12. Edward II’s Killers Chose a Particularly Horrific Way to Do Him In
Roger Mortimer heard of plots to rescue the deposed Edward II. So he had him moved in April, 1327, to Berkley Castle in Gloucestershire, a more secure location. Reports of fresh plots to free Edward caused Mortimer to order him to move to various locations in the spring and summer of 1327 before he was finally returned to Berkley Castle. The continued political instability, and the uncertainty whether one of those plots might finally succeed, determined Mortimer to end the problem once and for all and put Edward II beyond rescue via murder.
Edward’s killers did not want to leave visible marks of foul play on the body. Contemptuous of his perceived effeminacy and homosexuality, they chose a particularly horrific means to do him in on the night of September 21st, 1327. The deposed monarch was held down, and a red hot poker was shoved up his rectum to burn his bowels from the inside. Another version has it that a tube was first inserted in his rectum, and a red hot metal bolt was then dropped down the tube into his bowels. Either way, his screams were said to have reverberated around the castle, and were heard far beyond its walls.