King Saint Edward ENGLAND, III ¹

   Other names for Saint were ENGLAND King, EDWARD Saint and "The Confessor".

   Ancestral File Number: B19R-SM.

   General Notes:

"The Confessor", King of ENGLAND Reigned 1042-1066, SAINT Edward Canonized
1161.

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BOOKS
"Rules of succession in those days were not, however, based solely on heredity, which was only one of the factors concerened. Saxon influence had been growing with the realization that Haricanute had not heir, and Edward had the backing of the powerful Earl Godwin. When therefore the leading men of the realm assembled in London on Hardicanute's death to select a successor the choice of Edward [the Confessor] appears to have been unanimous.

Kings and Queens of Great Britain, Genealogical Chart, Anne Taute and Romilly Squire, Taute, 1990: "Eadgyth, Daughter of Gytha and Godwine Earl of Wessex and Kent, Mar Edward the Confessor...Edward the Confessor King of England 1042-1066 Canonised 1161, Mar Eadgyth sister of Harold II, Died 1066."

The Oxford Book of Royal Anecdotes, Elizabeth Longford, 1991, Oxford Univ Press, pxviii: "Saxons and Danes Genealogy: Edward The Confessor (1042-1066), mar Edith."

A History of the English Speaking People Winston S Churchill Vol I The Birth of Britain Dodd Mead & Co 1956 p144:
"In 1035 Canute died, and his empire with him. He left three sons, two by Elgiva of Northampton and one, Hardicanute, by Emma. These sons were ignorant and boorish Vikings, and many thoughts were turned to the representatives of the old West Saxon line, Alfred and Edward, sons of Ethelred and Emma, then living in exile in Normandy..."
"Godwin continued to bethe leading figure in the land, and was now master of its affairs. There was still living in exile in Normandy Edward, the remaining son of Ethelred and Emma, younger grother of the ill-starred Alfred. In these days of reviving anarchy all men's minds turned tothe search for some stable institution. This could only be found in monarchy, and the illustrious line of Alfred the Great possessed unequalled claims and titles. It was the Saxon monarchy which for five or six generations hadprovided the spearhead of resistance to the Danes. The West Saxon line was the oldest in Europe. Two generations back the house of Capet were lords of little more than Paris and the Ile de France, and the Norman dukes were Viking rovers. A sense of sanctity and awe still attached to any who could claim descent from the Great King, and beyond him to Egypt and immemorial antiquity. Godwin saw that he could consolidate his power and combine both English and Danish support by making Edward King. He bargained with the exile, threatening unless his terms were met to put a nephew of Canute on the throne. Of these the first was the restriction of Norman influence in England. Edward made no difficulty; he was welcomed home and crowned; for the next twenty-four years, with one brief interval, England was mainly governed by Godwin and his sons...
"Edward was a quiet, pious person without liking for war or much aptitude for administration. His Norman upbringing made him the willing though gentle agent of Norman influence, so far as Earl Godwin would allow...To make all smooth Edward was obliged to marry Godwin's young and handsom daughter, but we are assured by contemporary writers that this union was no more than formal. According to tradition the King was a kindly, weak, chubby albino... Nevertheless, his main interest in life was religious, and as he grew older his outlook was increasingly that of a monk...His saintliness brought him as the years passed by a reward in the veneration of his people, who forgave him his weakness for the sake of his virtues...
"A crisis came in the year 1051, when the Norman party at Court succeeded in driving Godwin into exile...But in the following year Godwin returned, backed by a force raised in Flanders, and with the active help of his son Harold. Together father and son obliged King Edward to take them back into power..."
p147: "Seven months after his restoration Godwin died, in 1053...Harold, his eldest surviving son, succeeded to his father's great estates. He now filled his part to the full, and for the next thirteen adventurous years was the virtual ruler of England. In spite of the antagonism of rival Anglo-Danish earls, and the opposition of the Norman elements still attached to the Confessor's Court, the Godwins, father and son, maintained their rule under what we should now call a constitutional monarchy..."
p149: "The figure of Edward the Confessor comes down to us faint, misty, frail. The medieval legend, carefully fostered by the Church, whose devoted servant he was, surpassed the man. The lights of Saxon England were going out, and in the gathering darkness a gentle, gray-beard prophetforetold the end. When on his death-bed Edward spoke of a time of evil that was coming upon the land his inspired mutterings struck terror into the hearers...Thus on January 5, 1066, ended the line of the Saxon kings...As the years rolled by his spirit became the object of popular worship. His shrine at Westminster was a centre of pilgrimage. Canonised in 1161, he lived for centuries in the memories of the Saxon folk. The Normans also had an interest in his fame. For them he was the King by whose wisdom the crown had been left, or so they claimed, to their Duke..."

The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England, Antonia Fraser, 1975, Alfred Knopf, p25: "Edward the Confessor c1005-66, mar Edith..."

The Wall Chart of World History, Edward Hull, 1988, Studio Edition, England 1042: "King of England 1042-1066, The Confessor, Son of Ethelred & Emma, Succeeded by Harold II 9 months..."

