King Edward The Confessor

1003 – 1066 · Generation VI · King of the English (r. 1042–1066) · House of Wessex

Edward the Confessor was born at Islip in Oxfordshire in the first years of the eleventh century, probably between 1003 and 1005, the eldest son of King Æthelred the Unready by his second wife, Emma of Normandy. His childhood was overshadowed by Danish invasion. When Sweyn Forkbeard seized England in 1013 the family fled to Emma’s Norman homeland, and after Æthelred’s death in 1016 and the conquest of the kingdom by Sweyn’s son Cnut, Edward went back into exile. His mother then married Cnut, and for roughly a quarter of a century Edward lived abroad, mostly, it seems, in Normandy, a king’s son with slim prospects. In 1036 he and his younger brother Alfred each ventured back to England. Alfred was captured, blinded and died of his wounds.

The way home opened in 1041, when his half-brother Harthacnut, Emma’s son by Cnut, called him back, probably meaning him to be his heir. Harthacnut died in June 1042, and with the backing of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, the strongest of the English earls, Edward was accepted as king. He was crowned at Winchester on Easter Day, 3 April 1043. That November he descended on Winchester with the earls Leofric, Godwin and Siward and confiscated his mother’s property, and on 23 January 1045 he married Godwin’s daughter Edith.

For much of the reign the real struggle was between the king and the Godwin family. Edward kept some foreigners in his household, among them Robert of Jumièges, whom he made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1051 over a candidate related to Godwin. That autumn, after Godwin refused an order to punish the townsmen of Dover, the king moved against him. The Godwins were outlawed and fled abroad, and Edith was sent away to a nunnery. They returned in force in 1052, and Edward had to restore them to their earldoms and take Edith back, while Robert and other Frenchmen fled. Godwin died in 1053, and his son Harold in time became the greatest man in the kingdom after the king. Edward’s policy towards Scotland and Wales in the 1050s was forceful and largely successful, but historians differ sharply over his rule as a whole. Some see him as a weak king who let the Godwins rise, while his biographers Frank Barlow and Peter Rex present an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler whose reputation suffered from the conquest that followed.

His marriage produced no children, and the succession hung over his last years. Norman writers claimed that Edward had promised the crown to William, Duke of Normandy, and that he sent Harold to confirm the promise in about 1064. In the autumn of 1065 a Northumbrian revolt forced him to accept the exile of his favourite, Harold’s brother Tostig, and the humiliation may have brought on the strokes that killed him. He was too ill to be present when his new church at Westminster was consecrated on 28 December 1065 and died on 5 January 1066, probably after entrusting the kingdom to Harold. He was buried in the abbey on 6 January, and Harold was crowned that same day. Within the year Harold was dead at Hastings and William was king.

Westminster Abbey was Edward’s great monument. Built in the Norman Romanesque style, it was the first such church in England and replaced an older Saxon foundation. The Abbey’s own tradition holds that the Pope released Edward from a vow of pilgrimage to Rome on condition that he found or restore a monastery of St Peter. His cult was slow to take hold after the Conquest, until in the 1130s Osbert of Clare, prior of Westminster, began to press for his canonisation. In 1161 Pope Alexander III declared him a saint, the only king of England ever canonised by a pope. His body was moved to a new shrine on 13 October 1163, and Henry III, who rebuilt the Abbey in his honour, translated it again on 13 October 1269. The shrine still stands at the heart of the church. Edward was counted among England’s national saints until Edward III adopted St George in about 1350, and his feast on 13 October is kept by the Church of England and the Catholic Church.

Images

• Edward’s body is carried to the church of St Peter at Westminster, from the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century (Bayeux Tapestry, public domain)
• A sealed writ of Edward the Confessor issued in favour of Westminster Abbey (Unknown author, public domain)
• Silver penny of Edward the Confessor (Rasiel Suarez, CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Edward the Confessor (centre) with Edmund the Martyr and John the Baptist presenting Richard II, from the Wilton Diptych, about 1395–1399 (Unknown master, public domain)

One of 22 people of House of Wessex (until 1093) in this archive. Alfred’s line: kings of Wessex who became the first kings of all England.

Line of descent: King Alfred the Great → King Edward The Elder → King Edmund → King Edgar → King Aethelred II The Unready → King Edward The Confessor.

Read more on Wikipedia

Parents

• King Aethelred II The Unready (966 – 1016)
• Emma of Normandy (985 – 1052)

Siblings

• King Edmund II lronside (990 – 1016) (half)
• King Harthacnut (1018 – 1042) (half)

Partners

• Married Edith of Wessex (1025 – 1075) in 1045

Life

• 1003 — Born
• 1042 — Harthacanute dies and is succeeded by Edward the Confessor, son of Aethelred II.
• 1045 — Married Edith of Wessex
• 1045 — Edward marries Edith daughter of Earl Godwin of Wessex
• 1051 — Edward quarrels with Godwin and banishes the rebellious Godwin family from England. Edward promises the throne to William, Duke of Normandy.
• 1053 — Godwin’s son, Harold, becomes principal adviser to the King.
• 1057 — Edward, son of Edmund Ironside and potential heir to the throne, returns to England but dies mysteriously
• 1066 — Died
• 1066 — Edward dies and Harold Godwinson is chosen as successor, but William of Normandy declares the throne was promised to him.

Sources

1. Edward the Confessor · Wikipedia
2. Edward III ‘The Confessor’ (r. 1042–1066) · The Royal Family (royal.uk)
3. Edward the Confessor and Edith · Westminster Abbey
4. Edward (king of England, 1042–1066) · Encyclopaedia Britannica