Titles:
Earl of Chester (1301 cr)  
Prince of Wales (1301 cr)  
King of England (1307 - 1327)

Edward II, (April 25, 1284 – September 21, 1327), of Caernarvon, was King of England from 1307 until deposed in January, 1327. His tendency to ignore his nobility, in favour of low-born favourites, led to constant political unrest and eventually to his deposition. He is today perhaps best remembered for the brutal method of his alleged murder, which was linked to his reliance on the corrupt Despenser family.

The fourth son of Edward I of England by his first wife Eleanor of Castile, Edward II was born at Caernarfon Castle. He was the first English prince to hold the title of the Prince of Wales, which was formalized by the Lincoln Parliament of February 7, 1301.

Edward became heir to the throne when he was just a few months old, upon the death of his elder brother Alfonso. His father, a notable military leader, made a point of training young Edward in warfare and statecraft starting in his childhood. The prince took part in several Scots campaigns, but "all his father's efforts could not prevent his acquiring the habits of extravagance and frivolity which he retained all through his life". The king attributed his son’s problems to Piers Gaveston, a Gascon knight some believe to have been the prince's lover. Gaveston was exiled by the king after the then Prince Edward bestowed upon him a title reserved for royalty. Ironically it was the king who had originally chosen Gaveston to be a suitable friend for his son, in 1298. When Edward I died, on July 7, 1307, the first act of the prince, now King Edward II, was to recall Gaveston. His next was to abandon the Scots campaign on which his father had set his heart.

During the quarrels between Edward and the "ordainers", Robert the Bruce was steadily re-conquering Scotland. His progress was so great that he had occupied all the fortresses save Stirling, which he besieged. The danger of losing Stirling shamed Edward and the barons into an attempt to retrieve their lost ground. In June 1314 Edward led a huge army into Scotland in the hope of relieving Stirling. On June 24, his ill-disciplined and badly led force was completely defeated by Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. Henceforth Bruce was sure of his position as King of Scots, and took vengeance for Edward I's activities by devastating the northern counties of England.

A dispute broke out between England and France over the building of a fortified town in the English possession of Aquitaine by Isabella's brother Charles IV of France. The Despensers then sequestered the queen's vast estates, banished Isabella's loyal French servants and took three of her children into their custody. Eleanor de Clare was also imposed on Isabella as her 'housekeeper' to control her actions. Queen Isabella kept silence until 1325, when she went to France to negotiate a solution to the dispute. Her eldest son, Edward of Windsor, followed on later to do homage for Aquitaine to Charles IV when a settlement was reached. Isabella's polite attitude to Despenser and her husband concealed her deep animosity and she was considered loyal.

When her business was over, Isabella declined to return to her husband as long as the Despensers remained his favourites. In Paris, she formed a liaison with Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, one of the barons, who had been exiled in 1323 when he rebelled after his lands had been seized by the Despensers. On 24 September 1326 Isabella landed with a large force in Essex accompanied by Mortimer and her son, declaring that she was come to avenge the murder of Lancaster and to expel the Despensers. Edward's followers deserted him, and on October 2 he fled from London to the west, where he took refuge in the younger Despenser's estates in Glamorgan. When Isabella entered London, there was a violent revolution in her favour and weeks of anarchy followed. His wife and her army followed Edward and the Despensers, and after a futile effort to escape by sea, Edward and a handful of supporters were captured on 16 November and escorted to Monmouth Castle. According to legend, his capture took place at Pant-y-Brâd ("the dell of treachery"), near Llantrisant. He was later transferred to Kenilworth Castle. It was thought prudent to compel the captive king to resign the crown, and this occurred on January 20. The Articles of Deposition accused Edward of many offences including: being incompetent to govern, unwilling to heed good counsel, allowing himself to be controlled by evil councillors, giving himself up to unseemly works and occupations, and plundering the kingdom.

A parliament met at Westminster in January 1327, which proclaimed Edward's son to be king as Edward III. Both Despensers were tried and executed.

The government of Isabella and Mortimer was so precarious that they dared not leave the deposed king in the hands of their political enemies. On April 3 he was removed from Kenilworth and entrusted to the custody of two dependants of Mortimer. He was imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Contrary to the polemical chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker, record evidence shows that he was well-treated in captivity. It was later rumoured that Edward had been killed by the insertion of a piece of copper into his anus (later a red-hot iron rod, as in the supposed murder of Edmund Ironside), supposedly as a deserved end of a homosexual. It also supposedly had the added benefit that it would appear that the king had died a natural death; this is unlikely, and burns in the rectal region would easily have given it away. This method is unnecessarily complicated, as simple suffocation would have met the objectives and so is unlikely.

Following the king's death, the rule of Isabella and Mortimer did not last long. Mortimer and Isabella made peace with the Scots with the Treaty of Northampton but this was highly unpopular. On March 19, 1330, the Earl of Kent, brother of Edward II, was executed for plotting the restoration of Edward II. Some say Mortimer had fed him the information that Edward was still alive hoping to entrap him. However Mortimer's execution of the earl lost him his remaining support. Consequently as soon as Edward III came of age in 1330, he executed Roger Mortimer on charges of treason, the most important of which was the murder of Edward II. Edward III spared Isabella and gave her a generous allowance, but he ensured that she retired from public life. She died at Hertford on 23 August 1358.