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Portrait of Edward the Confessor

Monarchs · Anglo-Saxon & Danish

Edward the Confessor

c. 1003–1066

House of Wessex — the last of the old line, and England's royal saint

In office: 1042–1066

Son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, Edward spent 25 years of exile in Normandy before returning to the throne in 1042. His reign was dominated by the house of Godwin, whom he exiled in 1051 and had to take back in 1052, and by the question of who would follow him, since his marriage to Godwin's daughter Edith was childless. He rebuilt Westminster Abbey on a vast Romanesque plan, saw it consecrated on 28 December 1065 and died a week later, leaving a disputed succession and the Norman Conquest.

How to spot them

  • ▸The pious, childless king whose death in January 1066 opened the succession crisis
  • ▸Rebuilt Westminster Abbey; the first monarch buried there, and its shrine still holds his relics
  • ▸Canonised in 1161 — the only English king ever canonised; patron saint of England until Edward III preferred St George
  • ▸Arms of three martlets and a cross attributed to him; the royal touch for scrofula traced back to his reign

In the reign

The consecration of a huge new Romanesque abbey church on Thorney Island, eight days before the king's death (1065)

28 December 1065; he was too ill to attend, and his queen presided.

A childless marriage to the daughter of the earl of Wessex, later celebrated in a Life commissioned by that queen (1045)

Edith of Wessex; the Vita Ædwardi Regis was written for her.

The exile of the most powerful comital family in England, and their return in force a year later (1051–1052)

Godwin and his sons fled in 1051 and sailed back up the Thames in 1052, forcing the king to restore them.

Twenty-five years of exile in his mother's homeland before a recall to the English throne (1016–1041)

He grew up in Normandy and brought Norman clerks and favourites back with him.

Rival succession promises — one said to have been made to a Norman duke, another to an English earl on the deathbed (1051 and 1066)

Both claims rest on partisan sources; the dispute produced the invasions of 1066.

Canonisation by Pope Alexander III, making him the only canonised king of England (1161)

His body was translated to a new shrine on 13 October 1163, still his feast day.

A shrine behind the high altar at Westminster that alone among English saints' shrines still holds its relics (1269)

Henry III built the present shrine and moved the body there on 13 October 1269.

Quick-fire facts

  • •He returned from Normandy in 1041 and was crowned at Winchester on Easter Day, 3 April 1043
  • •In 1043 he stripped his mother Emma of her treasure and lands at Winchester
  • •His marriage to Edith, daughter of Earl Godwin, produced no children, giving rise to the later legend of a chaste marriage
  • •He appointed the Norman Robert of Jumièges archbishop of Canterbury in 1051; the English Stigand replaced him in 1052
  • •His new abbey was the first major Romanesque building in England, and only fragments survive beneath Henry III's rebuilding
  • •He died on 5 January 1066 and was buried in the abbey the next day; Harold II was crowned there the same day
  • •The custom of the monarch touching for the King's Evil (scrofula) was traced back to him
  • •The attributed arms of a gold cross patonce between five martlets on blue are still used for Westminster Abbey and the City of Westminster

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources