The Parliament of 1327, which assembled on this date and sat until the following March, marks the first (but far from the last) occasion on which a king of all England was sacked by parliament.
Edward II (1284-1327) was an undeniably good candidate for the boot: history records him as one of the most useless, dishonest lumps ever to sit on the throne - and it's not as if there's no competition.
The Articles of Accusation, setting out the case against him, convinced parliament that he was "incorrigible without hope of amendment." Just to avoid doubt, they also mentioned that he was “incompetent to govern” and that during his reign he had “stripped his realm and done all that he could to ruin it.”
A career highlight was the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), at which, through sheer ineptitude and fingers-in-ears stubbornness, Edward managed to lose to the Scots despite commanding what was then the largest army ever to leave England.
Some of awful Edward’s exploits will sound familiar to modern ears. He appointed crooked cronies to every public position, and allowed them to help themselves to everything that wasn’t nailed down and most things that were. He carried out a programme of corrupt privatisation, by giving Crown lands away to his pals.
What happened to Edward II after he was kicked off the chair in favour of his 14-year-old son, the imaginatively-named Edward III, is something historians have been arguing about ever since. The options range from "murdered with a red-hot poker up the bum" to "escaped and lived the rest of his life as a hermit."
The precedent set by Edward’s dethroning was to have a great effect on the history of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, though it has needed to be reinforced from time to time. Even though those who deposed Edward were essentially just a different faction of villainous aristos, the idea that the nation has the right to remove bad rulers has haunted the British state ever since.
In modern times the most famous such dismissal was the 1936 abdication of Edward VIII. Officially, this happened because the government told him that he could not both marry a divorcee and remain king – he’d have to choose one or the other. Some historians have noted, however, that worries about his suitability as monarch were voiced secretly within power circles throughout his brief reign. It wasn’t only his sympathy for fascism that concerned them, but his general refusal to take the job seriously – and in particular his complete lack of interest in basic security. A great many sensitive papers cross the desk of a king, and in a period when Britain was preparing for the next European war Edward’s habit of leaving documents lying around for anyone to squint at caused shudders down official spines, especially since many of his most intimate visitors were German or Italian.
The UK’s most senior civil servants thought him a disaster waiting for the perfect moment to happen, while one senior courtier claimed that the king’s mental state was such that at some time it might be necessary to have him certified. There seems little doubt that some way would have had to be found of deposing him in the run-up to World War Two; thanks to Edward II and to Wallis Simpson, the divorcee in question, parliament was able to rid itself of Edward VIII without the embarrassment of having to poison his porridge.
Today it is a firmly established constitutional principle, backed by specific legislation, that you can only be monarch of the UK at parliament's invitation. You also need to be in communion with the Church of England, and (don't ask) a direct descendant of Princess Sophia, the Electress of Hanover, who died in 1714 having never visited this country. Yes, why not, that all makes perfect sense.
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Sources:
www.historiamag.com/britains-worst-leader
www.royal.uk/encyclopedia/succession
www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Tragic-Demise-Edward-II/
A people’s history of England by A.L. Morton (Gollancz, 1938)
www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/why-was-edward-viii-s-abdication-a-necessity/