The Baronial Opposition to Edward II (PDF)

Edward I (Longshanks) died at the age of 67 while on campaign to invade Scotland and squelch the budding revolt of the Bruces. He left a 23 year old son who might have been one of England’s greatest king’s were it not for the company he choose and his companions’ preoccupation with frivolity rather than duty.Piers Gaveston was a Gascon knight whose relationship with Edward has never been definitively exposed but it’s a certainty that his affection for this low born foreigner was the initial cause of the baronial discontent that marked Edward’s reign.From the time of Longshanks’ death in 1307 until Gaveston’s execution in 1312, the barons and the king were at odds. The failure of the English at Bannockburn two years later further weakened the king’s hold on authority. The rebels formed a committee to oversee the administration of the government reminiscent of the Montfortian period two generations earlier.It is their struggle with the king, and among themselves that James Conway Davies explores in the groundbreaking Baronial Opposition to Edward II.Davies’ work is not so much a biography of Edward II, but more a researched look at how the reign of Edward II and the conflict between Edward and the barons were part of the key step in the shift from absolute monarchy (under the theory of the divine right of kings) to the constitutional monarchy that is currently in place.