Edward the Confessor

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.

Related Topics:
1004 - January 4 - 5 - 1066 - Anglo-Saxon - England - House of Wessex - 1042 - 1 - Normandy - William I - Harold - Edgar Ætheling

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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.

Related Topics:
Ethelred the Unready - Emma - Richard II - Danish - 1013

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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 as co-ruler with his half-brother Harthacanute (son of Emma and Canute), on whose death on June 8, 1042, he ascended the throne. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes clear the popularity he enjoyed at his accession – "before 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.

Related Topics:
1036 - Harold Harefoot - 1041 - Harthacanute - Canute - June 8 - 1042 - Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - The cathedral of Winchester - West Saxons - April 3 - 1043

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