Most historians now dismiss this account of Edward's death, querying the logic in his captors murdering him in such an easily detectable fashion. Another set of theories surround the possibility that Edward did not really die in 1327. These theories typically involve the "Fieschi Letter", sent to Edward III by an Italian priest called Manuel Fieschi, who claimed that Edward escaped Berkeley Castle in 1327 with the help of a servant and ultimately retired to become a hermit in the Holy Roman Empire. The body buried at Gloucester Cathedral was said to be that of the porter of Berkeley Castle, killed by the assassins and presented by them to Isabella as Edward's corpse to avoid punishment. The letter is often linked to an account of Edward III meeting with a man called William the Welshman in Antwerp in 1338, who claimed to be Edward II. Some parts of the letter's content are considered broadly accurate by historians, although other aspects of its account have been criticised as implausible. A few historians have supported versions of its narrative. Paul C. Doherty questions the veracity of the letter and the identity of William the Welshman, but nonetheless has suspicions that Edward may have survived his imprisonment. The popular historian Alison Weir believes the events in the letter to be essentially true, using the letter to argue that Isabella was innocent of murdering Edward. The historian Ian Mortimer suggests that the story in Fieschi's letter is broadly accurate, but argues that it was in fact Mortimer and Isabella who had Edward secretly released, and who then faked his death, a fiction later maintained by Edward III when he came to power. Ian Mortimer's account was criticised by most scholars when it was first published, in particular by historian David Carpenter. Edward as king Kingship, government and law Edward was ultimately a failure as a king; the historian Michael Prestwich observes that he "was lazy and incompetent, liable to outbursts of temper over unimportant issues, yet indecisive when it came to major issues", echoed by Roy Haines' description of Edward as "incompetent and vicious", and as "no man of business". Edward did not just delegate routine government to his subordinates, but also higher level decision making, and Pierre Chaplais argues that he "was not so much an incompetent king as a reluctant one", preferring to rule through a powerful deputy, such as Piers Gaveston