The first modern historians to deal with the reign of Edward II – William Stubbs, Thomas Frederick Tout and James Conway Davies – added little to the understanding of Gaveston. While generally agreeing with the chronicles, they allotted him no importance within their own main field of interest, that of constitutional history. For later generations of historians, the focus shifted from constitutional to personal issues. From the 1970s onwards, the topic of study became the personal relations between magnates and the crown, and the distribution of patronage. It is to this school of thought that Hamilton's biography belongs, in which he argues that it was Gaveston's exclusive access to royal patronage that was the driving force behind the baronial animosity towards him. Chaplais, on the other hand, takes a different approach to the study of Gaveston and his place in the reign of Edward II. According to Chaplais, Edward was more or less indifferent to the practice of kingship, and essentially delegated the job to Gaveston. As an alternative to a homosexual relationship, Chaplais suggests that the bond that existed between the King and Gaveston was that of an adoptive brotherhood. This concept had a Biblical precedent in the traditionalist, platonic interpretation of the relationship between David and Jonathan, and also existed in the Middle Ages, as exemplified in "The Song of Roland", the story of Roland and Olivier.