r/UKmonarchs • u/transemacabre Edward II • Jun 16 '25

On this day 16 June 1308: Piers Gaveston is appointed Lieutenant of Ireland

On this day, Edward II appointed Piers his deputy in Ireland, with viceregal powers. He also sent letters to Pope Clement V regarding the archbishop of Canterbury's threat to excommunicate Gaveston, and to his father-in-law Philippe IV regarding his magnates' discord over Gaveston.

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u/PralineKind8433 Henry VI Jun 16 '25

It’s important to me that Gaveston did a Really Nice Job in Ireland. He got this bridge built they needed and helped with a revolt. And just lived his best life with his sister, girlfriend?, 14 year old wife who’s kinda their collective child, and like two year old daughter Aimee

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u/transemacabre Edward II Jun 16 '25

Roger Mortimer, who'd spent his formative years with Gaveston, also came to Ireland a couple months after Gaveston got there. They certainly met up in Dublin the next April and Roger seems to have joined on Gaveston's spring campaign.

I sooooo wish we knew more about Roger and Piers' relationship with each other; it's one of the most fascinating things in this whole saga. What little we do know suggests they were close, and I have to think if Piers knew how it would all end up, he would have been speechless with shock and horror.

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u/PralineKind8433 Henry VI Jun 16 '25

Omg I did not know that!!! I desperately need a 10 part HBO series about that campaign…

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u/transemacabre Edward II Jun 16 '25

They fought their way through Leinster!

I wonder what their relationship was like on a personal level. Roger was several years younger. Did Piers regard him as a sort of surrogate little brother? Did Roger look at him as a mentor and try to be like him? Roger was a clotheshorse with an ostentatious streak, was that something he and Piers had in common, or did he pick it up from him?

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u/PralineKind8433 Henry VI Jun 16 '25

Argggg that’s so fascinating! Given how generally nurturing Piers was he probably pack bonded to young Roger in about a minute. (Also since Edward was always the one buying piers clothes it’s my theory that Piers couldn’t care less but wears it cause Edward, Piers was the athletic knight after all..) makes it even more interesting if Roger idolized who he saw piers to be

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u/transemacabre Edward II Jun 16 '25

Roger learning all the wrong lessons looking up to Piers seems terribly plausible. It's easy to imagine Roger as a spotty 17-year-old in 1304 being handed over to this charismatic, witty Gascon and wanting to be just like him; be a great warrior like him, dress like him, dickmatize royalty like him...

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u/PralineKind8433 Henry VI Jun 16 '25

…be a power husband like him…wind up killed grotesquely oh wait…