Derek Jarman refused to do things by the book. His cinematography championed bold and brave decisions, loosening expectations so that his visionary imagination could crash land into our own imaginations. Whether it be his biographical studies of the esoteric philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the fugitive artist Caravaggio, or his oddball adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Jarman was a master at using anachronism to paint over the black-and-white mundanities of history. This is definitely the case for his 1991 film adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s historical play Edward II.

Now, despite being a self-proclaimed literature nerd, I myself had heard little of Marlowe’s play. Nor did I feel confident enough in saying that I knew much about the titular English monarch. However, upon reading a BFI study about Jarman’s 1986 film Caravaggio, I both learned about and unpicked the vast nuances of both Marlowe’s play and Jarman’s reimagining of it. At first, I was incredibly surprised to learn that Marlowe’s play investigated the queer romance of Edward II and his ‘favourite,’ Pier Gaveston. Whilst I knew that Marlowe and his contemporaries had flirted with non-heterosexual ways of living and hinted at homosexual romance in their own lives and literature, I was still amazed by the explicit queerness of Marlowe’s narrative. Yes, it was inspired by authentic historical suspicions that Edward and Gaveston were ‘secret’ lovers and that Edward’s adoration of Gaveston led to an apparent favouritism that created havoc in the royal court. But, like Marlowe’s play, this history is somewhat submerged, far from our public consciousness.  

Despite this, Marlowe’s play is incredibly relevant. And, thanks to Jarman’s interpretation of it, the realities of queerness, queer activism, and scandal are given more acute and recognisable animation. This is unsurprising considering Jarman’s figurehead status amongst those responsible for shaping the ‘new queer cinema’ movement.¹ But where Edward II is vital is in its moulding of queer counterculture and activist energies. It helps erode the archaic sensibilities of the play’s historical foundations to imagine a world where the past, present, and future narrow the lives of those who are rebellious in their queerness. The eponymous protagonist, Edward (Steve Waddington), is himself a figure shackled to his duty of being a husband to his wife, Isabella (Tilda Swinton), and to his newly inherited kingship. The militaristic, dull, and uniform characterisation of his court and military is an oppressive border to Edwards’ libertine disposition, and through Jarman’s use of costume, the imprisonment of Edward, by the sombre seriousness of those around him, appears to be existential. Via these costumes, Jarman erects a heterosexual culture and kingdom, where Edward’s rule appears counterfeit and at times restrictive. Gaveston’s (Andrew Tiernan) return from exile ‘liberates’ Edwards, with their symbolic nakedness and leisurely posturing existing as a powerful contrast to the straight-laced bodies of the court. Even the outward appearance of their rival, the militaristic Mortimer (Nigel Terry), who plans the removal of Edward and Gaveston, is itself a stark juxtaposition to the moral differences of the two lovers. Mortimer’s almost Edwardian moustache and tightly clipped, militaristic haircut rival the long, bohemian stylings of Edward and Gaveston. Where his strict, unmoving presence represents the heteronormative make-up of the court and kingdom, the looser, Epicurean characterisation of the two lovers appears out of character and rebellious. The manufacturing of these aesthetic appearances helps Jarman expose the political reality of queer individuals in a heteronormative society. The existence of the contrasts between the couple and those around them reminds the audience of the transgressive act of being openly queer, amounting to more than a clash of sexualities, but more so of an apparent clash of ethics and morality.

Aside from the effect of the costumes, the film deals with alarming, visceral imagery to map out the difficulties of the queer community in a polarised society. Numerous poignant scenes are used by Jarman to animate this political reality, taking it further than Marlowe’s original text could ever aim to achieve. We must understand that, although medieval and early modern England did not possess a modern vocabulary of sexual identity, same-sex desire was still subject to moral suspicion, legal anxiety, and social repression. In both the historical period of Edward II and in Marlowe’s own time, homoerotic attachment was often forced into obscurity, surfacing only in moments of scandal, accusation, or political crisis. This concealment of sexuality is made more necessary for those who, like Edward, wield power and bear responsibility. As king, Edward’s fulfillment of Christian marital values and expectation to meet the heterosexual typicality of the court means that his open homosexuality is not only radical, but perceived through a lens of blasphemy when applied to the divine right of kings. Ironically enough, in the same year that Marlowe’s play was published, 1592, the future king of England James I’s secret lover George Villiers was born. Like Edward 2nd, James 1st was forced to bury his queerness. If one were to visit Apethorpe House in Northamptonshire, one could see the tunnels constructed between James’ chambers and his lover Villier’s chamber.² In this context, the idea of queer royalty is understood as a submerged, clandestine existence where the pressures of family, religion, role, responsibility, and nationhood converge. Might Marlowe’s interests in Edward’s story have been inspired by the late Elizabethan period’s ‘tolerance’ of queerness? Historians have evaluated how, during that period of time, the prosecution of sexual acts was incredibly low throughout England. However, in 1533, the act of ‘sodomy’ was subject to the death penalty. This criminalisation likens the act of homosexual sex to crimes such as witchcraft, treason, and blasphemy, making it abundantly political and moral. If this is the case, Marlowe’s play used Edwards’ story at the right time, as a political act of exposure for his audiences.

Jarman’s film seizes upon that submerged history and reanimates it through the visual and political language of the late twentieth century. In doing so, Edward II collapses the distance between past and present, showing how queer desire has repeatedly been made visible only through persecution, punishment, and resistance. Later in the film, the scene of Edward, Gaveston, and their effeminate friend Spencer clutching burning torches whilst hiding from Mortimer’s army in the labyrinthine alleys surrounding the castle inspires two thoughts. One view might force us to locate a similarity to the revolutionary subterfuge of the Gunpowder Plot, where, like Guy Fawkes and his compatriots, Edward and those close to him are hiding from the authorities and engaged in an act of subversion or revolution. Another viewpoint might lean closer towards the historical oppression of queer individuals, who have been criminalised and forced to evade detection. Either interpretation highlights Jarman’s intentions to shape the films’ narrative alongside the explicit experiences of queer people.

Through this lens, the violence we encounter throughout the film is designed to be alarming. In particular, the scene where Mortimer tortures Gaveston is extreme in its portrayal of homophobia’s dangers. Whilst some scholars have argued that Mortimer’s hatred for Gaveston in the original play was propelled by his dislike for his ascendancy from his lower-class origins, it is easy to see that Jarman’s view is soldered to queer theory. For example, Mortimer’s description of Gaveston as a “monster of men” is loaded with homophobic rhetoric. In abstracting him from “men,” Mortimer alludes to his sexuality being a deviation from his gender, and therefore, he is forced to assume characterisation as a “monster” or abomination.

In the scene, Gaveston is choked from behind by a baton-wielding riot officer. The outfitting of the officer, in typical British riot police gear, offers us a nuanced way to interpret the scene. Yes, Gaveston is being punished and harmed by Mortimer because of Mortimer’s own personal motivations. However, the presence of the oppressive and hostile police officer extends this violence beyond the personal subjectivity of Mortimer, but to a more institutional homophobia, where this interaction might reflect the real-life violence suffered by the LGBTQ+ community throughout recent history. For a queer viewer, the verisimilitude of this scene (despite its stark use of anachronism) mirrors their own proximity to events such as the recent 1988 Section 28 protests or the earlier activism and defiance of the Gay Liberation Front in the 1970s.

