The deaths of his older brothers made the infant prince heir to the throne. In 1301, Edward II, was proclaimed Prince of Wales, the first heir apparent in English history to bear that title. The Prince was idle and frivolous, with no liking for military campaigning or affairs of state. Believeing that the Prince’s close friend, Piers Gaveston, a Gascon knight, was a bad influence on the Prince, Edward I banished Gaveston. Upon his father’s death in 1307 however, Edward II recalled his trusted friend.

Edward was a weak king, dissipated and self-indulgent. His reign was noted for internal dissension and the loss of Scotland. His insistence on having his favorite, Piers Gaveston, made regent for the period of the King’s absence in France, where he had gone to marry Isabella, daughter of King Philip IV, caused rebellion among the barons, who eventually had Gaveston killed. Edward’s later favorites, Hugh le Despenser and his son, virtually ruled England from 1322 until 1326. They made a truce with Robert I and recognized him as King of Scotland.

Edward’s wife, Queen Isabella, neglected and mistreated by her huband, hated the Royal favorites (who had seized her lands) and refushed to return from france while the Despensers ruled. While in France, she entered into an adulterous alliance with Roger de Mortimer, and they invaded England in 1326. Edward and his favorites fled, but his wife’s army pursued and executed the le Despensers, imprisoned the King, and forced him to abdicate.

On September 21, 1327, King Edward II was murdered by his captors at Berkeley Castle in Cloucestershire when they shoved a red-hot iron poker up his bowels. Isabella and her lover, Roger de Mortimer, ruled coruptly until Edward II seized power in 1330.

Edward II, King of England, 1307-1327; b. Caernarvon, Wales, 25 Apr. 1284; d. near Gloucester, 21 Sep. 1327; m. Isabella of France (101-31). (G. E. Cokayne’s (new revised) “Complete Peerage,” vols. I-XII pt. 2, 1910-1959 - V, 736, “Complete Cyclopedia of Names,” 353; “Dictionary of National Biography,” (English).55