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Aug 18, 2018 · August 18, 2018 at 7:00 a.m. EDT. King Edward II was known for his intensely close relationships with two men. (iStock) Ordinarily, the wedding of a junior member of the British royal family ...
- Kayla Epstein
Aug 20, 2018 · Edward II, who ruled from 1307-1327, is one of England’s less fondly remembered kings. ... who reigned over Scotland and later England and Ireland until his death in 1625, attracted similar ...
The king and Despenser were finally captured near Llantrissant in South Wales in November. The king was taken to Kenilworth Castle, and Hugh Despenser was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Hereford. The king was forced to abdicate the throne and pass it on to his son, Edward, who was crowned Edward III in February 1327.
Summary. Let me be clear from the outset: this study does not set out to cast Edward II as a medieval representative of any one modern category of sexual orientation, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, whatever. The efforts made in the last few generations of scholarship to ‘identify’ this king in such a manner are, in the end, both ...
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Further Reading
Born in the same year as William Shakespeare, 1564, Christopher Marlowe was the son of an affluent shoemaker in Canterbury. Like Shakespeare, Marlowe eventually migrated to London, where he became a member of an erudite social circle that included Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Kyd, and others; these men were regarded as freethinkers, in part because t...
Act I, scene i
The first scene opens with Gaveston reading a letter from Edward II, newly crowned sovereign of England after the death of Edward I. Gaveston had been banished from court because of his corrupting influence on the young prince Edward. Now, with the elder Edward out of the way, Edward IIis inviting Gaveston to return and share the kingdom with him. In a few quick lines, Gaveston’s soliloquy makes clear the homosexual nature of their relationship (“take me in thy arms”) as well as the theme of...
Act I, scenes ii & iii
The Mortimers, Warwick, and Lancaster bemoan the “reign” of Gaveston. They are joined by the Bishop of Canterbury, who sees Edward’s treatment of the Bishop of Coventry as violence against the Church itself. Gaveston learns of their plan to take up arms, which he announces to Kent
Act I, scene iv
In this longest scene of the play, Edward commits further consecrations against the kingship by seating Gaveston in the Chair Royal, the queen’s chair. This incites to nobles to exile Gaveston once again, and he is taken away, along with the Earl of Kent. The inclusion of the latter clouds the issue somewhat, since Kent has merely acted as a faithful and sober advisor to his brother. The angry lords admonish the astounded king to “rule us better and the realm,” but the king is obsessed with h...
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop is moved to act upon the king’s immoral behavior when Edward deposes the Bishop of Coventry, sends him to the Tower, and then turns over his lands to Gaveston. He considers Edward’s acts to be a form of violence against the Church itself.
Robert Baldock
Baldock is scholar who read to the king’s niece when she was young and serves her.
Beaumont
A servant to King Edward.
Politics: Machiavellian Style
In Elizabethan England, Niccolo Machiavelli’s II Principe (The Prince, 1505) was considered a treatise on the science of evil statesmanship because it outlined how a cunning tyrant could, through brutal and forceful measures, take and maintain control over a region and a people. In fact, it seemed a veritable handbook for tyranny, with its exhortation that “It is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.” Altho...
TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. What consequences should there be for a sovereign who abandons his duties for personal pleasures? 2. Contrast the rise and fall of Mortimer with the fall of King Edward II. 3. Research the role of pageantry in Elizabethan England. How does Edward’s interest in pageantry compare with Queen Elizabeth’s? 4. William Shakespeare wrote Richard III about a year after Christopher Marlowe’s Edward IIwas first performed. Look for parallels between the two plays that indicate ways in which Shakespear...
Duty and Responsibility
Edward’s preoccupation with Gaveston would not be a matter of concern to the nobles if it did not threaten the state. It is Edward’s lack of interest in pressing matters, such as France’s takeover of Normandy and the battle in Scotland, that drives them to the treasonable point of questioning their king. Edward’s first order of business as king seems to have been to mail a letter to Gaveston, releasing him from banishment and offering to share the kingdom with him. This act of selfish interes...
Blank Verse
Blank verse, unrhymed lines with a measured rhythm, was not invented by Christopher Marlowe, but he is credited with having instituted its use in English drama. The rhythm usually takes the form of iambic pentameter, ten syllables with the accent falling on every other syllable. Marlowe’s blank verse demonstrates how the measure can be varied, using slight variations in accenting or in the placement of pauses (caesura) to retain the freshness of normal speech, while maintaining the formality...
