The death?? ..of Edward the second

[Phil H]

I always suspected that given Edward's close homosexual relationships with his two chief advisors (both of whom were executed at different points in his reign), the "poker" murder was supposed to be a symbolic commentary on his sexual habits as well as a supposed way to kill the monarch "without leaving any apparent physical traces" (unless the corpse was turned around - hardly likely in a royal funeral of 1327).

That was the intent of the story, certainly. The church was happy to draw moral lessons.

But now we must face the real possibility that it was all made up.

Phil

[Chris Scott]

Very interesting thread.
Is there any historical basis of the ambiguous note mentioned in the Marlow play about Edward II?
According to this, Mortimer sent an instruction to Berkeley castle in the form of a Latin note that could be interpreted as orders to kill or not to kill the king. This was to cover the plotter in case of failure.
The note read: "Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est."
If one imagines a break after the third word, the meaning would be: "Do not kill Edward - it is well to be fearful."
A break after the fourth word would give the meaning: "Do not be afraid to kill Edward - it is for the best."
Was this a literary invention (as I suspect) and if so was Marlowe the originator?

[Phil H]

I think it is a literary invention. I don't know whether Marlowe invented it - though he was certainly too clever for his own good!

Phil

[Wickerman]

Next in the pipeline is Antonia Frasers "Cromwell our Chief of Men"...this looks a little heavy and is currently intimidating me by its very presence...I've been subconsciously avoiding it for some months now, but its baleful presence on the shelf has been bugging me for a while now.

Yes, heavy going, but a great read.

On another subject, Antonia Fraser's, The Gunpowder Plot, I found absorbing. Quite an interesting case exists for the whole charge being a set-up by the master of subterfuge, Robert Cecil, Lord Salisury.

[Mayerling]

With his university background (and espionage background) I could see Marlow inventing that clever message business. And he was too clever as it turned out.

I haven't read the Fraser book on the Gunpowder Plot, though I did read a book on it two decades ago (can't recall the author). The possibility of Salisbury entrapping the plotters was always there - but the key to such entrapment is that the said plotters always were ready to do such an action.
It would be Salisbury's emulating Sir Francis Walsingham entrapping the Babbington plotters and Mary, Queen of Scots.

[Mayerling]

I like Scott and have several of his novels to peruse (one of interest in our sphere - "The Heart of Midlothian" which involves the lynching murder of Captain Porteus in 1735). I read "Ivanhoe" and "Quentin Durward" back in the 1960s. I loved the former - the first sympathetic Jewish character in Scottish - possibly in British fiction, though one appeared in one of Richard Cumberland's plays.

I have (and read) Mollie Gilliam's "The Assassination of Spencer Percival" written in the 1960s. A remarkable fate for Percival, who really should be remembered for sticking up for Wellington in the Peninsula from 1809-1812, thus helping to ensure final victory. But in his own time Percival was detested by many people - many of whom cheered Bellingham on the way to the gallows. In her novel "Shirley", Charlotte Bronte calls Percival an idiot.

Tragic loss of medieval artefacts from that fire - but the resulting Houses of Parliament we have today are quite glorious in terms of architecture. I suppose the lost piece of English architecture that we most miss is Henry VIII's favorite palace, "Nonesuch". But we have "Hampton Court" - although it was originally Wolsey's.

[Phil H]

I once saw a documentary, led by a very bright chap who headed up Royal Palaces at one time (Simon Hurley?). He argued that Wolsey's Hampton Court was rather different in layout and design and seemed to prove it, finding some foundation where he said they were.

I have loved the palace since I was a young child and have visited many times - but it has always been the Tudor areas that fascinated me most. The main gateway - so famous now and so "right", was actually much taller (a whole storey higher) with a different silhouette.

As to the Cecils (is it pronounced Saycil, or Seacil?), I think sometimes we see the Tudors, and especially Elizabeth, in too romatic a light.

William Cecil (Burleigh) was as hard nosed, ruthless and conniving as any politician in history. the sage, bearded portraits may suggest a grandfatherly beneficience, but he was a master of subterfuge, espionage and quite capable of killing inconvenient people who were in the way.

His son, Robert the hunchback, was even worse and I am sure he DID mastermind the Gunpowder Plot. Poor Guido, up to his neck and out of his depth. Paul Doherty suggests that he had Elizabeth killed in 1602 - which is why she refused to eat at the end. Her going on living was introducing uncertainty into political affairs. Cecil needed James of Scotland on the throne as soon as possible - and certainly before his Machiavellian intrigues with the Scottish court were found out by the Queen, perhaps fatally for Cecil.

But HE got to write the history in which the Cecil's are her devoted servants - the father maybe: the son? I think he put his own interests first.

Which brings me on to convenient deaths.

The standard history books will tell us that X or Y died of natural causes, even though the timeliness of the demise is intriguing.

Several times heirs to the throne have popped their cloggs and effectively changed history: so Henry - son of James I (we got the weaker less talented Charles and civil war); or Prince Eddy (an odd young man if ever there was one. I don't for a moment think he was JtR!!! But was he "removed" as an embarrassment to make way for his more suitable younger brother? Further back, Hephaistion and then Alexander?

These days when I see an account of a death that changed the course of events, I do ask myself more than I used to - natural causes or assassination? What do other's think?

Phil

[Mayerling]

Phil I am going to have to break this response up - my computer keeps having problems sending long messages back (the log in dies suddenly for no reason). So please bear with me - I apologize for this.

Regarding Eddy - He could have been put out of the way.

1) He'd been the center of frustration and problems since he was at Cambridge - including possible connections to the Cleveland Street Affair, and his impossible attempt to get married to a Roman Catholic Princess of the Orleans family. But in 1892 the Royal Scandal still on everyone's lips was "Tranby Croft" involving Eddy's father Bertie, not Eddy.

2) He may have been pulling himself together - by getting engaged to May of Teck (future Queen Mary). However, he may have had an illegitimate son by Mary Haddon, a married woman he met on his 1889-90 trip to India. This possible son was "Clarence Gordon Haddon". To pursue this point you'd have to trust Gordon Haddon's memoirs.

3) There was a serious pneumonia - influenza epidemic in the British Isles in January 1892 - one of it's victims was Cardinal Henry Manning, who died the same day as Eddy did (January 14th). The previous month Prince George had been seriously ill with the same disease, but was saved by Dr. William Broadbent. Broadbent was called in to save Eddy, but failed.

To be continued.

[Mayerling]

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4) As a way of noting the close relationship of the illnesses of Prince George followed by Prince Eddy, note that when Eddy was dying he suddenly said, "My brother George is dead." In his delerium he was thinking of the events of the previous month.

5) A month after Eddy's death Broadbent got a letter from Bertie and Alexandra thanking him for his labors on both sons, and forgiving him his failure regarding Eddy (as an act of providence). Shortly afterwards Broadbent was knighted and made one of the physicians to the Prince and Princess of Wales.

6) Broadbent is an interesting link between Eddy and Dr. Neil Cream (because of his own position - not a direct connection between the Duke of Clarence and the Stepney-Lambeth Poisoner). Cream had sent a letter to Broadbent trying to extort money from him for poisoning Ellen Donworth a few weeks before. However, after Prince George was saved Cream left England for Canada - supposedly to collect the rest of his legacy from his father. He did not return until weeks after the death of the Duke of Clarence. It may be most likely that he went to collect the legacy, but he may have also thought that his choice of extortion target was now going to be given the sort of protection that he did not want (an intense one that might find Cream out). He may have returned in February 1892 because he felt that Broadbent's inability to save the Duke of Clarence may have ruined any further close ties between Broadbent and the Royal Family.

to be continued.

[Mayerling]

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7) If you wish to see Eddy's demise as done via mercy killing consider this. His fiance May would marry Prince George, and ascend the throne as Queen Mary to George V. About twelve or so years back it came out that in January 1936, while he was dying, George's physician gave him an overdose of opiads to speed his demise. Perhaps Mary approved this thinking of something similar done for Eddy in January 1892? Or perhaps not.

8) If you buy the story Clarence Gordon Haddon tells in his book, "My Uncle King George V" his mother Mary Haddon was allowed to see Prince Eddy on his deathbed by permission of Eddy's father Bertie. I say if you buy that - I have problems buying much from Gordon Haddon's book. The point is, in May 1910, when King Edward VII was dying Queen Alexandra allowed the King's current mistress, Mrs. Alice Keppel, to visit her dying husband for a last time. Alexandra never liked Alice Keppel, but this action has been frequently said to have been a singurlarly graceful act on her part. However, it is not totally known today but Alexandra's favorite son was Eddy, not George, and she resented that Eddy never had his chance because of his early death. If Mary Haddon did get to see Eddy because Bertie allowed it, it is just possible that the permission granted to Alice Keppel by Alexandra was her way of expressing some gratitude to her husband for the act he allowed for their dying son. Again, I leave this up to you to decide.

Curious long series of points here.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Postscript regarding Henry Stuart (d. 1612)

I just wanted to comment that in her book "The Overbury Affair", Miriam Allan De Ford pointed out that Sir Edward Coke always suspected Prince Henry was poisoned.

Jeff

[Phil H]

I am very much aware of Alexandra's preference for Eddy - her eldest son. On the day of George V's coronation in 1911 she kept repeating over and over "It should have been Eddy, it should have been Eddy!"

I like the parallels you draw, a mercy killing for george V, and an earlier one for eddy.

A visit from edward VII's mistress; and earlier one when Eddy's mistress saw him (if only we can believe that story).

Myself I am not persuaded at all by Haddon. There was a similar attempt to get at George V just after his accession, when a woman claimed she was his wife, married as a young sailor in Malta, and that he was thus bigamously married to Queen Mary.

The trouble is that the Maltese marriage would have been legally invalid under the Royal Marriages Act of the 1770s.

By and large the royals were not ashamed of their liaisons. Edward VII was for decades widely known to have lovers - usually married to avoid scandal. George and Eddy are said to have shared a mistress in their youth and kept her in a house in St John's Wood. Edward VII was involved not only in the baccarat /betting court case but also the Mordaunt divorce case. So the Haddon affair seems improbable though not, I suppose, impossible.

Great posts Jeff. Sorry about your PC issues.

Phil