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Deadly Family Spats Through the Centuries

Khalid Elhassan January 4, 2021 33 min

Canterbury Cathedral - Archbishop of Canterbury — The death of Thomas Becket. Encyclopedia Britannica

11. Edward II Suffered a Horrific End

Effigy of Edward II from his tomb at Gloucester Cathedral. Gloucester Cathedral

In April, 1327, Roger Mortimer heard of plots to rescue the deposed King Edward II. So he had him relocated to a more secure site. More reports of fresh plots to free Edward caused Mortimer to order him to move to various other locations during the spring and summer of 1327. Eventually, the fear that one of the numerous plots might finally succeed led Mortimer to decide on ending the problem once and for all, and putting Edward II beyond all rescue by having him killed.

Edward’s killers did not want to leave marks of murder on him. They were also contemptuous of the deposed king and his perceived effeminacy and homosexuality. So they did him in by holding him down and shoving a red hot poker up his rectum to burn his bowels from the inside. Another version has it that a tube was first inserted in his rectum, then a red hot metal bolt was dropped down the tube into his bowels. Either way, Edward II’s dying screams were reportedly audible from miles away.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.