Imagery
The images conveyed in the language of a play usually suggest or subtly foreshadow the general themes of the play. Also, whether it’s purely linguistic or in the form of actual items on stage, imagery can serve to remind the audience of the settings and paraphernalia that accompany a person’s status. Images of the external marks of status appear over and over again throughout Edward II, such as the crown, battle ensigns (flags), ceremonial robes, jewelry, hats, and so on. In many cases, the i...
The Reigns of Edward I & II
The historical Edward I (1239-1307) was an effective king, although he made excessive demands on Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. He began the process of building an administration capable of taxing the people through a body called the Commons, adjunct to the Great Council (the king’s advisors). The Commons consisted of locally elected representatives, who would be more inclined to collect much-needed taxes for the king if they had loyalties both to the throne and to their constituents. It would...
Scottish War of Independence—Bannockburn, 1314
In Marlowe’s play, the only reference to Bannockburn comes in Act II, scene ii, when Lancaster mocks King Edward with a gibing song about his defeat there in 1314. Historically, the defeat was devastating for England because it led to the end of its rule of Scotland fourteen years later. In a way, Edward had no business losing the battle. He arrived with 16,000 men and a twenty-mile supply line. Robert the Bruce had only a band of 6,500 desperate but clever men. Edward had superior forces and...
COMPARE & CONTRAST
1. 14th century: Homosexuality was a fairly common practice in the upper-classes and among courtiers. However, sodomy was officially considered anti-Christian and was punishable by law.16th century: Homosexuality was not openly tolerated in Elizabeth’s time, although it was common at the university and elsewhere. The many derogatory terms—sodomite, buggerer, and so on—attest to the negative stigma homosexual activity had in numerous circles of society; and, as in the 14th century, sodomy was...
Edward II first opened in 1594, played by the Earl of Pembroke’s Men. The next record of its performance indicates that it was played at the Red Bull in 1617 by Queen Elizabeth’s acting troupe. The innovative blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) of Edward IIled Marlowe’s contemporary George
Carole Hamilton
Hamilton is a Humanities teacher at Cary Academy, an innovative private school in Cary, North Carolina. In this essay, she discusses Marlowe’s use of a particular image as the structuring device that organizes the play’s action. The details of a play’s descriptive lines can often seem unrelated to the story being told; they are thus all too easy to dismiss as curious but rather outdated examples of the parlance of the day. Renaissance writers like Marlowe were well versed in the themes and st...
Janet Clare
In this essay, Clare provides an overview of Marlowe’s play, contrasting its comparatively sparse narrative style to the playwright’s other works, notably Tamburlaine andDoctor Faustus. In Edward II, arguably his last play, Marlowe departs from the foreign and exotic landscapes of earlier drama and turns to English history to write a de casibus political tragedy. The King’s infatuation with the young Piers de Gaveston leads to growing opposition from the barons, spearheaded by the Earls of La...
Simon is a well-known drama critic. In this excerpt, he reviews an unconventional production of Edward II that was staged in 1991. While the critic has mixed feelings regarding the production’s heavy emphasis of Marlowe’s homosexual themes, he feels that, overall, the new interpretation is worthwhile. Back at the Pit, We get Marlowe’s Edward IIstaged by Gerard Murphy as camp tragedy. Can you imagine a Charles Ludlam or Charles Busch putting all his extravagance—not to mention overexplicit hom...
Bredbeck, Gregory W. Sodomy and Interpretation: Marlowe to Milton, Cornell UniversityPress, 1991. Deats, Sara Munson. Sex, Gender, and Desire in the Plays of Christopher Marlowe, University of DelawarePress, 1997. Gill, Roma. “Christopher Marlowe” in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 62: Elizabethan Dramatists,Gale Research, 1987, pp. 212-31...
Language & Literature, British Studies, European Studies, History. During his lifetime and the four centuries following his death,King Edward II (1307-1327) acquired a reputation for having engagedin sexual and romantic relatio...
Edward II's reign in the early fourteenth century. Marlowe took up several threads of the story centred in the medieval court, and they were clearly indicated when the play was registered as treating 'The troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of EDWARD the SECOND, king of England, with the tragicall fall of proud MORTYMER.'4 From a
