Hello everyone and welcome back to the history of England, episode 88, politics and your

intrigue and turn on. Two weeks ago, you left Edward and Gavaston

winning over each other at Doverdog. But before we move on, I should say that I had a

very interesting email from listener Hannah Kilpatrick, who brought my attention to an

extract from another source called the Anaris Polini, which helped explain the rather unhealthy

relationship between King and Gavaston more clearly than I could do. Hannah can clearly translate

Latin, which makes me more than a bit envious since my own Latin skills are the level of Brian,

trying to write, Romans go home on the fore and wall. Here's an extract from the extract,

and I'll put the rest of the piece, which isn't long, but very worth reading onto the website.

In an excess of love, the King called Piers his brother. The common people, however,

caught him the King's idol, whose displeasure the King feared as that of a father,

and whom he sought to please as one would a master. So thanks, Hannah.

Now, if you felt so inclined, you could divide Edward's reign into three bits.

From his accession to 1311, it's all about his friend Piers, and the demands for reform that he

generates, and the production of the so-called ordinances. Then the following 11 years are

dominated by Edward's rather unhappy attempt to rule under the pattern imposed by those ordinances,

and a struggle between the King and his cousin Thomas of Lancaster, which leads to one of them

kneeling in the mud in front of the other. There are no plot swallows here, so I'm not telling you which

one it is. And then, the final struggle for supremacy that leads either to a losing argument

with a red hot poker, or being spirited out of the country, depending on your point of view.

So today, we will get very close, very close to the end of the first bit.

Okay, so here we go. Little Isabella was not alone as she arrived in England.

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