This essay takes as its starting point an arresting stage image in Joe Hill-Gibbins’s 2013 National Theatre production of Edward II. During the battle scenes that dominate the central scenes of the play, large video screens at the back of the stage flashed up the word ‘ALARUMS’, sometimes accompanied by actors shouting the same word. Rather than enacting Marlowe’s stage direction with the noise of trumpets and drums, Hill-Gibbins reproduced the direction itself. Exploring intersections between print and performance, visual and aural experience, I argue that paying renewed attention to military sounds in Edward II should prompt us to revisit and question some accepted narratives about the workings of gender and sexuality in Marlowe’s staging of English history. After exploring the textual background of Edward II, I turn first to the play’s battle scenes and then to a broader consideration of its uses of music and sound. The final part of the essay re-examines the relationship between page and stage in the light of the preceding discussion, and considers the place of Edward II in the development of the history play as a theatrical and readerly experience.