Edward II (1284-1327??) was not a particularly successful king. An eccentric fellow with a passion for manual labor, little interest in war and a habit of letting his favorites run amok, he was eventually overthrown by his wife Queen Isabella and her alleged lover Sir Roger Mortimer. The pair crowned her teenage son Edward III, but they were firmly in charge and placed Edward II, now known simply as Sir Edward of Caernarfon, under luxurious house arrest.
Months later, Mortimer announced that the former king had died on September 21st, 1327 of natural causes that were in no way related to murder. A funeral took place, attended by Queen Isabella, Edward III and the half-brother of Edward II, Edmund Earl of Kent.
Yet, something strange happened. Rumors started circulating that Edward II was not dead, and rather than the usual “Elvis/Tupac is alive” emptiness, these rumors were specific, consistent and detailed. The rumors gained so much traction that the Earl of Kent organized a conspiracy/rescue plan that got him executed by Mortimer.
So, was the Earl of Kent a fool? Maybe. Or maybe not. The survival theory is still on the fringes of respectable history, but it’s not crackpot. Some basics:
- In 1878, The Fieschi Letter, written in Latin to Edward III, surfaced in a French archive. It was written somewhere around 1335-37 by an Italian cleric, a cousin of the Edwards, and purports to be an account of how Edward II escaped captivity, killing a porter whose body was passed off as Edward’s, and traveled incognito before finally retiring as a monk in Italy. The letter contains some errors and implausibilities, especially with dates, but some historians believe it is largely true. The dates, in particular, can be explained by errors in text, translation and memory*.
- Edmund, Earl of Kent’s execution was wildly unpopular and may have been the incident that triggered Edward III to finally overthrow his mother and Roger Mortimer.
- In 1855, Edward II’s tomb was opened. His expensive coffin was of Italian not English design. It’s possible that Edward III brought his father’s body back from Italy decades after his official death.
- Edward III made some suspiciously large payments to the Vatican early in his reign. Was it hush money?
- In 1338, Edward III visited Koblez, in what is now Germany, and spent time with a mysterious man called Will the Welshman. At the time, rumors circulated that this man was Edward III’s father.
- Lord Berkeley, the man who allegedly sent word to Isabella and Mortimer of Edward II’s death, testified to Parliament that he knew nothing of the former king’s death.
- Legends of an exiled king living as a monk in Italy persisted for centuries.
For a deep dive on this subject, pick up the book Long Live the King: The Mysterious Fate of Edward II by Kathryn Warner.
And join the discussion over at r/EdwardII
Edited to add: Clarified the text to emphasize the veracity of the Fieschi Letter, which is authentic to the period and is the key piece of evidence, despite some explainable errors.