Edward II of England - Edward and Piers Gaveston

Edward and Piers Gaveston

Several contemporary sources criticised Edward's seeming infatuation with Piers Gaveston, to the extent that he ignored and humiliated his wife. Chroniclers called the relationship excessive, immoderate, beyond measure and reason and criticised his desire for wicked and forbidden sex. The Westminster chronicler claimed that Gaveston had led Edward to reject the sweet embraces of his wife; while the Meaux Chronicle (written several decades later) took concern further and complained that, Edward took too much delight in sodomy. While such sources do not, in themselves, prove that Edward and Gaveston were lovers, they at least show that some contemporaries and later writers strongly believed that this might be the case.

Gaveston was considered to be athletic and handsome; he was a few years older than Edward and had seen military service in Flanders before becoming Edward's close companion. He was known to have a quick, biting wit, and his fortunes continued to ascend as Edward obtained more honours for him, including the Earldom of Cornwall. Earlier, Edward I had attempted to control the situation by exiling Gaveston from England. However, upon the elder king's death in 1307, Edward II immediately recalled him. Isabella's marriage to Edward subsequently took place in 1308. Almost immediately, she wrote to her father, Philip the Fair, complaining of Edward's behaviour.

Although the relationship that developed between the two young men was certainly very close, its exact nature is impossible to determine. The relationship may have had a sexual element, though the evidence for this is not conclusive. Both Edward and Gaveston married early in the reign. There were children from both marriages – Edward also had an illegitimate son, Adam. While some of the chroniclers' remarks can be interpreted simply as homosexuality or bisexuality, too many of them are either much later in date or the product of hostility. It has also been plausibly argued that the two men may have entered into a bond of adoptive brotherhood. British historian Ian Mortimer has drawn attention to the use of 'anti-sodomite' smear campaigns in the late 13th and early 14th centuries against Pope Boniface VIII and the Knights Templar. In the latter case, Orleton was a protagonist at the Papal Court at Avignon.

The relationship was later explored in a play by the 16th-century dramatist Christopher Marlowe. This is unusual in making explicit reference to an open sexual relationship between king and favourite. More frequently the nature of the relationship between the two is only hinted at, or is cited as a dreadful example of the fate that may befall kings who allow themselves to be influenced by favourites, and so become estranged from their subjects.