Stuff

Only a quick post today, I'm afraid, as I've just come back from holiday and haven't had time to write a proper one yet.

My friend Colin now has a website about Eleanor Fitzalan, Lady Percy (c. 1284-1328), daughter of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (d. 1302), sister of the earl executed in 1326, and wife and mother of two of the long line of Henry, Lord Percies.  Best of luck to Colin with his excellent and extremely well-researched site and his novel about Eleanor, and thanks to him for the lovely mention and links to my blog!

Inaccuracies and weirdnesses spotted online lately:

"Piers even sat closer to Edward than his own bride (the then thirteen year old Isabella of France) at their wedding!"  Nope; Edward and Isabella married in Boulogne on 25 January 1308, and Piers, who remained in England as regent, was 80 miles away in Kent at the time.

"The marriage was purely political, both Edward II and Philip IV had hoped it would create a friendship between England and France; Isabella and Edward were not in love."  Whereas every other royal couple of the Middle Ages married purely for love and it had nothing at all to do with political alliances, obviously. *rolls eyes*

"It takes Edward 4 years to consummate the marriage and Isabeau quickly becomes pregnant. It is clear the King is doing his duty, nothing more."  Because obviously it would have been vastly preferable for Edward II to have had regular intercourse with a girl of twelve or thirteen and forced her to go through pregnancy and childbirth at that age.  Do these moaners even think a tiny little bit about the implications of what they're saying?  Do they ever even bother to try to see things from Edward's perspective, that having to marry a very young girl he'd never met before and trying to build a relationship with her possibly wasn't a walk in the park for him either?  Has there ever been any other man in history so often criticised for not having sex with a twelve-year-old, even one who was, according to her modern-day fans, officially The Most Beautiful And Intelligent Pre-Pubescent In All Europe?  How do they know Edward only 'did his duty, nothing more'?  Do they have a webcam set up in his bedchamber?

"....Isabeau, daughter of Philip IV of France, marrying Edward II of England, who is quite obviously bored by the whole affair and disinterested in his 13 year-old bride...".  Isabella was almost certainly twelve at marriage, actually.  And yeah, let's all continue to point the finger at those men in their twenties who are uninterested (not 'disinterested'; that means something different) in pre-pubescent girls, those sick weird bastards.

"...like other girls of her station in that age, [Isabella] was little more than a pawn on a political chessboard."  I am so completely beyond bored with all this yawn, I mean pawn, nonsense.  Why is it only ever applied to women?  It's not like Edward II had the slightest choice in who he married either.  He was only five years old when his father arranged his betrothal to the young Margaret of Norway, queen of Scotland, and over the years was betrothed to various other girls in alliances that suited Edward I's political needs at the time; I have yet to see anyone whine about 'poor Edward, little more than a pawn on his father's political chessboard'.  Not that I'd want them to, of course, as it would be ridiculous, but this whole 'royal and noble women (but not men) of the Middle Ages were nothing but tragic helpless pawns whose heartless fathers arranged marriages for them even though they weren't in luuuurrrve, oh woes' notion is becoming a really tedious cliché.

"Edward's murder was by ordered of his wife, Isabella of France, to ensure the succession of his son Edward III."  I'd love to see the evidence for the statement that Isabella did any such thing, except - of course! - there isn't any.  Edward II's death supposedly took place in September 1327, a full nine months after his son's succession, which was already 'ensured'.

Some of the comments left on the post directly above, which also stated the red-hot poker myth as fact:

"There is also rumor that at the Death bed of his father, (Edward the first) Isabella of France, his wife, announces that son, Edward the third belongs to William Wallace."  Words. Fail. Me.  I have fantasies about burying every last copy of That Film in a deep hole on Jupiter and wiping all awareness of it from the memories of humankind for the rest of eternity.

"Lord, no wonder we rebelled in the colonies."  Hmmmm, yes, I'm sure events of the 1770s were directly related to the deposition and supposed murder of a king of England 450 years previously.  ("Never mind all this taxation without representation stuff, friends, have you heard what those savages allegedly did back in 1327?  We've got to get rid of them right now!")

"The poker story is Not a myth."  Stated with such certainty that this person (who also wrote the 'death bed' comment above) must surely have been present in the room at Berkeley Castle on 21 September 1327, or at least has that webcam up and running.  And what's With the Random capitalisation?

Somewhat bizarrely, someone posted a link to my site on an article called 'The term obstinate child is a racist dog whistle' - near the bottom of the comments section, dated 10 October, with the statement 'This site will debunk all the myths about “gay Edward and William Wallace’s time-traveling sperm”.'   Well, I certainly try.  A few weeks ago someone linked to my site in the comments section of an article in The Telegraph.  It does get around.  ;-)  It was also linked on a Russian forum recently - actually, I get quite a few hits from Russian sites, and Russia is always in the top seven countries where my blog visitors come from (*waves hello at Russian readers*) - and when I ran what was written there through Google Translate, I got "Some Brits still can not move vilify the memory of the Monarch. Befitted a migrant-occupier, edyaschemu English bread and butter, distribute new homeland defamatory rumors." Ummm, OK then.  ;-)

Visitors to my blog.  No Edward II fans in Madagascar, Greenland, Tierra del Fuego, the Horn of Africa or most of Siberia then. How disappointing.

Some recent blog searches (not many as I've hardly been online lately to check them):

queen isabella naked pics

every time you cus a kitten kills a man

who was the edward who killed his father that was edward?

gay film robin hood

did edward ii and robin hood have sex

did isabella love edward the second?  

did king edward ii have gout

edward iii not edward ii 

was edward of france gay

was the son of edward 2 a bastard