In connection to this interlinking between Mortimer’s personal homophobia and the more political, institutional expression of homophobia, the raw energy of Edward’s battle with Mortimer’s forces offers up not only action, but a political message of power. Jarman’s deliberate casting of the authentic, gay-rights organisation ‘OutRage!’ as Edward’s sign-bearing army spectacularly does two things. It helps recognise the reality of those who fight for the rights of the queer community, locating them in the corralled, vocal, and engaging formation of protestors against the establishment. And in a more challenging sense, Jarman uses them to recreate the collisions of protestors and police. Mortimer’s men, clad in the garden-green swathes of military clothing and the brutal black and blue of riot wear, paint the scene as a real-life moment. As an audience, our witnessing of the protestors kettled into a position of resistant frailty is starkly true to the photographs and footage we might see of real protests and rallies. The reality of seeing Edward’s ‘militant’ supporters boxed in by riot shields is intended to enforce an uncanny sense of being familiar with this vision of politicised violence. Unfortunately, the tragedy of this scene extends into the brutal sight of observing a firing line, where bullets puncture the bodies of young men decked out in 90s wear. Heaped and now perished, the jean-toting bodies decorate the bloody wall, mirroring the frightful fear of a future (or present) where gay men are executed by police.

Later in the film, the strangling of Spencer by Mortimer exposes this deep-rooted homophobia further. As Spencer’s intimate, dead body is explored by the camera’s zoomed-in lens, the voice of Mortimer can be heard spewing vitriolic language typical of homophobic language. The phrase “girl-boy” is used by Mortimer to deny Spencer his gender because of his apparent sexuality. Jarman’s inclusion of this might help the audience explore the specifics of Mortimer’s views, but also lean into how homophobia is entangled within the question of gendering and androgyny. To Mortimer, Spencer’s androgyny is an affront to the former’s hyper-masculinity and the industrial-military complex he represents. At the close of the film, this fear of Mortimer’s is explored more acutely and visually through the transformation of Edward III, the titular king’s son. Ironically enough, Mortimer’s ‘interest’ in sadomasochism and extreme violence reveals an unconscious, almost Freudian personal crisis. Is it that Mortimer himself is fighting his own sexual desires alongside his policing of the desires of others? Either way, and without any way to answer, we can detect a fragmentation within Mortimer when confronted with his new ‘step-son’ Edward III. During the tail-end of the film, Jarman decorates the young heir in gaudy, gold, glittery earrings like his mother, painting over his lips with red lipstick in the final scene. Why? Perhaps Jarman does this to shun Mortimer’s termination of Edward 2nd and Gaveston. For Jarman, the young heir is his secret weapon against Mortimer’s desire to enforce the masculinity and heterosexuality of his ideology. The final scene, where Mortimer and Isabella are isolated in the surroundings of a metal cage, below the feet of the effeminate, newly crowned Edward III overcomes the violence of Mortimer, evidencing that queerness is an act of rebellion and resistance against the forces that wish to threaten it. Edward II and Gaveston’s romance might be denied the romantic fantasy of a fairytale ending, but through the gesture of his son’s rejection of Mortimer’s reign of horror, Jarman vindicates Edward II as a martyr.

Jarman’s Edward II ultimately presents queerness not as a private feeling but as an act of defiance against the structures that seek to suppress it. By reworking Marlowe’s play through anachronism, protest imagery, and scenes of institutional violence, Jarman turns a historical narrative into a modern political statement. Edward and Gaveston’s relationship is threatening not simply because it is same-sex, but because it resists the rigid masculinity, heterosexual authority, and moral codes of the world around them. In this sense, Jarman reveals why queerness is political: it becomes dangerous to power precisely because it refuses to conform.

This is made most horrifyingly clear in Edward’s death. In the play’s legacy, his murder by a red-hot poker forced into his anus becomes a brutal symbol of violence against the queer body, punishing Edward through the very site of his supposed transgression. Edward’s death, therefore, becomes more than the fall of a king; it stands as the film and play’s most graphic reminder of how queer desire is met with public punishment and violent correction. Yet the afterlife of Edward II also shows queerness as resistance. Ian McKellen’s performance in the 1970 Prospect Theatre production, which featured what is often regarded as the first televised gay kiss in Britain, demonstrates how Marlowe’s play continued to challenge the limits of queer visibility. Jarman’s adaptation belongs to that same lineage, turning Edward’s story into one not only of persecution, but of queer rebellion, defiance, and political visibility.