Edward the Confessor

King of England (r. 1043-1066)

• Born: c. 1005
• Birthplace: Islip, Oxfordshire, England
• Died: January 5, 1066
• Place of death: London, England

Edward served as the focus of a series of events that culminated in one of the most significant episodes in English history, the Norman Conquest of England.

Early Life

Edward’s succession to the English throne involved an interesting intertwining of persons and politics. Edward was the son of Ethelred II, the Unready, king of Anglo-Saxon England from 979 to 1016, and his second wife, Emma, descended from the Norman aristocracy. Ethelred, beset by personal, political, and military difficulties, lost England to invading Danes. The Anglo-Saxon throne fell into the hands of Canute the Great, who attempted to forestall the claims of Ethelred’s son to the throne by marrying the late king’s widow; the marriage produced a son, Harthacnut, who preceded Edward to the throne and ruled England from 1040 to 1042. Emma, queen to two kings and queen mother to another, had personally and politically gravitated toward the northern Scandinavian political orbit. She had favored Edward’s younger half brother over her firstborn son. Even after Edward had become king, she intrigued with another Scandinavian king (Magnus of Norway) to invade England.

Emma’s political machinations, however, were thwarted by the Anglo-Danish aristocracy that had been developing in England since the time of Canute’s ascendancy to the throne. It favored the ancient native dynasty. That aristocracy used the Anglo-Saxon national assembly, the Witan, which formally chose the king, to bring Edward to the English throne, bypassing both Edmund the Exile, the grandson of Ethelred from his first marriage who was living in Hungary, and any of the possible Scandinavian claimants or intriguers to the throne.

Edward had lived in exile in Normandy from 1013 until 1041. In 1041, King Harthacnut invited his half brother to England and adopted him as a member of the royal household. Edward had probably been forwarded as Harthacnut’s heir. The Witan elected Edward king by popular acclaim on Harthacnut’s death and even before his burial. Edward was crowned on Easter, 1043, at Winchester.

Edward’s character is probably best described as enigmatic. The modern interpretations vary from a king who was a half-witted ascetic to a king who showed some ability early in his reign but in the later years was dominated by a tendency to allow things to slide. A contemporary of Edward noted that he was terrible in anger and compared him in that state to a lion. On several occasions, he did strike hard at his enemies. The consensus is that he was basically a weak personality, normally lazy, with only flashes of assertive, strong character.

Life’s Work

Having lived for approximately twenty-eight years in Normandy, Edward became king of a country that was foreign to him. It was made even more foreign by the changes that had occurred during his exile. The government of Canute had produced the growth of a strong Anglo-Danish aristocracy that was politically dominated by powerful earls, now the nation’s chief warriors and statesmen. The earls had no real affection for or historical attachment to Edward’s dynasty. Throughout his reign, Edward had to deal with this group of families firmly established in their regional spheres of influence.

Most influential and most powerful among those families was the house of Godwin, earl of Wessex. By 1018, Godwin, an Anglo-Saxon who had little ancestral claim to political influence, had become a trusted counselor of King Canute and a chief adviser in the last years of his reign. Following Canute’s death, Godwin allied with Emma to support the claim of Harthacnut, her son by Canute, to the throne. Godwin, however, switched to Harthacnut’s rival Harold, the son of Canute and Ælfgifu of Northampton, once Harold’s faction had gained political control. Godwin’s activities in support of Harold included the arrest and surrender to Harold’s control of the atheling (prince) Alfred, the younger son of Ethelred and Emma, the younger brother of Edward, and the half brother of Harthacnut. Alfred was killed at Harold’s instigation. Godwin was subsequently prosecuted by Harthacnut once he became king. The earl’s complicity in the murder of Edward’s brother certainly had a disturbing effect on the relations between Godwin and Edward. There is no indication that Godwin resisted the popular enthusiasm that brought Edward to the throne. Godwin, moreover, was one of the leading men who accompanied Edward in 1043 when he confiscated his mother’s property and lands, an act that probably was prompted by Emma’s support of Magnus of Norway’s claim to the throne.

Godwin’s strength continued to grow in the early years of Edward’s reign. In 1043, Sweyn, his eldest son, was raised to an earldom and his younger son Harold became earl of Essex, East Anglia, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire. In 1045, his daughter Edith married the king. By the end of 1050, Godwin had become the king’s most prominent subject. His family had extensive lands, his own earldom extended across the south of England from Kent to Cornwall, and he had even managed to secure the recall of his disreputable eldest son Sweyn. Sweyn had seduced an abbess before abandoning his earldom and, after living in exile, had returned to England only to murder his cousin Earl Beorn and be declared a “nithing” for his atrocious treachery; he therefore again had to flee. Sweyn, twice banished, on recall was given an earldom that included the shires of Somerset, Berkshire, Hereford, Gloucester, and Oxford.

With powerful aristocrats such as the Godwin family and others such as Leofric of Mercia and Siward of Northumbria, who were strong enough at times to neutralize the Godwin power, Edward had to face serious challenges to his political control. He was a king in an unfamiliar country surrounded by trying political conditions. His search for things familiar only brought more problems.

In an unfamiliar country, surrounded by aristocrats with their own agendas and probably uncomfortable with manners strange to him, Edward was partial to Normans and things Norman. Yet because Germans, Lotharingians, Flemings, French, and Bretons were also among those welcomed by the king, it was important not to give special prominence to the Norman contingent. Still, Edward did choose to have Normans around him in his household, and he did at times reward them. Three Norman churchmen were apparently most influential: Ulf, bishop of Dorchester; William, bishop of London; and most notably, Robert of Jumieges, archbishop of Canterbury, because of his ecclesiastical position and his acknowledged leadership in the king’s attack on Godwin.

