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Edward II: The Chameleon (The English Monarchs Series), by Seymour Phillips
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Edward II (1284–1327), King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine, was the object of ignominy during his lifetime and calumny since it. Conventionally viewed as worthless, incapable of sustained policy, and significant only for his sporadic displays of ill-directed energy or a stubborn adherence to greedy and ambitious favorites, he has been presented as fit only to be deposed and replaced by someone more worthy of the throne.
This definitive biography, the fruit of a lifetime’s study, does not present Edward II as a heroic or successful king: his deposition after a turbulent reign of nearly twenty years is proof enough that it went terribly wrong. But Seymour Phillips’ scrutiny of the multitude of available sources shows that a richer picture emerges, in line with the complexity of events and of the man himself. If Edward II was not a successful king, he was not fundamentally different in many ways from most English monarchs. The biography strikes a deft balance, taking full account of the problems the king faced in England, Scotland, and Ireland and in his relations with France. It also tackles the contentious issue of whether Edward II did not die in 1327, murdered under barbaric circumstances, but lived on as a captive in England and then a wanderer on the Continent. Eight hundred years on, a king’s life is properly examined.
- Sales Rank: #913726 in eBooks
- Published on: 2010-06-08
- Released on: 2010-06-08
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
“This definitive biography, the fruit of a lifetime’s study, strikes a deft balance.”—History Magazine
(History Magazine)
“Phillips’ book will stand for the foreseeable future as the definitive work . . . invigorating . . . a joy to read.”—Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly
(Steve Donoghue Open Letters Monthly)
"Phillips's account of the life and reign of Edward II is a masterful example of the finest historical scholarship. The research is thorough, the judgments are carefully reasoned and explained, and the narrative is engaging. . . . Endorsed without reservation."—A. C. Reeves, CHOICE (A. C. Reeves CHOICE)
"The book's value lies in its accumulation of detail from an extraordinary range of unpublished sources and a thorough review of published writings: it is a reliable work of reference."—Ralph A. Griffiths, The American Historical Review (Ralph A. Griffiths The American Historical Review)
About the Author
Seymour Phillips is emeritus professor of medieval history, University College, Dublin, and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Most helpful customer reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
The strange story of Edward II
By Daniel Putman
This biography of Edward II is huge - a 700 page hardcover. The length is somewhat misleading. With the footnotes at the bottom of the pages, the book has such extensive notation that several pages are 50% notes and at least a quarter are 25% notes. Chapter 8, which covers the years 1318-1322, has 520 notes. This is unquestionably one of the (if not THE) most scholarly and most well-documented biographies of any English king. The Yale English Monarchs series is always scholarly and well-documented; this book sets the bar for careful documentation.
I had a a couple reservations about the book that kept me from giving it five stars and they have nothing to do with the notes. Either Phillips or the publisher felt that it would be a good move to subdivide each chapter many (many) times. You rarely read more than 3-4 pages (often 2-3) before another major break in the chapter. Why is this an issue? First, the subheadings are all in caps with half inch gaps between the sections. Sometimes the book reads like a series of short answers to different questions. This was especially irritating in the earlier and later chapters. For example, in chapter 2 on "The Nature of a King," on p. 53 is EDWARD'S OWN EDUCATION, then on p. 57 after a major break EDWARD'S BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS, then on p. 61, EDWARD AS A PUBLIC SPEAKER and on the same page after another large break EDWARD AND EDUCATION. The entire book is subdivided like that. It takes some getting used to. The effect is not as bothersome when the narrative of Edward's life really gets going but it is not clear why the book is set up like this. And these major subdivisions lead to my second problem with this format. The multiple subdivisions with completely capitalized headings break the narrative of a biography. It may be an effective way of breaking up a lot of data but it does nothing for the flow of the book. About the only real advantage is that it is very easy to put the book down and come back to it. You rarely lose your place!
