Cultural depictions of Edward II of England
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Edward II of England has been portrayed in popular culture a number of times.
[edit] Literature
The most famous fictional account of Edward II's reign is Christopher Marlowe's play Edward II. In recent years, several acclaimed productions have been staged in the United Kingdom, although the play is seldom performed in the United States outside of large cities and university towns. Derek Jarman's cinematic version of the play utlilized 20th century clothing and gay rights marches as an aspect of the story.
Margaret Campbell Barnes' Isabel the Fair, Hilda Lewis' Harlot Queen, Maureen Peters' Isabella, the She-Wolf, and Brenda Honeyman's The Queen and Mortimer all focus on Queen Isabella. Eve Trevaskis' King's Wake starts shortly after the fall of the Despensers and ends with the fall of Roger Mortimer.
Most recently, Susan Higginbotham in The Traitor's Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward II looks at the reign and its aftermath through the eyes of Hugh le Despenser's wife, Eleanor de Clare. Medieval mystery novelists P. C. Doherty and Michael Jecks have set a number of their books against the backdrop of Edward II's reign.
Part of the plot of Ken Follett's novel World Without End revolves around a secret letter that proved that Edward had survived and escaped imprisonment- a letter which was potentially greatly embarrassing to both Isabella and Edward III.
John Crowley's first novel, The Deep, features (in part) a fantasy version of the story of Edward II and his Wars as seen by a strangely sexless visitor from outside the world.
British novelist Robert Goddard's 2007 novel Name to a Face discusses the theories and circumstances of Edward II's survival. Within a fictionalized setting, it is speculated that an older Edward II may be the identity a semi-legendary medieval figure known as the Grey Man of Ennor, who travelled England mysteriously curing sufferers of the Black Death in the mid-14th century.
[edit] Film and television
On screen, Edward has been portrayed by:
- Ian McKellen in the BBC TV adaptation of Marlowe's Edward II (1970)
- Philippe Clévenot in the French TV adaptation of Marlowe's Edward II (1982)
- Steven Waddington in Jarman's Edward II (1991)
- Peter Hanly in Braveheart (1995). The film portrays Edward as weak, effeminate and homosexual with a Piers Gaveston-like lover. Several sequences are fictional, such as Edward's lover being pushed through a window to his death by Edward I, and Edward being cuckolded by William Wallace, who is represented as the real father of Edward III.
- Richard Brimblecombe in the British film The Bruce (1996)
