In British history, there is a famous gay king Edward II, who spoiled his courtiers (lovers) all his life, lost successive battles in domestic and foreign wars, and lost power and humiliated the country.
The queen, who was a French princess, could not bear the formal marriage, fled back to her mother's house, and with the support of the French king, she cooperated with the British domestic nobles who had long looked at him unfavorably, and expelled him from the throne...
"Braveheart" is the story that follows
In 1996, by Mel. Gibson, Sophie. Marceau starred in the movie "Braveheart", which was acclaimed and acclaimed, and won multiple Oscars.
The film tells the story of an English king named Edward I, who stipulates that the English nobility have the "right to the first night" in conquered Scotland, and the enraged Scots rebel under the leadership of the hero Wallace, but eventually they are defeated by traitors.
There is a British princess Isabel in the film, starring Sophie Marceau. In the plot, she kills decisively and is heroic, but the relationship with her husband does not seem to be very good.
In fact, this Isabel is the queen of King Edward II of England, the protagonist of this article, Edward I, who granted the English nobleman the right to the first night of Scotland, and was the father of Edward II.
"Braveheart" ends with the death of Edward I, which means that we are going to talk about the historical development after the movie "Braveheart".
Edward II was the sixth king of the Plantagenet dynasty of England, reigning from 1307 to 1327. He actually "accomplished" many great things in his life, but most people know him because he is a homosexual.
There was nothing wrong with it in itself, but the problem was that he was too spoiled for his lover, almost like the King of Zhou You.
Edward II was born tall and burly, so his father, Edward I, had high hopes for him from the beginning. At that time, England was working to unify Britain, continuing to use troops against Scotland and Wales, and at the same time fighting with France.
Edward Sr. wanted his son to become a great commander and lead the knights of the LinkedIn to fight and kill the enemy. Edward II did like knights, but unfortunately he liked only one specific knight, named Pierce Gaviston.
This Pierce was a French knight (knighthood is a knighthood, the lowest rank), grew up with Edward II, and by the time his love affair was at an early age, Edward, who was still a prince, had fallen deeply in love with him.
When Edward I was still alive, Prince Edward did not dare to be too blatant, and he and his lover only dared to poke and poke together, sometimes sent to Scotland to fight, and had to be separated for a long time.
But when the old king died in 1307, Edward II immediately stopped pretending and doubled down on compensating his lover. Before the funeral of the old king was held, Pierce was crowned Count of Cornwall.
In 1308 Edward II married Isabel, the daughter of King Philip IV of France, which of course was entirely political, and to comfort Pierce, Edward II gave Pierce most of his dowry.
Isabel, who had a bad temper, hated this Pierce from then on. At the same time, Pierce, so favored by the king, began to pamper and be proud.
Just like after Dong Xian was favored by the Han Emperor, he began not to pay attention to the Gonggong princes in the court. The medieval British aristocratic clique was very energetic, how could it withstand this anger?
In 1311, the nobles, led by the Duke of Lancaster, united to press Edward II to agree to a bill, the Act of 1311, which included the immediate exile of Pierce, the king's need to obtain the consent of the Council of Nobles to leave the country, and the need for central and local bureaucrats to be accountable to the nobility.
Medieval Europe is actually somewhat similar to China in the Spring and Autumn Period, not only is the fragmented territory of the division similar, but the relationship between the monarch and the vassals is also similar, and once the nobles really hold the group, they are fully capable of deposing the king.
Therefore, Edward II chose to admit it and agreed to the demands of the nobles. But it didn't matter what parliament or bureaucrats in this bill Edward II were, except for Pierce, who could not bear it, so he exiled himself for less than a year, and then secretly took it back.
The nobles were furious, and this time they did not consult with Edward, and directly formed a coalition army to carry out the "Qing King's Side" and killed Pierce.
"Like a moth to die before the horse", in the face of this kind of thing, Tang Xuanzong had no choice, let alone Edward II. After this change, Edward II realized that he seemed to have too little prestige in the country. How do you build prestige? Build a battle feat!
Edward II remembered his father's expectations for him – the unification of the British Isles! So in 1314, Edward II led a large army to conquer Scotland, and the "Battle of Bannockburn" broke out with Scotland.
This battle was a glorious page in Scottish history and the biggest victory the Scots had ever won over England.
This time the king personally marched, Queen Isabel also accompanied the army, and when the army was defeated, Edward II did not care about Isabel at all, fled on his own horse, leaving the queen and a group of maids in enemy territory.
Fortunately, Isabel did not mess up, disguised herself with her maid, smeared mud on her face, and fled back to England on a long journey.
Internal and external troubles
Originally intended to build personal prestige through foreign wars, it was beaten by the Scots, and the original prestige was also swept away. Edward II was discouraged from then on.
In fact, in the early 14th century under Edward II, the Earth's climate was in a period of Xiaoice, with frequent natural disasters and continuous agricultural harvest failures. This, combined with the plague epidemic of sheep (wool was the financial base of Britain at the time, as important as oil is today), led to severe inflation and hunger in Britain.