Edward’s apparent fondness for the Normans eventually produced a native resurgence. After breaking the strength of Godwin’s power, forcing Godwin’s family to flee into exile and dispatching his queen (Godwin’s daughter) to a nunnery, the king offended native sensitivities by his increased patronage of individual Normans. His appointment of Normans as sheriffs became especially offensive when they failed in their attempts to administer a strange system of laws in a strange land. A more serious affront to native pride was the king’s initiation of an attempt at devolving the English crown to the duke of Normandy. Unfortunately, the king’s moments of real control of the kingdom and the problem of political succession coincided in the events of 1051 and 1052.

The developing problem of succession perhaps also owed its beginnings to Edward’s long exile in Normandy. An unmarried man approaching his forties when he was crowned king, Edward may not have taken a vow of chastity as a youth (there were tales that he had been placed in a monastery at an early age), but there is no evidence that he had been much interested in women. His eventual marriage to Edith had produced no children by 1051. He was approaching his fifties, and it was perhaps most obvious to Edward himself that steps must be taken to provide for a successor. In 1052, the awkward problem of the succession to the throne was addressed. His search for a successor led him to look to Normandy and its duke.

By 1052, Edward effectively appointed William, duke of Normandy, heir to the throne. If one can believe William of Normandy’ court biographer William of Poitier, Edward chose William because of kinship, past favors, and the duke’s suitability. William of Normandy was Edward’s first cousin once removed (his grandfather Richard II of Normandy, and Edward’s mother, Emma of Normandy, were brother and sister). Edward had been given refuge in Normandy, and he may have received Norman aid for the expedition that he led to England in 1035. In addition, Norman assistance could have been offered to Edward to address his diplomatic difficulties in the late 1040’. The childless king might have used the promise of succession as a diplomatic asset. Most important, the powerful Godwin had been removed from the political scene.

Meanwhile, Godwin was able to use the growing native sentiment to regain his position in the kingdom’s politics, but he died shortly after being restored to prominence. Godwin’s son Harold, extremely competent in things political, administrative, and military, was able to assume the leadership of this powerful Godwin family and eventually position himself to secure election to the throne. The inevitability of eventual confrontation between Harold and William of Normandy for the English throne was becoming evident. Edith was returned from her sentence in the nunnery to take her place again as queen. The Normans were removed from their positions. Edward’s influence in government and politics was in decline; no longer would he attempt to control, and his reliance on the Godwin family increased. In Normandy, William, with the beginnings of a claim to the English throne, would develop his political strength, and, helped by diplomatic luck, he would launch the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

In the last years of his reign, Edward appears to have focused primarily on his plans to rebuild the poverty-stricken abbey at Westminster. His abbey, constructed in the Norman Romanesque style with round arches and built solidly of stone, was completed in 1065 and consecrated on December 28. Unfortunately, the king was too ill to attend the event. Edward died on January 5, 1066, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Thus he was able to be surrounded by something familiarly Norman (at least until it was restructured by Henry III).

Significance

Edward the Confessor’s reign was significant for providing the setting for one of the great transitional events in English history. Although the personal influence of Edward was minute, he was the ingredient that brought important historical forces into a developing process culminating with the conquest of England by William of Normandy.

Edward the Confessor has enjoyed a good reputation, if an exaggerated one, in English history. His memory has benefited from the praise of monastic writers, especially the monastic writers of Normandy. His rapid elevation to sainthood (he was canonized in 1161) only served to heighten his reputation. In his last years, Edward grew increasingly religious, mystical, and removed from his world. His appearance, particularly his long white hair and beard (he has been described as a true albino), produced a superstitious aura. He revealed his dreams and proclaimed his visions: He dreamed that the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus had all turned on their left side; on his death bed, he was said to have foretold England’s future as dark and troubled. During his lifetime, people had flocked to be touched by the king so that they could be cured of scrofula; they continued to flock to his tomb after his death, and miracles were said to take place there. His tomb at Westminster became an altar-tomb confessionary, which accounts for the epithet by which he became known to later generations.

Danish Kings of England, 1016-1066

Reign

• Monarch

1016-1035

• Canute the Great

1035-1040

• Harold I Harefoot

1040-1042

• Harthacnut

1043-1066

• Edward the Confessor

1066

• Harold II

Note: Both Edward and Harold II were of mixed Danish and Saxon ancestry.

Bibliography

Ælred of Rievaulx, Saint. The Life of Edward, King and Confessor. Translated by Jerome Bertram. Southampton, England: Saint Austin Press, 1997. A biographical look at Edward’s life and reign by his near contemporary, the abbot of Rievaulx.

Barlow, Frank. Edward the Confessor. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970. A careful, scholarly, and credible study of Edward that contains many discussions of source problems.

Douglas, D. “Edward the Confessor, Duke William of Normandy, and the English Succession.” English Historical Review 68 (1953): 526-545. A leading scholar of the Normans presents the case for the story of the succession promise as presented by the Norman chronicler William of Jumieges.

O’Brien, Bruce R. God’s Peace and King’s Peace: The Laws of Edward the Confessor. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Includes a translation of Leges Edwardi Confessoris (laws of Edward the Confessor) and chapters on connections between God’s peace (religion) and king’s peace in England during Edward’s time.

Scholz, B. W. “The Canonization of Edward the Confessor.” Speculum 26 (1961): 38-60. Investigates the purpose of Edward’s canonization.

Stenton, Frank M. Anglo-Saxon England. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. The classic study of Anglo-Saxon England, essential for understanding the forces in Edward’s lifetime.

Walker, David. The Normans in Britain. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995. An overview of the Anglo-Norman period in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, beginning with the Battle of Hastings.