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Edward the Confessor or ''Eadweard III'' (''c''. 1004 – January 4/5, 1066 ) was the penultimate Anglo-Saxon King Of England and the last of the House Of Wessex , ruling from 1042 until his death. 1 His reign marked the continuing disintegration of royal power in England and the aggrandizement 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 and Edgar Ætheling as England's ruler. The king Ethelred The Unready , 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 in 1013 . In his quarter-century of Norman exile during his most formative years, while England formed part of a great Danish empire, Edward developed an intense personal piety; his familiarity with Normandy and its leaders was also to influence his later rule. Returning to England with Alfred in an ill-advised abortive attempt ( 1036 ) to displace their step-brother Harold Harefoot from the throne, Edward escaped to Normandy after Alfred's capture and death. The Anglo-Saxon lay and ecclesiastical nobility invited him 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 June 8 , 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 April 3 , 1043 . EDWARD'S REIGN AND AFTERMATH Edward's reign was marked by peace and prosperity, but effective rule in England required coming to terms with three powerful earls: , a trusted Norman. Matters came to a head over a bloody riot at Dover between the townsfolk and Edward's kinsman 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 in the north and the successful one of William the Bastard. 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 December 28 , 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. 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 . CANONISATION 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 , Edburga in addition to one of Edward, in which the king was represented as a holy man, reported to have performed several miracles, and touching people to heal them. Osbert was an active ecclesiastical politician as his surviving letters demonstrate, who was twice banished from the monastery and who went to Rome as an advocate for the canonisation of Edward culminating successfully in 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 . When Edward was sanctified, there were two types of saints: Martyr s and Confessor s. Martyrs were people who died in the service of the Lord, and confessors were people who died natural deaths. Since Edward died a natural death, he was styled Edward the Confessor. 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. NOTE # The numbering of English monarchs starts from scratch after the Norman conquest, which explains why the Regnal Numbers assigned to English kings named Edward begin with the later Edward I (ruled 1272–1307) and do not include Edward the Confessor (who was the third King Edward). EXTERNAL LINKS
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