LONDON: Anthropologists have identified a mutilated body found in an abbey graveyard in Britain as that of the gay lover of fourteenth-century English King Edward II.
According to the anthropologists, the decapitated remains, originally uncovered during the 1970s, are those of Sir Hugh Despenser the Younger who was brutally executed as a traitor after Edward II was deposed from the throne in 1326.
"The manner of execution, carbon-dating of the bones, and the absence of several parts of the body all point towards Sir Hugh being the victim.
"If the remains are those of Sir Hugh Despenser the Younger, then this is the first time such an execution victim has been identified," team leader Mary Lewis of the University of Reading was quoted by 'The Daily Telegraph' as saying.
Sir Hugh maneuvered into the affections of Edward II by backing him in his battles with the barons. He accumulated a huge fortune but made a legion of enemies in the process, including the King's wife, Queen Isabella.
His downfall came when the Queen and her ally, Roger Mortimer, deposed Edward. Sir Hugh was judged a traitor, hanged, and still conscious, castrated, disemboweled and then quartered before his head was displayed on London Bridge.
"The remains suggested a ritual killing. This form of public execution was high theatre that aimed to demonstrate the power of government to the masses. High treason dictated that the perpetrator should suffer more than one death," Lewis was quoted as saying.
The team carried out radiocarbon analysis which dated the remains to between 1050 and 1385 and subsequent tests also suggested that the male was over 34 years old. Sir Hugh was 40 when he was killed.
"Dating of the Hulton Abbey skeleton indicates that he died no later that 1385, when this brutal and very public form of execution was handed out to the most notorious political prisoners. This suggests that the skeleton at Hulton Abbey was a well-known political figure," Lewis said.
