Edward II

The Unconventional King

By: Kathryn Warner

Narrated by: Danielle Cohen

Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

He is one of the most reviled English kings in history. He drove his kingdom to the brink of civil war a dozen times in less than twenty years. He allowed his male lovers to rule the kingdom. He led a great army to the most ignominious military defeat in English history. His wife took a lover and invaded his kingdom, and he ended his reign wandering around Wales with a handful of followers, pursued by an army. He was the first king of England forced to abdicate his throne. Popular legend has it that he died screaming impaled on a red-hot poker, but in fact the time and place of his death are shrouded in mystery. His life reads like an Elizabethan tragedy, full of passionate doomed love, bloody revenge, jealousy, hatred, vindictiveness, and obsession. He was Edward II, and this book tells his story. Using almost exclusively fourteenth-century sources and Edward's own letters and speeches wherever possible, Kathryn Warner strips away the myths which have been created about him over the centuries, and provides a far more accurate and vivid picture of him than has previously been seen.

©2014 Kathryn Warner (P)2023 Tantor

Good description of a flawed King

The book is scholarly and well researched. My only disagreement is the account of Edward’s murder and death. The author speculates that Edward lived on in a monastery after he was deposed. I think it is clear he was murdered by Roger Mortimer.

Superb!

I did enjoy the audiobook from page one to the very end. Narration is superb!

A great listen

A very well researched and written book on the life of Eddie 2. Great narration as well. Worth a credit or purchase.

Fine, right up until the very end, then it was fine, but for the end.

This is a weird book. It's weird enough that I'm taking time (time that I would rather spend doing almost anything else, as demonstrated by the fact that I've only left maybe 4 written reviews out of a library of over 400 titles) to write this at all. Sadly, I need to explain myself a little. If it were only that this is a bad book, trust me, I wouldn't bother. It's not like I'm an authority on anything and who cares? Besides, I actually thought this book was better than most other audiobooks from Audible's narrative, historical non-fiction selection, at least out of the several dozen or so I've heard. Also, I only mean that I thought, for the most part, it was perfectly well-written and the author a compelling storyteller. I can't speak to the historical accuracy of anything, so you can see why I never do this. Anyway, why this book is weird, and the reason I'm writing this in the first place, is that right up until the very end (literally in the final 40 minutes of a nearly 15-hour-long audiobook) it is a typical narrative history book, but in it's final chapter, the author, like a stage magician, pulls away the curtain to reveal that it was a historical conspiracy book the whole time. Conveniently, not up until the end, when, spoilers, Edward 2 dies, does it turn out he didn't die, at least not when and where most people believe. And so in it's final chapter, this otherwise dispassionate narrative transforms instantaneously into a breathless 40-minute sales-pitch for a 700-year-old conspiracy theory. It's not that I have any stake in the matter, It's just I think it's a weird way to end a book, and maybe some one would prefer that information going in.

Not bad, but most definitely biased

Have you ever heard the old quote, 'the louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons'? That was all I could think of as I went further into this book.

The introduction by Ian Mortimer waxed on poetic about how if Ms. Warner said a thing, it was because a thing happened. That she was a true historian, not colored by prejudices or preconceived notions. This is patently false. While Ms. Warner presents all sides of the story, her wording, and her reactions, to certain things make a mockery of Mortimer's promises.

Don't get me wrong; I don't disagree with Ms. Warner's conclusion. I think it's sad that Edward II gets labeled as an unfit king BECAUSE of his homosexuality (i.e., he was a bad ruler because he was gay). In that aspect, I agreed with her premises.

But in her desire to put forth the fact that Edward had good characteristics, that he wasn't as terrible as we like to think him... She goes too far the other direction. When Edward threw a fit, and burned down a town, she writes it as him 'overreacting'. She does point to this as a bad thing, but when Edward's contractors of the day do the same thing, she writes of it as 'vicious'. When she talks of Edward, she does so in sympathetic tones, implying that it wasn't entirely his fault. But of Hugh Dispenser, she writes that he was cruel, that he was arrogant, that he was manipulative, that he was disliked, etc..

Now, don't get me wrong. Hugh Dispenser the Younger was probably all of these things. But we know he was these things based off the historical records we have. Those same records portray Edward in similar negative light, but Ms. Warner actively refutes these, but makes no attempt to provide an unbiased look on Hugh Dispenser.

Similarly, when Edward was spending time in his many estates, including one notable time when he refused to leave Windsor for the holiday with Gaveston for fear of his magnates, Ms. Warner writes that Edward chose to spend his time in the safety of Windsor. But when the Earl of Lancaster does the same, he was 'lurking in his castles'.

These are important distinctions; when you have two people doing the exact same thing, but being portrayed with prejudicial terms and phrases, I find any claims of unbiased behavior to be ridiculous.

I don't think Ms. Warner's book is bad. In fact, I enjoyed it immensely for the most part. Finding scholastic books that present Edward II as anything other than a terrible king because of his sexuality frustratingly difficult, so this book was a delight to find. But Ian Mortimer's introduction was clearly written as an attempt to stave off these criticisms of Ms. Warner's work, and that tells me she was well aware of her biases, and rather than acknowledge them, or try to overcome them... She chose to have someone else tell us in finger-wagging style that she most certainly was not biased.

Again, I'm not saying not to get the book. It was decent, and I enjoyed it. But be aware that Ms. Warner's portrayal of Edward II's detractors and enemies is every bit as biased as Edward's contemporaries were of him.

Returning....

The narrator completely ruins the book. Her exaggerated pronunciations and pauses makes it very difficult to follow. Instead I'm ordering a hard copy.