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Edward the Confessor

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500 and
before (including Roman Britain); Monarchs of Great Britain; Religious
figures and leaders

                       Saint Edward II, the Confessor
                              King of England
                            Image:EdtheCon.jpg
   Reign       [June 8 1042 not crowned till April 3], 1043 – 4/5 January 1066
   Born        c. 1002– 1005
               Islip, Oxfordshire, England
   Died        January 4, 1066
   Buried      Westminster Abbey, Westminster, England
   Predecessor Harthacanute
   Successor   Harold Godwinson
   Consort     Edith of Wessex
   Father      Ethelred the Unready
   Mother      Emma of Normandy{

   St Edward the Confessor or Eadweard III (c. 1004 – 4 January 1066), son
   of Ethelred the Unready, was the penultimate Anglo-Saxon King of
   England and the last of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 until his
   death. His reign marked the continuing disintegration of royal power in
   England and the aggrandisement of the great territorial earls, and it
   foreshadowed the country's later connection with Normandy, whose duke
   William I was to supplant Edward's successors Harold Godwinson and
   Edgar Ætheling as England's ruler.

   He succeeded his half-brother Harthacanute, who had successfully
   regained the throne of England after being dispossessed by their mutual
   step-brother, Harold Harefoot; Edward and his brother Alfred the
   Aetheling, both sons of Emma of Normandy by Ethelred the Unready, had
   previously failed to depose Harold in 1036.

   Edward was canonised in 1161 and is considered a saint by the Roman
   Catholic Church, which regards Edward the Confessor as the patron saint
   of kings, difficult marriages, and separated spouses. From the reign of
   Henry II of England to 1348 he was considered the patron saint of
   England, and he has remained the patron saint of the Royal Family.

Early life

   In 1013, Edward and his brother Alfred were taken to Normandy by their
   mother Emma, sister of Normandy's Duke Richard II, to escape the Danish
   invasion of England. Edward developed an intense personal piety in his
   quarter-century of Norman exile, during his most formative years, while
   England formed part of a great Danish empire. His familiarity with
   Normandy and its leaders would also influence his later rule.

   After an abortive attempt with Alfred in 1036 to displace their
   step-brother Harold Harefoot from the throne, Edward returned to
   Normandy; Alfred, however, was captured and killed by Godwin, Earl of
   Wessex. This murder of his brother is thought to be the source of much
   of his later hatred for the Earl and played a major part in the reason
   for his banishment in autumn 1051; Edward said that the only way in
   which Godwin could be forgiven was if he brought back the murdered
   Alfred, an impossible task.

   The Anglo-Saxon lay and ecclesiastical nobility invited Edward back to
   England in 1041; this time he became part of the household of his
   half-brother Harthacanute (son of Emma and Canute), and according to
   the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was sworn in as king alongside him. Following
   Harthacanute's death on 8 June 1042, Edward ascended the throne. The
   Anglo-Saxon Chronicle indicates the popularity he enjoyed at his
   accession — "before Harthacanute was buried, all the people chose
   Edward as king in London". Edward was crowned at the cathedral of
   Winchester, the royal seat of the West Saxons on 3 April 1043.

   When Edward died in 1066 he had no son to take over the throne so there
   was a problem as three people claimed the throne of England.

Edward's Reign

   Edward's reign was marked by peace and prosperity, but effective rule
   in England required coming to terms with three powerful earls: Godwin,
   Earl of Wessex, who was firmly in control of the thegns of Wessex,
   which had formerly been the heart of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy; Leofric,
   Earl of Mercia, whose legitimacy was strengthened by his marriage to
   Lady Godiva, and in the north, Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Edward's
   sympathies for Norman favourites frustrated Saxon and Danish nobles
   alike, fuelling the growth of anti-Norman opinion led by Godwin, who
   had become the king's father-in-law in 1045. The breaking point came
   over the appointment of an archbishop of Canterbury: Edward rejected
   Godwin's man and appointed the bishop of London, Robert of Jumièges, a
   trusted Norman.

   Matters came to a head over a bloody riot at Dover between the
   townsfolk and Edward's kinsman Eustace, count of Boulogne. Godwin
   refused to punish them, Leofric and Siward backed the King, and Godwin
   and his family were all exiled in September 1051. Queen Edith was sent
   to a nunnery at Wherwell. Earl Godwin returned with an armed following
   a year later, however, forcing the king to restore his title and send
   away his Norman advisors. Godwin died in 1053 and the Norman Ralph the
   Timid received Herefordshire, but his son Harold accumulated even
   greater territories for the Godwins, who held all the earldoms save
   Mercia after 1057. Harold led successful raiding parties into Wales in
   1063 and negotiated with his inherited rivals in Northumbria in 1065,
   and in January 1066, upon Edward's death, he was proclaimed king.

Aftermath

   The details of the succession have been widely debated: the Norman
   position was that William had been designated the heir, and that Harold
   had been publicly sent to him as emissary from Edward, to apprise him
   of Edward's decision. Harold's party asserted that the old king had
   made a deathbed bestowal of the crown on Harold. However, Harold was
   approved by the Witenagemot who, under Anglo-Saxon law, held the
   ultimate authority to convey kingship.

