Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (10 of 12)edward the Second, the Sonne of Edward the First

This is one of the foundational texts of English historiography, the raw material that Shakespeare would later transform into tragedy. Holinshed's Chronicles, compiled in the 16th century from earlier sources, preserved the medieval telling of England's kings, and this volume captures the reign of Edward II in all its turbulent glory. Edward II inherited his father's crown in 1307 but little of his authority. From the moment he elevates his beloved Piers de Gaveston above the assembled nobility, the king's reign becomes a chronicle of baronial rebellion, parliamentary confrontation, and the slow erosion of royal power. The Scots under Robert the Bruce humbles him at Bannockburn. His own queen, Isabella, eventually turns against him. The chronicle records it all: the forced abdication, the imprisonment, the gruesome murder at Berkeley Castle. Here is a king whose private passions became public catastrophes, whose reign ended not with the dignity of death but with a red-hot iron thrust into his bowels through a tube. For readers drawn to medieval politics, the sources behind Shakespeare's history plays, or the intimate brutality of crown governance, this chronicle preserves how Edward II's reign was first told and remembered.