Death of King Edward II

On 21st September 1327 King Edward II of England (age 43) was murdered at Berkeley Castle [Map]. There is speculation as to the manner of his death, and as to whether he died at all. Some believe he may have lived the rest of his life in Europe.

The Brut. [21st September 1327]. Of þe deþ of Kyng Edward of Carnaruan, sometyme Kyng of Engeland.

Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough. After this, Edward II was moved from Kenilworth to Berkeley Castle, where, in the month of September, on the feast of Saint Matthew [21st September 1327], there was, so it was said, a horn inserted into his backside, and through it a red-hot iron spit was passed inwards, and in this way he was killed.

Post hæc Edwardus II de Kenylworth ad castrum de Berkeley est translatus, ubi in mense Septembri, die Sancti Matthæi, immisso per posteriora cornu veruque ferreo candente medium cornu usque ad interiora intromisso, ut ferebatur, fuit interfectus.

Note 1. Edward II is supposed to have been murdered in Berkeley Castle, by John Maltravers and Thomas de Gurney; the latter of whom being discovered at Burgos in 1331, was thrown into prison by Alfonso of Castile, who despatched Ferando Ivaynes de Greynoun to King Edward III, informing him of the arrest. Edward requested that the prisoner might be delivered up to the Seneschal of Gascony or his officers, and then examined by the magistrates of Burgos, in presence of Bernard Pelegrym (Pilgrim), as to the instigators and procurers of the murder, and by whom and in what manner it was perpetrated. Gurney was beheaded at sea on his way to England, on what account is not clearly known: according to Sir Thomas de la More, lest he might accuse those high persons who had set him to the work. T. de la More, 603, ed. Camden. Rymer, Fœdera, 2.819.

Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke [-1360]. At the aforesaid castle, Lord Edward was at first received and treated humanely and kindly by the lord of the manor, Thomas de Berkeley. But after the receipt of the fatal letter, the designated tormentors of Edward began to exercise the authority over the castle that had been committed to them. Thomas de Berkeley was immediately forbidden to have any familiar contact with Edward. He not only obeyed, but did so with regret and shame, for he was not permitted to do what he wished, what previously had been his lawful right. At last, with sighs, he bid farewell to Lord Edward and withdrew to his other estates. Then began Edward's final persecution, continued until his death. First, he was confined in the most secure of rooms, where for many days he was tormented nearly to the point of suffocation by the stench of rotting corpses placed in a cellar below. This unbearable stench was the worst torment he ever endured. One day, the servant of God, crying out from the window to carpenters working outside, lamented this punishment. When the tyrants saw that even this foulness could not bring death to so strong a man, they acted. On the night of 22nd September [1327], they surprised him in bed. Pressing down upon him with great cushions and heavy weights, more than fifteen strong men, they smothered and suffocated him. Then, taking a red-hot iron, as used by plumbers, they inserted it through a copper or brass tube into his secret parts, burning his intestines and destroying his internal organs, all to ensure that no external wound would be found on the royal body, where wounds are usually sought, so that the tormentors would not be forced to answer for manifest injury, nor suffer punishment for it.

Thus was the most valiant knight overwhelmed, letting out a cry, heard both inside and outside the castle, so loud and clear that all recognized it as the voice of one suffering a violent death. That final cry of the dying man stirred many people of Berkeley and even some within the castle, as they themselves later attested, to compassion and to prayer for the holy soul departing this life. So he whom the world hated, and who, like his master Jesus Christ, was first hated by the world, was at last received, Christ having first been rejected by the kingdom of the Jews, and then Edward, his disciple, stripped of the kingdom of the English, into the glory of the kingdom of angels. The glorious and good end of Edward brought about the persecution of his traitorous ministers, namely Thomas de Gurney and John de Maltravers,¹ by Isabella and the Bishop of Hereford, so that they might appear to have had innocent hands and pure intentions. Accordingly, the murderers were outlawed and, as previously stated, driven into exile. Thomas de Gurney, a fugitive, fled secretly to Marseille, where, after being recognized within three years, he was captured and brought back toward England to receive the punishment he deserved. But he was beheaded at sea, lest he should accuse powerful magnates, great prelates, and many others in the kingdom of having advised or consented to his crime. The other, Maltravers, wandered in the lands of the Germans, long hidden and doing penance.

Ad castrum prenominatum ductus dominus Edwardus per dominum feodi Thomam de Berkeleye fuerat humaniter et benigne receptus et tractatus, set, post recepcionem epistole, predicti exercuerunt tortores Edwardi illis commissam potestatem de tutela castri. Tubetur protinus Thomas de Berkeleye nullam cum Edwardo habere familiaritatem, cuius non solum penitens, set verecundus quod sibi fuit denegatum facere quod vellet et quod antea de iure liceret, domino Edwardo finaliter cum suspiriis salutato, ad alia sua loca transmigravit. Tunc incepit Edwardi consummativa persecucio, adusque sui mortem continuata. Primo nempe reclusum in camera tutissima per exalacionem cadaverum in subcellario positorum ipsum torserunt per multos dies pene usque ad suffocacionem. Unde fetorem illum intollerabilem fuisse penam maximam quam unquam sustinuit ad fenestram camere una dierum carpentariis ad extra laborantibus servus Dei deplanxit. Videntes tiranni quod viro strenuissimo non posset per fetorem mors prevalere, nocte, decima kalendas Octobris, in lecto cubantem subito preocupatum, cum pulvinaribus magnis atque gravi mole amplius quam quindecim robustorum ipsum oppressum et subfocatum, cum ferro plumbarii incense ignito trans tubam ductilem ad egestionis partes secretas applicatam membra spiritalia post intestinas combusserunt, caventes ne, wlnere in regio corpore ubi solent wlnera requiri per aliquem iusticie amicum reperto, sui tortores de lesione manifesta respondere atque pro illa penam subire forent coacti.