   Edward had married Godwin's daughter Edith on 23 January 1045, but the
   union was childless. The reason for this is the subject of much
   speculation. Possible explanations include Edward, having taken vow of
   chastity, considering the union a spiritual marriage, the age
   difference between Edward and Edith engendering a filial rather than
   spousal relationship, Edward's antipathy toward Edith's father (Barlow
   1997), or infertility.

   Edward's nearest heir would have been his nephew Edward the Exile, who
   was born in England, but spent most of his life in Hungary. He had
   returned from exile in 1056 and died not long after, in February the
   following year. So Edward made his great nephew Edgar Atheling his
   heir. But Edgar had no secure following among the earls: the resultant
   succession crisis on Edward's death without a direct "throneworthy"
   heir — the "foreign" Edgar was a stripling of fourteen — opened the way
   for Harold's coronation and the invasions of two effective claimants to
   the throne, the unsuccessful invasion of Harald Hardrada in the north
   and the successful one of William of Normandy.

   William of Normandy, who had visited England during Godwin's exile,
   claimed that the childless Edward had promised him the succession to
   the throne, and his successful bid for the English crown put an end to
   Harold's nine-month kingship following a 7000-strong Norman invasion.
   Edgar Ætheling was elected king by the Witan after Harold's death but
   was brushed aside by William. Edward, or more especially the mediæval
   cult which would later grow up around him under the later Plantagenet
   kings, had a lasting impact on English history. Westminster Abbey was
   founded by Edward between 1045 and 1050 on land upstream from the City
   of London, and was consecrated on 28 December 1065. Centuries later,
   Westminster was deemed symbolic enough to become the permanent seat of
   English government under Henry III. The Abbey contains a shrine to
   Edward which was the centrepiece to the Abbey's redesign during the
   mid-thirteenth century. In 2005, Edward's remains were found beneath
   the pavement in front of the high altar. His remains had been moved
   twice in the 12^th and 13^th centuries, and the original tomb has since
   been found on the central axis of the Abbey in front of the original
   high altar.

   Historically, Edward's reign marked a transition between the 10th
   century West Saxon kingship of England and the Norman monarchy which
   followed Harold's death. Edward's allegiances were split between
   England and his mother's Norman ties. The great earldoms established
   under Canute grew in power, while Norman influence became a powerful
   factor in government and in the leadership of the Church.

   It was during the reign of Edward that some features of the English
   monarchy familiar today were introduced. Edward is regarded as
   responsible for introducing the royal seal and coronation regalia. Also
   under Edward, a marked change occurred in Anglo-Saxon art, with
   continental influences becoming more prominent (including the
   "Winchester Style" which had become known in the 10th century but
   prominent in the 11th), supplanting Celtic influences prominent in
   preceding painting, sculpture, calligraphy and jewellery (see
   Benedictional of St. Æthelwold for an example of the Winchester Style).
   His crown is believed to have survived until the English Civil War when
   Oliver Cromwell allegedly ordered it to be destroyed. Gold from it is
   understood to have been integrated into the St. Edward's Crown, which
   has been used in coronations since Charles II of England in 1661.

Canonization

   When Henry II came to the throne in 1154, he united in his person at
   last the Saxon and Norman royal lines. To reinforce this new warrant of
   authenticity, the cult of King Edward the Confessor was promoted.
   Osbert de Clare was a monk of Westminster, elected Prior in 1136, and
   remembered for his lives of saints Edmund, Ethelbert and Edburga, in
   addition to one of Edward, in which the king was represented as a holy
   man, reported to have performed several miracles and to have healed
   people by his touch. Osbert was, as his surviving letters demonstrate,
   an active ecclesiastical politician, and went to Rome to advocate the
   cause for Edward to be declared a saint, successfully securing his
   canonisation by Pope Alexander III in 1161. In 1163, the newly sainted
   king's remains were enshrined in Westminster Abbey with solemnities
   presided over by Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. On this
   occasion the honour of preparing a sermon was given to Aelred, the
   revered Abbot of Rievaulx, to whom is generally attributed the vita in
   Latin, a hagiography partly based on materials in an earlier vita by
   Osbert de Clare and which in its turn provided the material for a
   rhymed version in octasyllabic Anglo-Norman, possibly written by the
   chronicler Matthew Paris.

   At the time of Edward's canonisation, saints were broadly categorised
   as either martyrs or confessors: martyrs were people who had been
   killed for their faith, while confessors were saints who had died
   natural deaths. Edward was accordingly styled Edward the Confessor,
   partly to distinguish him from his canonised predecessor Edward the
   Martyr.

   The Roman Catholic Church regards Edward the Confessor as the patron
   saint of kings, difficult marriages, and separated spouses. After the
   reign of Henry II Edward was considered the patron saint of England
   until 1348 when he was replaced in this role by St. George. He remained
   the patron saint of the Royal Family.

   Edward's reign is memorialized in an eight panel stained glass window
   within St Laurence Church, Ludlow, England.

In the Arts

   Referenced by characters in Shakespeare's play, The Tragedy of Macbeth,
   as the saintly king of England.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Confessor"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
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