Saint Edward the Confessor

Saint Edward the Confessor was king of England from 1042 to 1066, one of the last Anglo-Saxon rulers before the Norman Conquest. He is remembered as a devout king, generous to the poor and a lover of peace, and as the founder of the abbey at Westminster. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on January 5.

He was born at Islip, near Oxford, in the first years of the 11th century. The exact year is not known; 1003 is the one most often given. He was the son of King Ethelred II and of Emma, daughter of the duke of Normandy. When the Danes invaded England in 1013, the royal family took refuge in Normandy. After Ethelred’s death in 1016 the Danish king Cnut the Great took power in England, and Edward spent about a quarter of a century in exile in Normandy.

In 1041 his half brother, King Harthacnut, the son of Cnut and Emma, called him back to England. When Harthacnut died a year later, Edward was acclaimed king. He was crowned at Winchester on Easter Sunday, April 3, 1043. In 1045 he married Edith, daughter of Godwin, earl of Wessex. The marriage remained childless. A later tradition explained this by a vow of chastity kept by both spouses, but historians consider the matter uncertain.

His reign was peaceful by the standards of the age. The most dangerous conflict, with the family of Godwin in 1051 and 1052, ended in a settlement without civil war. Edward abolished a burdensome tax for the army and maintained his court from the revenues of his own estates. He gave generously to the poor and to churches, and already in his lifetime healings of the sick were attributed to him. The Martyrology says that the people loved him as their king for his great charity, that he secured peace for his kingdom and steadfastly worked for communion with the Apostolic See.

According to tradition, while in exile he vowed to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Peter in Rome, and when as king he could not leave the country, the pope commuted the vow into the rebuilding of a monastery dedicated to the Apostle. At Westminster, today part of London, Edward built a great Romanesque abbey church. It was consecrated on December 28, 1065, but the king, gravely ill, could no longer take part. He died in the night of January 4 to 5, 1066, and was buried in his abbey.

The name Confessor denotes a saint who bore witness to the faith by his life rather than by a martyr’s death. Pope Alexander III canonized Edward in 1161, and on October 13, 1163, his relics were solemnly transferred to a new tomb. The Church in England still keeps his memorial on the anniversary of that day. A legend tells that the king gave his own ring to a beggar, and that the beggar was Saint John the Evangelist.

The relics of Saint Edward still rest in Westminster Abbey. On September 17, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI came as a pilgrim to his tomb. During an ecumenical celebration of Evening Prayer he called the king a model of Christian witness and an example of the true greatness that flows from humility and obedience after the example of Christ.