The Story of Civilization, Will Durant, Vol IV, The Age of Faith, Bk IV, The Dark Ages, Ch XX, The Rise of the North, Sec I, England, p493: "Before his death [King Harthacnut] summoned from Normandy the surviving son of Ethelred and Emma, and recognized this Anglo-Saxon stepbrother as heir to the English throne. But Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) was as much of a foreigner as any Dane. Carried to Normandy by his father at the age of ten, he had passed thirty years at the Norman court, brought up by Norman nobles and priests and trained to a guileless piety. He brought to England his French speech, customs, and friends. These friends became high officials and prelates of the state, received royal grants, built Norman castles in England, showed their scorn for English language and ways, and began the Norman Conquest a generation before the Conqueror..."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1981, Micropaedia, Vol III, p799, Edward the Confessor Saint: "Born Abt 1003 Islip Oxfordshire, Died 5 Jan 1066 London, King of England from 1042 to 1066. Although hewas a listless, ineffectual monarch overshadowed by powerful nobles, his reputation for piety evidently preserved much of the dignity of the crown. His close ties to Normandy prepared the way for the conquest of England by Normans under William, Duke of Normandy (later King William I the Conqueror), in 1066.
"Edward was the son of King Ethelred II the Unready (ruled 968-1016) and Emma, daughter of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. When the Danes invaded England in 1013, the familyescaped to Normandy; the following year Edward returned to England with the ambassadors who negotiated the pact that returned his father to power. After Ethelred's death in 1016 the Danes again took control of England. Edward lived in exile inNormandy until 1041, when he returned to the London court of his half brother (Emma was their mother), King Hardecanute. Edward succeeded to the throne in 1042 and quickly seized the property of his mother, who had plotted against his accession. Nevertheless, for the first 11 years of his reign the real master of England was Godwin, Earl of the West Saxons. Edward married Godwin's daughter Edith in 1045, but by 1049 a breach had occurred between the two men. In 1051 Edward outlawed the Godwin family and dismissed Edith. During this period Edward was rapidly losing popularity by giving foreigners- particularly Normans- high positions in his government. Hence in 1053 Godwin and his sons were able to gather large forces against the King. They forced Edward to restore their lands, and they exiled many of his foreign favourites. Upon Godwin's death in 1053 his son Harold became the dominant power in the kingdom. It was Harold rather than Edward who subjugated Wales in 1063 and negotiated with the rebellious Northumbrians in 1065. Consequently, Edward on his deathbed named Harold as his successor even though he allegedly had already promised the crown to William. William killed Harold at the Battle of Hastings, Sussex, in October 1066, and two months later he ascended the throne. Edward was canonized in 1161."

From Alfred to Henry III 871-1272, Christopher Brooke, 1961, Norton Library History of England, p82:
"Across the English Channel, atits narrowest point, lay another great Viking state, the duchy of Normandy. A Norman princess, Emma, had successively married both Ethelred and Cnut. A Norman duke, Robert I [Emma's nephew], amiably known to later tradition as Robert the Devil,had gone through a form of marriage with a sister of Cnut. Duke Robert was naturally interested in English politics, all the more because the young sons of Ethelred, Alfred and Edward, were exiles living in his duchy. Had Robert not died on his way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1035, it is highly probable that he would have staged an invasion of England on these young men's behalf.
"...[William] had been in touch with England since his childhood friend, Edward the Aetheling, had become king in 1042...
p83: "...Cnut died young (1035), and left an uncertain succession. His throne was diputed between his two sons: Harold, his son by his concubine, Aelfgifu, and Harthacnut, his son by his queen, Emma. Each wasstrongly supported by his mother. In Addition, Ethelred's sons, Alfred and Edward, were awaiting their chance. In the event Harold and Harthacnut succeeded in turn, and Alfred, attempting to intervene, was arrested and cruelly maltreated, and shortly afterwards died. Cnut's two sons each died very young after a short and violent reign, and the way was clear for Edward, later known as Edward the Confessor (1042-1066).
"Edward the Confessor stepped into an exceedingly difficult inheritance. He had spent most of his life in Normandy and elsewhere on the Continent, and was not personally known to the English leaders. This meant that he could not hope, in his early years at least, to outshine in personal prestige the great earls whom he inherited from Cnut. In fact they were bound to dominate him until he had proved himself. Edward had some ability, but lacked perhaps the energy and ruthless determination of a successful king. He was not a great warrior, and henever succeeded in mastering the earls. This did not mean that his throne was insecure. He never consummated his marriage, and had no close heirs or rivals- his one nephew [Edward Atheling] died well before him, and his great-nephew [Edgar Atheling] was never seriously considered for the throne. There were in fact only two possible alternatives to Edward seriously canvassed before the last years of his reign, the Duke of Normandy and the King of Norway. Duke William was Edward's ownchoice for his successor, and there was no question of William's trying to usurp Edward's throne. So far as we know, the King of Norway, Harold Hardrada, was not favoured by any of the earls before 1065. It may even be true that it was the threat of foreign invasion which kept them loyal to Edward..."

   Marriage Information:

Saint married Edith Godwinson WESSEX, daughter of Earl Godwin Kent WESSEX and Gytha THORGILSSON, in 1045. The marriage ended in divorce. (Edith Godwinson WESSEX died in 1075.)