Edith of Wessex

1025 – 1075 · Generation VI

Edith of Wessex (1025–1075). Married Edward the Confessor in 1045. The eldest daughter of Earl Godwin, England’s most powerful magnate, and his Danish wife Gytha, she was brought up at Wilton Abbey, where she probably learned the several languages she spoke. Unusually for an English queen of her era she was crowned, but the marriage was childless. When the Godwins fell out with Edward in 1051 she was sent to a nunnery, returning as queen after her family forced its way back in 1052, and she later sat among the king’s inner advisers. By his death she was the richest woman in England. She championed her brother Tostig, and in 1064 courtiers charged her with contriving the killing of the Northumbrian noble Gospatrick on his behalf. In the autumn of 1066 she lost four brothers at Stamford Bridge and Hastings. She died at Winchester in 1075, and William the Conqueror had her buried beside Edward at Westminster.

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Parents

• Godwin Earl of Wessex (1001 – 1053)
• Gytha Thorkelsdóttir (1000 – 1069)

Siblings

• King Harold II (1022 – 1066)

Partners

• Married King Edward The Confessor (1003 – 1066) in 1045

Life

• 1025 — Born
• 1045 — Married Edward the Confessor
• 1075 — Died