Taliter obruitur miles strenuissimus, emisso clamore, audientibus infra castrum et extra satis noto quod esset violentam mortem pacientis. Clamor ille expirantis multos de Berkeleya et quosdam de castro, ut ipsi asseruerunt, ad compassionem et oraciones pro sancta anima migrante evigilavit. Sic quem mundus odivit, suumque magistrum Iesum Christum prius odio habuit, primo preceptorem de regno Iudeorum reprobatum, deinde discipulum regno Anglorum spoliatum recepit celsitudo regni angelorum. Gloriose atque bone finis Edwardi proditorios ministros, scilicet Thomam de Corneye et Iohannem de Maltravers, persecucio Isabelle et episcopi Herefordensis, ut proinde viderentur manus innoxias et mentes habuisse, utlagiavit, et, ut tactum est, ad exilium abegit. Ille de Corney Marsiliam fugitivus clanculo post infra triennium cognitus, captus, et versus Angliam reductus, penam pro demeritis recepturus, in mari fuerat decapitatus, ne forte magnates et magnos prelatos et quamplures alios de regno sibi suum nefas monuisse et in illud sibi assensum prebuisse accusasset. Alter vero, Maltravers, partibus Teutonicorum agens penitenciam diu latitavit.

Note 1. In the parliament held at the close of the year 1330, sir Thomas Gournay (or Gurney) and William Ocle were condemned as the actual murderers of Edward II, and a price was put upon their heads, as both had fled. Thomas, lord Berkeley, to whom, in association with sir John Maltravers, the custody of Edward was entrusted, was also proceeded against, but defended himself on the plea that he was detained by illness at his manor of Bradley when the murder took place. He was tried before a jury of knights, and acquitted of participation in the murder, but held guilty of deputing his trust to unworthy persons. Sir John Maltravers was likewise condemned in this parliament; not, however, for the murder of Edward, but for his share in bringing about the death of the earl of Kent. He also had fled. Twenty years afterwards he prayed for the reversal of his attainder, and ultimately received pardon. Ocle disappears; and there can be little doubt that he died abroad. The fate of Gournay has been traced in a valuable paper contributed by Mr. Hunter to Archaeologia, volume xxvii. He was not arrested at Marseilles, as stated by Baker, following Murimuth [see below], but, in the first instance, at Burgos in Spain. News of his arrest reached England in the middle of the year 1331, and the king's messenger, Egidius de Ispannia, was despatched to take over the custody of the prisoner. The messenger was, however, kept dancing attendance on the king of Spain, who, perhaps from sheer dilatoriness, delayed the surrender. Meanwhile Gournay escaped. But at the close of the following year he was again arrested in Naples, news of his capture reaching England in January 1333. A Yorkshire knight, sir William de Thweng, was sent out to Naples and received custody of the prisoner. After sundry adventures he reached Bayonne; but there Gournay, whose health had given way, died. The body was probably embalmed, as Thweng's compotus contains items of sums expended for two preparations. Thweng brought it by sea to the king at Berwick, where he arrived on the 7th July 1333. It is now impossible to say what led Murimuth (and, after him, Baker,) to assert that Gournay was beheaded at sea. It is not, however, improbable that the body was gibbeted (there are no charges for interment in Thweng's compotus), and the traitor's punishment of beheading may actually have been inflicted on the dead body.

With regard to the charge against the bishop of Hereford, whatever hand he may have had in instigating the crime, he can hardly have been directly concerned in the murder, as he was abroad at the time.

Froissart 17, Note

Murimuth 54, in the earlier edition of his chronicle, names Marseilles as the place of Gournay's arrest (in one MS. it is added: 'ad procurationem cujusdam dominæ de Anglia' i.e. 'at the instigation of a certain lady of England'); in the later edition this is altered to 'in partibus transmarinis' i.e. 'in the parts beyond the sea'.

Archaeologia Volume 27 Section XIX. On the Measures taken for the Apprehension of Sir Thomas de Gournay, one of the Murderers of King Edward the Second, and on their final Issue: in a Letter to Hudson Gurney, Esq, F.R.S., V.P. from the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A. Read 7th December, 1837.

Archaeologia Volume 50 1887. XIII. Documents relating to the death and burial of King Edward II. By Stuart Archibald Moore, F.S.A. Read April 8, 1886.