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Marlowe’s play – his sole history play – calls into question the nature of English kingship itself.
but in many of the texts studied from this point of view – the comedies of Shakespeare and Lyly are an obvious example – the theme of sexual transgression is treated with some caution and the texts in question usually end with the reemergence of the traditional sexual order.
In this speech, homoeroticism is clearly presented as no obstacle to the highest conceivable achievement in military or intellectual life: unlike sodomy, which interferes with the functioning of the social order, this homoeroticism can coexist with the status quo.
It is important to point out, however, that Mortimer’s defence cannot be taken to indicate that the nobles tolerate other sexual practices instead, it means that they are willing to ignore their homophobia as long as the status quo is maintained.
Mortimer’s stress on Gaveston’s humble origins and the specific accusation that he is permitted to ‘riot it with the treasure of the realm’ (4.406) point to the connection with social disorder that turns the love between men from something that can be tolerated because it can be ignored to something that becomes a sodomitical disorder.
Clearly, Marlowe wished to create a collision between Edward’s choice of lovers and the English class system when in fact none really existed. Because of these changes, the Gaveston and Spencer of Edward II come to resemble Marlowe himself, the shoemaker’s son who used scholarship to rise above his original status.
This exchange encapsulates what is most transgressive about Marlowe’s play, which is not that the king has a favourite with whom he commits sodomy, but rather that he seeks to give this favourite the status of a consort.
Edward’s attempts to make Gaveston into his consort represent the ultimate point of collision between his private and public lives. The nobles move against the king because he seeks to make his ‘wanton humour’ into a political fact or, as we would say now, a same-sex marriage.
in a theatre in which all female parts, as it were, were played by male actors. In the world of the Elizabethan theatre, male heteroerotic desire is inescapably homoerotic.
What is sodomitical (in the sense of posing a threat to the social order) in Gaveston’s speech is that homoeroticism is not presented as marginal or alternative, but rather as the truth of sexual behaviour.
in the Renaissance sodomy indicated a general social disorder rather than only a specific sexual act,
both Isabella and Mortimer are – or, at least, become – sodomites.20 Such a label may seem unlikely in the case of Isabella, the king’s legal wife and the woman who embodies the bond between England and France and thus serves to underwrite the social order that sodomy threatens, but over the course of the play she changes from being a wronged wife to being instrumental in bringing about a civil war that results in her husband’s murder and, temporarily, the concentration of royal power in the person of her lover Mortimer, who, as a noble, has no title to rule England.
In her career as a sodomite, Isabella is of course largely under the control of her lover Mortimer. It is Mortimer who emerges as the most sodomitical character in the play,
the sexual infidelity of the queen, with its potential to undermine the absolute reliance on patrilineal descent that is necessary to royal succession, can only be seen as a threat. While this issue never explicitly emerges in Edward II, it is impossible to believe that it would not have occurred to Marlowe or his audience. From this point of view, then, Mortimer poses a danger to the basis of the English monarchy in a way that Gaveston cannot.
just as Edward’s transgression lies in his seeking to elevate Gaveston to the level of a consort, so too the behaviour of Isabella and Mortimer demonstrates that the threat to the social order that is called sodomy is not restricted to male–male sexual relations.
it is never really possible to speak of the audience as a homogeneous group. When critics speak of the audience’s sympathy they are often really speaking about their own sympathies and biases, which may or may not be the same as any given audience’s. Furthermore, sympathies are often influenced by the way in which the play is presented.
The opposition between Edward and war is first hinted at near the play’s beginning, when a soldier seeks employment from Gaveston only to be told that ‘I have no war, and therefore, sir, be gone’ (1.35).
Is it the purpose of a king to effect the greatest possible slaughter of foreigners? Is it the purpose of a king to ensure the subjugation of foreign countries? There are not rhetorical questions. Tamburlaine would certainly have given both questions a very enthusiastic assent, and the campaigns of Edward I and Edward III demonstrate that they would have agreed with him, but we should at least entertain the possibility that Marlowe might have wanted us to consider that there are other ways to be a king.
A host of feminist and queer analyses (to name only two kinds of politically engaged criticism) of literature from earlier periods has started from the assumption that neither a contemporary critic nor a writer from long ago is obliged to accept the dominant prejudices of the day. Perhaps we should consider that Marlowe, whose plays and poems present an exceptionally wide variety of radical opinions, might want us to sympathize with a king who would rather spend the country’s money on culture than on killing.
it ends as it begins, with the death of a king. The circularity is itself significant, as it models the extent to which nothing has changed.
Edward III has avenged his father, but the repetitions of the play’s conclusion signal the reestablishment of the old order and, in effect, the elision of Edward II.36 The possibilities for a different way of life that Edward represented, however partially and imperfectly, are shut out in favour of a tyrannical continuity.
Musicians, that with touching of a string May draw the pliant King which way I please.
and in our name
A couple, not king and queen but king and king
MORTIMER JUNIOR Why should you love him whom the world hates so? EDWARD Because he loves me more than all the world.
For never doted Jove on Ganymede 180 So much as he on cursèd Gaveston.
Comparison with homoerotic greek mythology
The mightiest kings have had their minions: Great Alexander loved Hephaestion; The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept; And for Patroclus stern Achilles drooped. 395 And not kings only, but the wisest men: The Roman Tully loved Octavius, Grave Socrates, wild Alcibiades. Then let his grace, whose youth is flexible
Accepts homoeroticism as a folly of the elite but the fear remains that this is more than folly and must be stopped
Uncle, his wanton humour grieves not me, But this I scorn, that one so basely born Should by his sovereign’s favour grow so pert, 405 And riot it with the treasure of the realm
Fine with the gay folly but worries that it will destroy the realm thus making the transgression sodomy rather than homoeroticism
He wears a short Italian hooded cloak, Larded with pearl; and in his Tuscan cap 415 A jewel of more value than the crown. Whiles other walk below, the King and he From out a window laugh at such as we, And flout our train and jest at our attire. Uncle, ’tis this that makes me impatient. 420
The fact that gaveston is of lower birth makes the transgression even more sodometic
When wert thou in the field with banner spread? But once! And then thy soldiers marched like players, 180 With garish robes, not armour; and thyself, Bedaubed with gold, rode laughing at the rest, Nodding and shaking of thy spangled crest Where women’s favours hung like labels down.
Saying that edward plays at war like a tourney
My lord, I see your love to Gaveston 205 Will be the ruin of the realm and you, For now the wrathful nobles threaten wars; And therefore, brother, banish him forever.
Homoeroticism becomes sodomy
Art thou an enemy to my Gaveston? KENT Ay, and it grieves me that I favoured him.
Kent's allegiance changes
My name is Baldock, and my gentry 240 I fetched from Oxford, not from heraldry.
Synonymous of Marlowe himself
Ah, boy, this towardness makes thy mother fear Thou art not marked to many days on earth.
Ironic as king edward reigned for 50 years
and then a fig
Rude insult
for Mortimer And Isabel do kiss while they conspire; And yet she bears a face of love, forsooth. Fie on that love that hatcheth death and hate!
Isabella's sodomy
I like not this relenting mood in Edmund; Madam, ’tis good to look to him betimes.
Edmund/kent's allegiance changes again
But what are kings, when regiment is gone, But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?
To wretched men death is felicity.
This letter, written by a friend of ours, Contains his death, yet bids them save his life: [He reads] ‘Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est, Fear not to kill the King, ’tis good he die.’ But read it thus, and that’s another sense: 10 ‘Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est, Kill not the King, ’tis good to fear the worst.’
The ambiguous death sentence
LIGHTBORNE
The anglicised name of lucifer. Fitting for an assassin