All this seems harsh but it should not at all detract from the fact that this is a major work on Edward loaded with interesting details. Once you get used to the chapter format and the heavy notation on every page, you get the story of one of the strangest and most fascinating monarchs in English history. Phillips' care in documentation is important because there has been so much careless writing about Edward. Here is a man whose personal obsessions with Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser the Younger brought down his reign. It is incredibly tempting to psychologize Edward. The reader keeps asking what on earth motivates this man. Phillips argues strongly that Edward's almost unbelievable dependence on these individuals (his "favourites") was not a sexual relationship. Whether it was or not is almost irrelevant because it was his utter and absolute devotion to them at the cost of everything else that ruined his reign, not his sex life. Edward comes across as so wildly irrational that some major psychological issue seems to be at the root of it. But, as Phillips points out, this was a very different world, not the world of modern mental illnesses and categories. Edward's story is gripping reading and the great point about Phillips' book is that the reader can be quite sure that the story here is accurate. Who needs fiction with a true story like this!
So, while I have some problems with the book's format, overall Phillips conveys very well the life of this unusual man. We live in an age when people's personal problems are frequently on television. It is amazing that, in the 1300's, Edward managed in a 20 year reign to make his deeply personal issues the headlines of the country. This is a strong biography about a fascinating character.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Edward II-A Reveling Portrait
By Mars Ultor
Edward II by Seymour Phillips was a great book. It surely must be the defining biography of the king. Phillips takes us from Edward's education and his personal interests to the defining poltical acts of his reign, such as the Ordinances, the Battle of Bannockburn, and lastly, Edward's deposition and abdication.
I thought the book was a excellent read. I do agree with another reviewer who says that the subtitles were a little odd in that sometimes they didn't cover much. They also could be a bit disorganized and jumping around sometimes. Also, Phillips's opinion that Edward and Gaveston were not gay came as a bit of a shock. Surely there was enough evidence to at least build suspiscion that they were lovers. Phillips merely says those chronicles are unreliable. However, the biographer of Piers Gaveston, J.S. Hamiliton, says that he beliefs that the two were gay. For myself, I think that it was unscholarly for Phillip's to simply dismiss the case as one of close friendship. Certainly he could have answered the question of homosexuality better than he did.
Other than that, this was a great book. It may be expensive, but for me, at least, it was worth the money.
21 of 29 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent research, flawed analysis
By xleepy
Agree with the review above in that the book is comprehensive and extensively researched.
My problem is how the author is defensive of any hint of a sexual relationship between Edward and his favorites. Although taken individually, the pieces of evidence can be reasonably explained away and Edward presented as 100% hetrosexual(which the author does), the totality of it all is not so easily dismissed (which the author does). Every piece of evidence that would suggest Edward might have had a gay relationship gets dismissed as either ambigious or biased--even when their authors are relied on as solid reporters for other events. Some of the "biased" evidence was writen when people with living memory were still around, and there is a sufficient amount of it that Phillips really needed to tackle the perception as a whole--one or two period writers might be biased, but its a harder sell to dismiss them all as such.
One point of absurdity here is when he presents another writer's hypothesis that Edward and his favorites entered into some pact of sworn brotherhood of equals. When presented in the text, he rightly claims there is scant evidene for this (indeed, a far simpler hypothesis is that Edward was simply gay and avoid the problem issue that a sworn brotherhood is by FAR more likely to be explicitly noted by the chronicles than a taboo relationship). However, just a few pages later he asserts that a physical relationship between Edward and Gaveston was not possible because a sworn brother wouldn't be a physical relationship (which is unsupported).
I'm taking away two stars because the author is vehemently dismissive of any evidence that Edward was in a physical relationship with his favorites. If this was a only a book on the period and not a person, it would easily get 5 stars. However, because this is a biography as much as a historical period narrative, the author is too dismissive of what was potentially a major piece of Edward's personality. If Edward were homosexual, it was the (potentially?) prime motivator for much of what occured in his reign.
I walked away from the English Monarch's Series Henry I feeling like I knew what Henry was about. Since Edward II is by far more documented, it should be easy to do that with this book as well. However I didn't because I wasn't convinced with the basic assumptions the author makes early on. Making the case that Edward II was 100% not gay and coming across as a revisionist isn't something that can be acomplished in a few quick pages by claiming all the sources were just biased.
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