Aristocrat Steals King’s Wife, Then Murders Him With a Red Hot Poker in the Rear
Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (1287 – 1330) was a powerful English nobleman who fell out with king Edward II over the king’s maladministration and employment of corrupt royal favorites. Mortimer led a baronial revolt, but it was crushed in 1322, and he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. He eventually escaped and fled to France, where he began plotting payback.
Edward II was an all-around poor king. However, what probably damaged his authority the most was the widespread perception that was a homosexual, and an effeminate one at that, in a hyper-macho era. He had a habit of promoting his male lovers to positions of power, which said lovers then abused, to the disgust of the realm. His latest lover, Hugh Despenser, fit that pattern.
Worse, Edward engaged in public displays of affection for Hugh, which humiliated and alienated Edward’s queen, Isabella. That was all the opening Mortimer needed. While Isabella was on a diplomatic mission to Paris in 1325, Mortimer met and seduced her, and she became his mistress. In 1326, the couple invaded England, executed Hugh Despenser, and deposed Edward II. In his place, they installed Edward’s 14-year-old son, who was crowned Edward III in January 1327, with Mortimer as regent.
Mortimer heard of plots to rescue the deposed king, so had him relocated to a more secure site. Additional reports of fresh plots to free Edward caused Mortimer to order him to move to various locations during the spring and summer of 1327. The fear that one of those plots might finally succeed eventually decided Mortimer on a permanent solution. He would put Edward II beyond rescue, by having him killed.
Contemptuous of Edward and his perceived effeminacy, and not wishing to leave marks of murder on his body, the killers decided on a gruesome method of execution. They held him down, and inserted a red hot poker up his rear to burn his bowels from the inside. Another version has it that a tube was first inserted in his rectum, then a red hot metal bolt was dropped down the tube into his bowels. Either way, Edward II’s dying screams were reportedly heard for miles. Mortimer retained power as regent until 1330, when Edward III decided he was old enough to rule, seized Mortimer, and had him executed.