Edward II was brutally murdered at Berkeley Castle with a red-hot poker in a manner considered appropriate to his sexual preferences and his embalmed heart was sent to Isabella, who received it with ostentatious sorrow. Edward III soon took charge and had Mortimer executed. Berkeley Castle - where Edward II was famously murdered with a red-hot poker - has been owned by the aristocratic Berkeley family since the 12th century, when they were granted the estate by King.

Edward II, King of England, died in 1327. He was allegedly assassinated by having a red-hot poker thrust into his anus.

His twenty-year reign as King was famously disastrous, marred by political distrust and military failures. Immediately after his abdication, Edward’s political enemies decided they could not afford to keep him alive.

While imprisoned at Berkeley Castle, a group of assassins confronted him at night and, according to rumor, murdered the former king by forcibly inserting a red-hot iron poker directly into his rectum. His public funeral was held the later same year, confirming his death to the people of England. It is said that when one visits Berkeley Castle today, Edward’s screams of agony can sometimes be heard faintly through the walls.

Edward II and Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall, were alleged by medieval chroniclers to be homosexual lovers. This rumor was reinforced in fiction, as in Christopher Marlowe's play Edward II. Some historians, such as J.S. Hamilton, have pointed out that concern over the two men's sexuality was not at the core of the nobility's grievances, but centered on Gaveston's exclusive access to royal patronage.

Now, I doubt that Mississippi's former Governor Haley Barbour is all that well-versed in British history. However, somehow this theme must have resonated with him, whether from Grotty Olde England or the Dark Side of Dixie. As kos quoted earlier today, Barbour offered his regret for something that didn't happen at the Republican National Convention. “While I would love for [Chris] Christie to put a hot poker to [President] Obama’s butt,” said Barbour of the RNC keynote speaker, “I thought he did what he was supposed to do.”

All, you know, except THAT...

The relationship between King Edward II and Piers Gaveston is one of the most infamous ménage à trois in British royal history. Here's everything you need to know about the pair.

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Editor's note: On the day, Sept 21, 1327, King Edward II was killed by his jailers brutally using red-hot pokers.

It was a rite of passages for monarchs to keep mistresses alongside their faithful wives. While queens were expected to stay faithful or virginal, kings were expected to appoint a royal mistress, to the point that the role of maîtresse-en-titre was an important position at court. The maîtresse-en-titre was expected to be educated, aristocratic and above all, female. So when King Edward II tried to treat his male lovers in the same way as female mistresses, there was a resistance.

Ian McKellen and James Laurenson perform a scene between Edward II and Piers Gaveston in a production of Christopher Marlowe’s play about the ill-fated king. Marlowe’s text is heavily suggestive of a romantic relationship between the two men

King Edward was married to Isabella of France and while historians are still divided on whether or not his relationship with Piers Gaveston was romantic, a strong relationship has been recorded.

The arrival of Piers Gaveston

Piers Gaveston first appears in the then Prince Edward’s household accounts in 1300, when Edward was 15 and Gaveston not much older. By 1306, the ageing King Edward I had banished Gaveston to France. Devastated to be apart from his favourite, the Prince lavished Gaveston with gifts and accompanied him to Dover to see him off. Quite why the King wanted to separate his son from Gaveston is unclear, but as soon as Edward I died in 1307, the two were reunited, whereupon Edward promptly made Gaveston Earl of Cornwall.

The closeness between the two men did not go unnoticed at the time. One chronicler recorded that, “upon looking on him [Gaveston] the son of the king immediately felt such love for him that he entered into a covenant of constancy, and bound himself with him before all other mortals with a bond of indissoluble love, firmly drawn up and fastened with a knot”

Read more: Was Edward VIII racist?

However, in order to secure succession after the death of his elder brother, Edward needed to marry, and so a political union was formed with Isabella of France. However, Gaveston was left in charge of the kingdom while Edward was preparing to marry in France, and embarrassed his bride and her family by ignoring Isabella throughout the wedding day.

Isabella of France

Gaveston was reunited with the King after his wedding, and the ‘Trokelowe’s chronicle’ notes that the King ran to Gaveston, showering him in kisses. The anonymous author of the ‘Vita Edwardi Secundi’ (1326) is a chronicle of Edward’s reign recalled: “I do not remember to have heard that one man so loved another… our king was incapable of moderate favour.”

The shame of Isabella of France

Such was the shame brought upon the new Queen that there is evidence to suggest that in 1308 her father, Philip the Fair, paid the earls of Lincoln and Pembroke to remove Gaveston from power.

Edward and Isabella did have a child eventually, and upon the birth of Edward III the court and barons insisted that Gaveston be exiled from all royal lands. Edward II eventually conceded and Gaveston fled to France.

Read more:Everything you need to know about Queen Anne

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However, the pair were not to be separated and when Edward II allowed Gaveston to return to England, the northern earls attacked, forcing the king, Gaveston and a heavily pregnant Isabella to flee the city. Gaveston was eventually captured and executed as a traitor in 1312.

Edward II was said to be distraught and swore revenge on those who had killed Gaveston. However, a war in Scotland soon distracted the king and he moved on, eventually finding a replacement lover in 1318 when Hugh Despenser arrived at court.

The death of King Edward II

Despenser unwisely made an enemy of Queen Isabella who then aligned herself with Roger Mortimer, a very powerful English baron and in 1326 led an uprising against Despenser. The annals of Newenham Abbey recorded that ‘the king and his husband’ fled to Wales, where they were captured soon after. Edward was forced to abdicate in favour of his son and was then imprisoned in Berkeley Castle. Despenser was hanged, drawn and quartered.

As for King Edward II, he was eventually killed in 1328, when his very presence was thought to present too much of a threat to the kingdom.

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The final piece of slander

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For years, rumours abound that Edward was killed after a red hot poker was inserted into his anus. While The ‘Holinshed’s Chronicles’ (1577) records that the murderers ‘put into his fundament [anus] an horne, and through the same they thrust up into his bodie an hot spit … the which passing up into his intrailes … burnt them’. Historians claim that this not the case, and simply a final act of slander.

Read more: Did Queen Victoria really have an affair with a servant?

* Originally published in Mar 2019.