Beyond Sexual Mimesis

Abstract

This chapter investigates how a consensus developed that Edward II was murdered by anal penetration with a red-hot spit. I question its interpretation by scholars as a self-evidently sexually mimetic, punitive murder method: in fact, the earliest accounts of this murder present it primarily as painful, torturous, and undetectable through outward inspection. Importantly, too, these earliest accounts emerge before the formation of a consensus on whether Edward’s transgressions were sexual, let alone whether they specifically constituted sex with men. This analysis prompts a reassessment of the place of this narrative in the history of queer sexuality, and of the murder scene in Marlowe’s Edward II, while also further illuminating the literary priorities of medieval and early modern chroniclers.