Edward II: Did a gay romance lead to a royal crisis in the fourteenth century?

The renowned Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), based in Stratford-upon-Avon, is launching a new performance of Edward II by Christopher Marlowe this week. Despite being over 430 years old, this seminal 16th-century drama about a struggling LGBT king nevertheless feels painfully current. Marlowe portrayed a king whose love with another man tragically undermines his power and capacity to rule. Despite the fact that modern UK monarchs merely have ceremonial authority, openly gay members of the royal family are still extremely uncommon. Many people refer to Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a second cousin of King Charles III, as “the first openly gay royal” and a current contestant on the American reality show The Traitors.