The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer, known as Edward II, is a Renaissance or early modern period play written by Christopher Marlowe. It is one of the earliest English history plays, and focuses on the relationship between King Edward II of England and Piers Gaveston, and Edward's murder on the orders of Roger Mortimer.
Marlowe found most of his material for this play in the third volume of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587). Frederick S. Boas believes that "out of all the rich material provided by Holinshed" Marlowe was drawn to "the comparatively unattractive reign of Edward II" due to the relationship between the King and Gaveston. Boas elaborates, "Homosexual affection ... has (as has been seen) a special attraction for Marlowe. Jove and Ganymede in Dido, Henry III and his 'minions' in The Massacre, Neptune and Leander in Hero and Leander, and all akin, although drawn to a slighter scale, to Edward and Gaveston." Boas also notes the existence of a number of parallels between Edward II and The Massacre at Paris, asserting that "it is scarcely too much to say that scenes xi–xxi of The Massacre are something in the nature of a preliminary sketch for Edward II." Marlowe stayed close to the account but embellished it with the character of Lightborn (or Lucifer) as Edward's assassin.
Publication
The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 6 July 1593, five weeks after Marlowe's death. The earliest extant edition was published in octavo in 1594, printed by Robert Robinson for the bookseller William Jones; a second edition, issued in 1598, was printed by Richard Braddock for Jones. Subsequent editions were published in 1612, by Richard Barnes, and in 1622, by Henry Bell.
The 1594 first edition of the play is very rare and was uncovered only in 1876. Only one copy, held at the Zentralbibliothek Zürich, was known to exist after a second was lost in the Second World War. In 2012, a third copy was discovered in Germany by Jeffrey Masten. The volume was bound with a treatise arguing against the execution of heretics and another on Turkey and Islam.
Authorship
The authorship of the play has never been in doubt. Robert Dodsley included it in his Select Collection of Old Plays in 1744, but Marlowe's name was not even mentioned in the preface. Marlowe's reputation was still damaged by Thomas Beard's libel in The Theatre of God's Judgement, published in 1597.
Characters
Edward II
Prince Edward
Kent, (half-)brother to King Edward the Second
Gaveston
Archbishop of Canterbury
Bishop of Coventry
Bishop of Winchester
Warwick
Lancaster
Pembroke
Arundel
Leicester
Berkeley
Mortimer the Elder
Mortimer the Younger, his nephew
Spenser the Elder
Spenser the Younger
Baldock
Baumont
Trussel
(Thomas) Gurney
Matrevis
Lightborn
Sir John of Hainault
Levune
Rice ap Howel
Abbot of Neath
James
Horse Boy
The Herald
The Champion
Post
Mayor of Bristow
Monks
Lords, Poor Men, James, Mower, Champion, Messengers, Soldiers, and Attendants
Queen Isabella, wife to King Edward the Second
Lady Margaret de Clare, Niece to King Edward
Ladies
Synopsis
The play telescopes most of Edward II's reign into a single narrative, beginning with the recall of his favourite, Piers Gaveston, from exile, and ending with his son, Edward III, executing Mortimer Junior for the king's murder.
Marlowe's play opens at the outset of the reign, with Edward's exiled favourite, Piers Gaveston, rejoicing at the recent death of Edward I and his own resulting ability to return to England. In the following passage he plans the entertainments with which he will delight the king:
