Edward I died on 7 July 1307 en route to another campaign against the Scots, a war that had become the hallmark of his reign. One chronicler relates that Edward had requested his son "boil his body, extract the bones and carry them with the army until the Scots had been subdued." His son ignored the request, however, and had his father buried in Westminster Abbey.[5] Edward II immediately recalled Gaveston, created him Earl of Cornwall, gave him the hand of the king's niece, Margaret of Gloucester, and withdrew from the Scottish campaign. Edward's Coat of Arms as King Edward was as physically impressive as his father, yet he lacked the drive and ambition of his forebear. It was written that Edward II was "the first king after the Conquest who was not a man of business".[4] His main interest was in entertainment, though he also took pleasure in athletics and mechanical crafts. He had been so dominated by his father that he had little confidence in himself, and was often in the hands of a court favourite with a stronger will than his own. On 25 January 1308, Edward married Isabella of France, the daughter of King Philip IV of France, known as "Philip the Fair," and sister to three French kings, in an attempt to bolster an alliance with France. On 25 February the pair were crowned in Westminster Abbey. The marriage, however, was doomed to failure almost from the beginning. Isabella was frequently neglected by her husband, who spent much of his time conspiring with his favourites regarding how to limit the powers of the Peerage in order to consolidate his father's legacy for himself.

The government of Isabella and Mortimer was so precarious that they dared not leave the deposed king in the hands of their political enemies. On 3 April, Edward II was removed from Kenilworth and entrusted to the custody of two subordinates of Mortimer, then later imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire where, it was generally believed, he was murdered by an agent of Isabella and Mortimer on 11 October 1327, although Edward's death is commemorated annually at Berkeley Castle on 21 September. The closest chronicler to the scene in time and distance, Adam Murimuth, stated that it was 'popularly rumoured' that he had been suffocated. The Lichfield chronicle, equally reflecting local opinion, stated that he had been strangled. Most chronicles did not offer a cause of death other than natural causes. The popular story that the king was assassinated by having a red-hot poker thrust into his anus has no basis in accounts recorded by Edward's contemporaries. Thomas de la Moore's account[citation needed] of Edward's murder was not written until after 1352 and is uncorroborated by other contemporary sources.[21] Not until the relevant sections of the longer Brut chronicle were composed by an anti-Mortimer Lancastrian polemicist in the mid-1430s was the story widely circulated.[22]:289 Edward II's tomb at Gloucester Cathedral The historian Ian Mortimer has put forward the argument that Edward II was not killed at Berkeley but was still alive at least until 1330.[23] In his biography of Edward III[24] he explores the implications of this, using evidence including the Fieschi Letter, concluding Edward II may have died in Italy around 1341. In her biography of Isabella, Alison Weir also considers the Fieschi Letter narrative – that Edward escaped imprisonment and lived the rest of his life in exile. Other historians, however, including David Carpenter,[25] have criticised Mortimer's methodology and disagree with his conclusions. Nevertheless a public funeral was held in 1327, attended by Isabella, after which Edward's body was said to be laid in Gloucester Cathedral. An elaborate tomb was set up by his son, which attracted pilgrims from far and wide. Following the public announcement of the king's death, the rule of Isabella and Mortimer did not last long. They made peace with the Scots in the Treaty of Northampton, but this move was highly unpopular. Consequently, when Edward III came of age in 1330, he executed Roger Mortimer on fourteen charges of treason, most significantly the murder of Edward II (thereby removing any public doubt about his father's survival). Edward III spared his mother and gave her a generous allowance, but ensured that she retired from public life for several years. She died at Hertford on 23 August 1358. According to the Calender of Fines Edward III (1327–1330) held at Winchester records office, Edward III made every effort to track down his father's killers, William Ockley (not Ogle), Sir Thomas Gurney, and Sir John Maltravers, but they fled the country. Ockley, Gurney and Maltravers were Roger Mortimer's henchmen from the Welsh Marches. Wi