins by summing up the king as âappallingly tactless, self-centred, *homosexual* and incompetentâ. To list âhomosexualâ as a negative personality trait is blatantly homophobic. Hilliamâs book was published as recently as 1998, and this statement is also included in the 2006 reprint. Even the interpretation at our Centre is somewhat guilty of this tendency. Our prologue film, while not addressing the question of Edwardâs sexuality directly, strongly implies that Edward and Gavestonâs relationship negatively affected Edwardâs marriage to Isabella, a claim not backed up by the contemporary record.
Whatever conclusions we draw about Edwardâs sexuality, the âsinâ for which Gaveston and Despenser were so brutally punished seems to have been the kingâs tendency to show favouritism towards his close associates, to the detriment (real or perceived) of the community at large. This was the cardinal vice for a king, who was supposed to apportion patronage fairly. While it is possible to make the case that Edward was homosexual or bisexual, the purchase this idea has gained is based on homophobic assumptions that have sought to explain Edwardâs failings as a king with reference to his sexuality. In other words, it has suited many writers to claim that Edward was homosexual not because this is clear from the relevant sources, but because it has allowed them to claim that Edwardâs failings as a king were *caused* by his homosexuality. We should therefore be cautious in how we discuss the issue and be mindful of the need to disentangle the question of Edwardâs sexuality from an assessment of his kingship.
