Chutes et revers de fortune sous (et de) Édouard II d’Angleterre

Falls from grace and reversals of fortune under (and of) Edward II of England 
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\nThe highly unsettled politics of the reign of Edward II might initially lead one to believe that the theme of the mutability of fortune would be frequently invoked by the chroniclers and poets who describe this period. In fact, however, this theme is relatively rare, to be found especially in the account of the near-contemporary chronicle, the Vita Edwardi Secundi, of the rise and fall of the king’s favourite Piers Gaveston, and in an Anglo-Norman poem written soon after the deposition of Edward II in the former king’s voice, the Lament of Edward II. This is surprising when one considers the number of favourites besides Gaveston who rose and fell in this period, notably the Despensers, or Hugh Audley and Roger Damory, and those amongst the great who came to a bad end, foremost amongst them Thomas, earl of Lancaster. This article reconsiders these two texts in detail, suggesting that their vision of contemporary politics conceived overwhelmingly in terms of noble sociability, although satisfying from a literary point of view, was flagrantly insufficient as an analysis of the chronic political instability of this period.