He is one of the most reviled English kings in history He drove his kingdom to the brink of civil war a dozen times in less than twenty years He allowed his male lovers to rule the kingdom He led a great army to the most ignominious military defeat in English history His wife took a lover & invaded his kingdom & he ended his reign wandering around Wales with a handful of followers pursued by an army He was the first king of England forced to abdicate his throne Popular legend has it that he died screaming impaled on a red-hot poker but in fact the time & place of his death are shrouded in mystery His life reads like an Elizabethan tragedy full of passionate doomed love bloody revenge jealousy hatred vindictiveness & obsession He was Edward II & this book tells his story Using almost exclusively fourteenth-century sources & Edward's own letters & speeches wherever possible Kathryn Warner strips away the myths which have been created about him over the centuries & provides a far more accurate & vivid picture of him than has previously been seen