This post is dedicated to @artemisiarising in relation to the Piers Gaveston mention in my ask to them. This is going to be insanely long, but bear with me. Before we start, most of my information on the topic is borne of my own outside reading and the one and only, Mr. Pat Mandziy - he's amazing, you should check him out. He talks about history and sci-fi, and he's so much fun to listen to.
Anyways, on we go. So, in order to get a real in depth look into Piers Gaveston as he was, we need to look at his relationship with King Edward II, then known as Prince Edward of Caernarfon (historical town in Wales).
Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall (c. 1284 – 19 June 1312) was an English nobleman of Gascon origin, and the favourite of Edward II of England.
When Piers was a teenager (approx. 1300), his father Arnaud de Gabaston brought him to England. Piers made a good impression on King Edward I, who assigned him to the household of the King's son, Edward of Caernarfon.
Edward’s father, Edward I, sent Gaveston into exile in early 1307 but died soon afterwards. One of the first acts of Edward II’s reign was to bring Piers home. Edward bestowed the Earldom of Cornwall on Piers, and arranged for him to marry Edward's niece Margaret de Clare, sister of the powerful Earl of Gloucester.
The pair spent a lot of time together in those early months of Edward’s reign, even celebrating Christmas in one another’s company. And when the new king headed to France in January 1308 for his own wedding, it was the young, inexperienced and relatively low born Gaveston that he made regent in his place.
The true hatred of Piers began due in part to the marriage of Edward II and Isabella of Spain.
On Edward's wedding day, Pier wore purple, a colour reserved for royals, which led to much resentment of him as a result. After their honeymoon, Isabella had just stepped foot in Dover when her husband abandoned her to greet Piers, was waiting at the docks for Edward who spent several minutes hugging him and planting kisses on his cheeks. Edward and Piers were believed to be lovers, by both historians at the time (as seen by 'Edward II' by Christopher Marlowe), and modern historians ('Edward II' directed by Derek Jarman).
In 1312, he was hunted down and executed by a group of magnates led by Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, and Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick.
Vowing revenge, Edward bided his time and in his grief had the mutilated body of Piers (whose head had been decapitated and run through his stomach with a sword) embalmed at the Dominican house at Oxford.
The greatest sadness in this tale, is in his grief, Edward was unable to immediately bury Piers on account that he had been declared excommunicate on his return to England in January 1312, and was therefore unable to receive Christian burial in sacred ground. Only after the sentence of excommunication was lifted was this possible, and it took Edward nearly two-and-a-half years to achieve it, when during a papal interregnum, Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury was able to quash the church’s anathema. In the time that had passed since the earl of Cornwall’s murder, Edward had been publicly reconciled to Gaveston’s murderers, but deep in his heart the king still sought vengeance. On the 2nd January 1315, Edward, in a great ceremony finally laid his lover to rest.
So, to me, a "Piers Gaveston" is when someone has someone that they're destined to be with, yet there's so many obstacles in their way, that they can never be together. It's the worst kind of star-crossed lovers, in essence. Isabella, Piers, and Edward all deserved so much better than what they were given.
I hope you enjoyed this!! I think more people should know their history, and see for themselves how everything unfolded the way it did.
