Edward the Confessor

Biography

Edward, called 'the Confessor' for his reputation of saintly piety, was king of England from 1042 to 1066 and the last of the old House of Wessex to rule securely. He had spent much of his youth in exile in Normandy during the Danish conquest of England, and his reign was marked by deep Norman influence at court and a long tension with the overmighty Godwin family. He founded Westminster Abbey, where England's kings would be crowned and buried thereafter. Edward's fatal failure was dynastic: he died childless, leaving no clear heir and a throne that at least three powerful men believed had been promised to them. His ambiguous deathbed words — said to have gestured the succession toward Harold Godwinson — could not settle a claim that William of Normandy insisted Edward had long ago promised to him. Edward's death on 5 January 1066 thus lit the fuse of the whole catastrophe. He was canonized a century later and became, for a time, the patron saint of England.