Between 1315 and 1317, in some parts of England there were already cases of poor people eating pigeon dung or the excrement of their own children. At the same time, in international politics, Britain wanted to conquer all of Britain, and had serious territorial disputes with France...
It can be said that if the reigning king is a king who strives to govern, his hair will be gray. But Edward II was already "lying flat", and not only did he look unsafe, but he also had a new lover: the Despenser father and son.
As soon as Isabel, whose face was smeared with ash on the bottom of the pot, she saw Edward with the Despenser father and son together, and did not know what to say.
Edward II, as before, began to reward the Despenser fathers and sons, which once again aroused the resentment of the nobles. This time, the king and the nobles did not come to the same set of first salute and then soldiers, and in 1321, the two sides directly began to fight. It may be that this time the king was prepared, and the noble alliance was defeated.
For a time, the Father and Son of Despenser became important vassals of the powerful government, and Edward II made the elder Despenser the Earl of Winchester and appointed the younger Despenser to oversee the state's tax revenues.
Once the country is caught up in this kind of struggle between the emperor, the "courtiers", and the "qingliu", basically don't think about it, and it is better to be true in ancient and modern China and abroad.
The defeated aristocracy lay dormant for a while, but the hatred for the Despenser fathers and sons grew deeper, and even the dissatisfaction with Edward II gradually turned into hatred.
Queen Isabelle persuaded her husband to expel the Despenser fathers and sons for the sake of the country. In fact, although Edward II was gay, he and Isabel still had two sons and two daughters.
The eldest son, Edward III, was born in the year Pierce was killed.
Edward II was furious at Isabel's advice.
As punishment, he confiscated all of the queen's property and gave her only one pound a day for living expenses (in fact, the trade tax in England in 1315 was only 7,000 pounds... It can be seen how extravagant the life of the feudal ruler is), and it also makes her unable to meet with her children. The queen's possessions ended up in Thespenser's pocket.
Queen Isabel, a French princess, is a decisive, Iron Lady figure. I am afraid that from this time on she had already killed Edward II.
The impact is far-reaching
In 1324, a dispute broke out between England and France over the issue of oath of allegiance.
The dispute between the two countries over the issue of oath of allegiance was a dispute unique to Europe at that time. Henry II, the founder of the Plantagenet dynasty that ruled England at the time, was originally the Earl of Anjou, a vassal of the Capetian dynasty in France, who became king of England through a series of operations, but was still the Count of Anjou of France.
This situation has also existed in China. During the Warring States period, Tian Wen was both the king of the Xue state and the Meng Yujun of the state of Qi. This situation was obviously very different, and after Tian Wen's death, war immediately broke out between his descendants and the State of Qi.
Similarly, when the new King of France ascended the throne in 1322, he immediately demanded that Edward II come to France and swear allegiance to the new King. Edward II, of course, did not go, and the two sides were deadlocked for two years, and in 1324 a small-scale armed conflict broke out.
The British did not want to fight, and hoped to quickly negotiate peace, Queen Isabelle took the initiative to ask for help, returned to France to negotiate with her brother, Edward II agreed. He didn't expect this to have fatal consequences for himself.
Shortly after Isabel's return to France, the two sides reached an agreement to strike the army, and France agreed to send the crown prince to France to swear allegiance, so Edward II sent prince Edward to France.
Unexpectedly, as soon as the prince arrived in France, he was detained by the queen, and the queen herself did not go back, not only did not go back, but also with mortimer, an English nobleman in exile in France.
Not only were they together, but the two, with the patronage of the King of France and the Count of Heinau of the Netherlands, led a large army to attack England, joined forces with the English nobles, defeated Edward II, captured him alive, and the Despenser father and son were killed.
In 1327, Edward II was deposed by the English Parliament, becoming the first King of England to be deposed by parliament. He was then imprisoned in a castle, where is legend has it that Isabelle ordered someone to stab Edward II in the anus with a red-hot iron rod, and the screams before Edward II's death even spread to nearby villages.
Edward III ascended the throne as the seventh king of the Plantagenet dynasty. The following year, his uncle Charles IV of France died without a son, meaning that there was no male heir to the Capetian dynasty in France.
According to the rules of the time, his nephew, who was the Count of Anjou and duke of Aquitaine, should be crowned king. However, the French nobles expressed their inadmissibility and elected Charles IV's cousin to the throne.
Edward III looked, well, when I inherited a Count of Anjou, you made me kneel down and swear an oath, saying that this is the rule, and now it is my turn to inherit the French throne, and you are not talking about the rules? Can I put up with this? The Hundred Years' War between England and France broke out as a result, of course, this is an afterthought.
bibliography
YU Yonghe. The Debate on the Deposing of Edward II in Medieval England: A Commentary on the Constitutional Revolution of 1327. Medieval Historiography and Culture, 2008