As I have been accused by certain persons of bias and unfairness by starting a thread on the misdeeds of Roger Mortimer, I've decided to even things out by starting one containing some of the many, many reasons why Edward The Second Was Totally Crap:

- he was a rotten general.

- he was lazy and incompetent.

- he had no judgement whatsoever.

- he behaved tyrannically from 1322.

- he thoroughly deserved to lose his throne.

- he allowed men to rule his country for him when they had no right to.

- he treated his friends and former allies (yes, I mostly mean The Sainted Roger Mortimer here) incredibly unfairly and unjustly.

- last but not least, he was one of the worst kings in English history.

Feel free to add your own - knock yourselves out!

Gosh, I hope he didn't beat his camel!

^ LOL!

Here's what some historians have said about Edward II:

Richard Baker: "worthy never to have been born." (Ouch!!)

- May McKisack: "a weakling and a fool."

- J Mackinnon: "a greater ninny never sat on the English throne."

- T. F. Tout: "a coward and a trifler."

And Ed's contemporary, author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi:

"Our king has now reigned six full years and has until now achieved nothing praiseworthy or memorable."

"What hopes he raised as prince of Wales! How they were dashed when he became king!"

Plenty more of those, when I have more time to post them...

Alianore,

I don't think you've ever not said that you weren't pro-Edward II. You've always been upfront about your preference for Edward as a person whom who have a great interest in. But in saying that, I don't recall you being completely anti-anyone else.

Thanks, Melisende! Unfortunately, a former member of the forum made some very nasty and hurtful comments on another thread, and one of the things mentioned (and by far the least hurtful, but I did my best to ignore the rest) was that I was really biased and unfair. Now, I'd imagine that anyone who chooses to join a forum called 'Edward II' that I've set up would have the brains to realise who I prefer...*rolls eyes*. I've always made it clear here and on my blog, or at least tried to, that although I'm devoted to Ed II, I've never said that he was anything but a disastrous king who made lots of mistakes.

Alianore,

While I suspose there is no real doubt (alas!) about Edward's rottenness as a general, is it really entirely true that he was completely lazy and incompetent? To hear some talk you might think that Edward spent the whole of his reign fighting his earls, hobnobbing with scandalous favourites and having one great long party with his 'lowborn friends', while the North of England burned. But in fact Edward launched numerous expeditions against the Scots, personally wintered over in Scotland for two campaigning seasons (1310-11) and planned several more. It wasn't so much that he wasn't paying attention to affairs of state, just that his efforts weren't very successful.

Also, while hopeless as a general himself, he did sometimes pick competent lieutenants to carry out his orders - both Gaveston and Andrew Harclay seem to have performed reasonably well on campaign.

Was Edward quite as inept as historians have generally made him out to be?