The Life and Times of Edward II

Sinopse

Introduction – Antonia Fraser

The tragic end of Edward II, foully murdered in Berkeley Castle, was the ultimate catastrophe in a life ruined by folly and weakness. Other kings have had favourites, lost battles, quarrelled with magnates and still died in their beds – but Edward was over-endowed with human failings. His obsessive, almost certainly homosexual attachment to Piers Gaveston, a total defeat at the battle of Bannockburn, tactless dealings with his lords, addiction to thatching and ditching rather than the routine of government, lost him his wife, friends, throne and life.
But not all Edward’s troubles stemmed from his own incompetence; many were inherited from Edward I who though a great warrior and statesman left his son the unhappy legacy of the Scottish wars, a mountain of debts and uneasy relations with the King of France and nobility of England. Caroline Bingham’s compassionate account of Edward II’s reign makes no apologies for his faults but presents him as the leading player in a very human drama.