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The Sibling Rivalry That Wrecked an Empire, and Other Self-Destructive Royal Family Episodes

Khalid Elhassan January 5, 2020 33 min

Wars of the Roses - Battle of Bosworth Field — The Wars of the Roses, during which the Plantagenet Dynasty destroyed itself. Encyclopedia Britannica

30. Edward II and His Wife

King Edward II (1284 – 1327) was a poor monarch, but what damaged his authority the most was the perception that was a homosexual, and an effeminate one at that. That was a problem in a kingdom ruled by a macho warrior caste. Edward often promoted his male lovers to positions of power, only for those lovers to abuse those powers, to the disgust of the king’s subjects. His last major lover, Hugh Despenser, fit that pattern.

Edward made things worse by publicly fawning upon Hugh, which humiliated and alienated Edward’s wife, Queen Isabella. One of Edward’s enemies, Roger Mortimer, took advantage of that, seducing Isabella and making her his mistress while she was on a diplomatic mission to France in 1325. In 1326, the couple invaded England, executed Hugh Despenser and his relatives, and deposed Edward II. They replaced the king with his 14-year-old son, who was crowned as Edward III, with Mortimer as regent.

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.