Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327.
The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir to the throne following the death of his older brother Alphonso.
Beginning in 1300, Edward accompanied his father on campaigns to pacify Scotland, and in 1306 he was knighted in a grand ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
Edward succeeded to the throne next year, following his father's death. In 1308, he married Isabella of France, the daughter of the powerful King Philip IV, as part of a long-running effort to resolve the tensions between the English and French crowns.

The Despenser War (1321–22) was a baronial revolt against Edward II of England led by the Marcher Lords Roger Mortimer and Humphrey de Bohun. The rebellion was fuelled by opposition to Hugh Despenser the Younger, the royal favourite.[nb 1] After the rebels' summer campaign of 1321, Edward was able to take advantage of a temporary peace to rally more support and a successful winter campaign in southern Wales, culminating in royal victory at the Battle of Boroughbridge in the north of England in March 1322. Edward's response to victory was his increasingly harsh rule until his fall from power in 1326.

Hugh le Despenser (1 March 1261 – 27 October 1326), sometimes referred to as "the Elder Despenser", was for a time the chief adviser to King Edward II of England.[1] He was created a baron in 1295 and Earl of Winchester in 1322. One day after being captured by forces loyal to Sir Roger Mortimer and Edward's wife, Queen Isabella, who were leading a rebellion against Edward, he was hanged and then beheaded.

The Ordinances of 1311 (The New Ordinances, Norman: Les noveles Ordenances) were a series of regulations imposed upon King Edward II by the peerage and clergy of the Kingdom of England to restrict the power of the English monarch.[a] The twenty-one signatories of the Ordinances are referred to as the Lords Ordainers, or simply the Ordainers.[b] English setbacks in the Scottish war, combined with perceived extortionate royal fiscal policies, set the background for the writing of the Ordinances in which the administrative prerogatives of the king were largely appropriated by a baronial council. The Ordinances reflect the Provisions of Oxford and the Provisions of Westminster from the late 1250s, but unlike the Provisions, the Ordinances featured a new concern with fiscal reform, specifically redirecting revenues from the king's household to the exchequer.

CP 25/1/19/74, number 5.

County: Buckinghamshire.
Place: Westminster.
Date: Two weeks from Easter, 17 Edward II [29 April 1324].
Parties: Hugh le Despenser the younger, querent, by Robert de Swyneburn', put in his place by the lord king's writ, and John Butetourt' and Maud, his wife, deforciants.
Property: The manor of Iselhamstede and 2 knights' fees in and the advowson of the chapel of the same vill.
Action: Plea of covenant.
Agreement: John and Maud have acknowledged the manor, fees and advowson, together with the homages and all services of Robert le Low and Alice, his wife, and Lawrence del Brok' and their heirs, in respect of all the tenements which they held before of John and Maud in the aforesaid vill, to be the right of Hugh, and have rendered the manor and advowson to him in the court, to hold to Hugh and his heirs, of the chief lords for ever.
Warranty: Warranty by John and Maud for themselves and the heirs of Maud.
For this: Hugh has given them 100 pounds sterling.
Note: This agreement was made in the presence of Robert and Alice, and they did fealty to Hugh in the court.

The Ordainers were elected by an assembly of magnates, without representation from the commons.[e] They were a diverse group, consisting of eight earls, seven bishops and six barons – twenty-one in all.[f] There were faithful royalists represented as well as fierce opponents of the king.[15]

Among the Ordainers considered loyal to Edward II was John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond who was also by this time one of the older remaining earls. John had served Edward I, his uncle, and was Edward II's first cousin. The natural leader of the group was Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. One of the wealthiest men in the country, he was also the oldest of the earls and had proved his loyalty and ableness through long service to Edward I.[17] Lincoln had a moderating influence on the more extreme members of the group, but with his death in February 1311, leadership passed to his son-in-law and heir Thomas of Lancaster.[18] Lancaster – the king's cousin – was now in possession of five earldoms which made him by far the wealthiest man in the country, save the king.[19] There is no evidence that Lancaster was in opposition to the king in the early years of the king's reign,[20] but by the time of the Ordinances it is clear that something had negatively affected his opinion of King Edward.[g]

Lancaster's main ally was Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Warwick was the most fervently and consistently antagonistic of the earls, and remained so until his early death in 1315.[22] Other earls were more amenable. Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, was Gaveston's brother-in-law and stayed loyal to the king.[23] Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, would later be one of the king's most central supporters, yet at this point he found the most prudent course of action was to go along with the reformers.[24] Of the barons, at least Robert Clifford and William Marshall seemed to have royalist leanings.

Controversy rapidly surrounded Edward's death.[333] With Mortimer's execution in 1330, rumours began to circulate that Edward had been murdered at Berkeley Castle. Accounts that he had been killed by the insertion of a red-hot iron or poker into his anus slowly began to spread, possibly as a result of deliberate propaganda; chroniclers in the mid-1330s and 1340s disseminated this account further, supported in later years by Geoffrey le Baker's colourful account of the killing.[334] It became incorporated into most later histories of Edward, typically being linked to his possible homosexuality.[335] Most historians now dismiss this account of Edward's death, querying the logic in his captors murdering him in such an easily detectable fashion