On the 2nd of January 1315, a grand yet somber occasion took place at a Dominican

Priory just outside of Kings Langley in all of England.

Other notable attendees included Earls, bishops, friars, the Chancellor, and most notably of all,

King Edward II of England. He had spent personally

300 pounds the equivalent of about quarter of a million dollars in today's

terms for the golden ropes

which were wrapped around the courts of the man the assembled masses had come to bury.

Pierce Gatherston, but the extravagance of the occasion belies the reality of Gaveston's

standing at the time and his reputation as it has been memorialized ever since.

By the time of his burial, Gaviston had been dead for two years.

He initially denied a Christian burial, as he'd been excommunicated by the church at the

time of his death.

Five hundred years later, a monument was erected northwest of Hertfordshire in Warwickshire, marking the exact location of Gavasen's demise.

Its inscription reads in parts, in the hollow of this rock was

beheaded by barons lawless as himself, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, the minion of a hateful king, in life and death a memorable instance of misrule.

But who was Piers Gaveston? In this episode I explore his remarkable rise from

obscurity, his fall from grace, his resurgence, his ultimate demands, and his enduring yet still controversial legacy. It's believed Gavastin was born in 1284. His father, Arnold the Gabaston, was a knight who had operated for many years in the Pyrenees.

His mother, Claramond and Marsum, through an inheritance jointly on land with her brother in Gascon.

Her marriage to Gabiston meant the family who are now living in Gatscon were subjects of the Duke of Aquitaine,

a title held at that time by King Edward I of England.

Edward, often referred to as Longshanks and later as the hammer of the Scots

was a ferocious warrior. He was a competent administrator and respected if not loved by his subjects, but he was certainly the man of war.

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