Posted on 03/11/2025 2:35:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A new revival of Christopher Marlowe's pioneering play about the 14th-Century King of England puts the spotlight back on his relationship with his male "favourite" Piers Gaveston.
This week, at its base in Stratford-upon Avon, the world-famous Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is opening a new production of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II. Though this influential 16th-Century play about a beleaguered queer monarch is more than 430 years old, it still feels stingingly relevant. Marlowe depicted a king whose authority and ability to rule is fatally undermined by his relationship with another man. Modern-day UK monarchs hold only ceremonial power, but overt queerness in the British royal family remains vanishingly rare. Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a second cousin of King Charles III who is currently competing on US reality show The Traitors, is widely described as "the first openly gay royal".
Marlowe's play dramatises the struggles of Edward II, a real-life King of England who reigned from 1307 to 1327. A year after Edward II succeeded his father, Edward I, he married the King of France's daughter, Isabella, in an effort to strengthen Anglo-French relations. Queen Isabella bore Edward II four children, and became a formidable figure in her own right – she is sometimes called "the she-wolf of France". But Marlowe's play really hinges on the king's controversial relationship with his male "favourite", Piers Gaveston, and how this sparked a constitutional crisis that he never recovered from.
The playwright never says outright that the two men are lovers, but the queer subtext is hardly subtle. In one scene, after he is reunited with his favourite, Edward beseeches him to "kiss not my hand [but] embrace me, Gaveston, as I do thee". In another, Isabella bemoans the fact "the king regards me not, but [instead] dotes upon the love of Gaveston".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
My first thought, as well! Would never get past the cancellers today!
So that’s why those men wore tights.
ah, okay. cool, fair point.
IIRC, Edward II did not die a dignified death. The details are a bit gruesome.
Must be because of their experiences in the boarding schools over there.
Brokeback Mountbatten
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