#hf: Mortimer

[devilshelter]

Emotes chart/challenge by Magical Pouch cuz I’m bored

There’s some my DRG blorbos and original characters

[thewritingpossum]

Is there really no hf out there where Isabella of France and Jeanne de Geneville actually organizes Roger Mortimer’s demise as lesbian lovers??? Nobody ever went there?? Wtf???

[thewritingpossum]

Do you think Edward II survived past 1327? The more I read about it, the more I think it's possible but I always get hung up on how unlikely those sorts of "secretly escaped death" stories tend to be...

Eh dear! Sorry for the super long delay, this week has been…A lot, lol. I’m even more sorry because I feel I ramble a lot to see few things but oh well, what’s new under the sun? I hope you’ll still find it interesting :)

(loong answer under)

I’d say that there’s some fairly good basis for the theory: I don’t think it comes from nowhere. The fact that Edmund of Woodstock himself believed that his brother could still be alive could very well indicate something, as does the Fieschi Letter. The fact that no one apparently ever saw Edward’s dead body is also highly suspcious, as I feel like Isabella and Roger Mortimer would have probably liked to clear any possible doubt and show that the King was indeed dead. So yeah, I understand why this theory became somehow popular and some of my favorite historians seems to believe in it, at least to an extent. As for myself…Not so much.

I still think that all the elements I just mentioned are noteworthy, but I don’t think any of them are strong enough of an evidence for me to believe in it. Edmund was apparently influenced by Roger Mortimer who pretty much wanted to give him enough rope to hang himself by getting proof of his treachery. I also feel that (and that’s pure speculations on my part), I believe that Edmund, who was not at all a constant person, who was shifting to new political allegances and who had, after all, betrayed his King and brother at some point just before his death may have latched on the idea that Edward was not really dead because it gave him a change to redeem himself: insteand of being another traitor, he would have been the savior bringing back his big brother to his throne. I can easily see the appeal that would have on a grieving man dealing with an incredibly fucked up and unstable political situation and I don’t think that means much. 

The Fieschi Letter may have been a simple attempt to discredit Edward III. And as for the body… Medieval people had ways to embalm bodies, of course, but even today moving a body without any refrigeration is pretty much always a case of hoping for the best so it may have just been that by the time he reached Gloucester, it may just not have been in a state that allowed an open casket funeral. Not a very pleasant image but not a very hard to believe one either, as far as I’m concerned.

Furthermore, I just have a hard time beliving that Edward could have get away with living in hiding for, idk, 20 years or however many years he’s supposed to have gotten. By the time he lost his crown he was almost in his mid 40’s and had been king  for twenty years. I just don’t think that someone who was used to that level of privilege could have been integrated in an even somehow efficient way. I do believe that Edward, who probably spoke english and frequently interacted with his people would have been more prepared for it than let’s say Richard II (poor boy would have survived about 3 seconds) but even if being the king was often more a curse than a blessing for him, there’s no doubt he believed that rulling was his god-given right and that said god had decided to put thim in this role. I can’t imagine him just giving that up and never looking back, especially during the first years of Edward III’s reign, when Roger Mortimer and Isabella were clearly pulling the strings.

On an even more basic, less serious and more emotional level, I don’t really want to believe in that theory because I don’t find it to really be a happy ending or even an happier ending than what Edward is believed to have got. I mean, I don’t think getting murdered in prison is good and fun but I absolutely don’t believe in the hot poker theory so I always believed that he was probably either poisoned or, most likely, strangled (maybe after being drugged in a way or another: Edward was still a strong man at the time of his death and if you want to be sure that there won’t be any fight/traces on the body, you better take precaution) which, as far as I’m concerned, is not really the worst way to go: at least when done properly, it’s fairly quick. 

Gloomy, I know, but I mean…What’s the alternative? 20 years or more cut from anyone he ever known or love, completely powerless when it came to decisions regarding his one children (honestly, he would have cut off his right hand with a rusty knife before marrying his daughter witing the Scottish nobility as far as I’m concerned), most likely forced to live a life of calm penance in a monastary…No, I really don’t think Edward would have find much happiness in this life and for that alone, I’ll always kill him at the end of my own hf even if that makes me cry a little.

So here’s my boring, vague answer: I don’t personally believe in it and won’t until presented with more evidence but I also don’t think it’s absurd and won’t dismiss a book just for using it :)