25 April, 2006

Happy Birthday to Edward II

My favourite person in history was born on 25 April in 1284 - 722 today!! All together, "Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Edward, happy birthday to you..."

(Also, a grudging Happy Birthday to Roger Mortimer, 719 today.)

7 comments:

Gabriele Campbell said...

Lol, they shared a birthday? Didn't know that.

Susan Higginbotham said...

I think Mortimer rates the variation, "You look like a monkey . . . And you smell like one too." (Though Isabella evidently didn't think so.)

ilya said...

LOL, happy birthday to them, from me... any party going on anywhere? :p

Kathryn Warner said...

Well, I raised a few jars for them yesterday evening. :) For Edward, anyway!

Carla said...

I didn't know they shared a birthday. What a strange coincidence!

Kathryn Warner said...

Interesting coincidence, isn't it? Roger Mortimer's biographer Ian Mortimer comments that 25 April (the feast of St Mark) was considered a day of bad omen and evil portents, when people dressed in black. Both Edward II and Mortimer must have been very aware of this.

Ian Mortimer says Roger Mortimer's "future was bound up with that of the prince [Edward II]. If the date of 25 April had evil forebodings about it, then it would be a fate they both shared."

Carla said...

That's even more interesting. I wonder if that superstition/belief affected their actions? One could hang a story on that.......