On This Day – 3rd April 1042

On the 3rd of April 1042 Edward the Confessor was crowned in Winchester.

Edward was born in about 1003. He was the oldest son of Ethelred II (The Unready) and his second wife, Emma sister of Richard II of Normandy.  Ethelred’s name means ‘well advised’, while the epithet ‘Unready’ meant exactly the opposite –  ‘ill advised’.

In 1013, the Vikings invaded England forcing the Athelred and his family into exile in Normandy.  Edward remained in Normandy while the English throne was occupied by Swein Fork-Beard of Denmark ( September 1013 – February 1014); Ethelred again (1014-1016); Edmund Ironside, Ethelred’s son by his first wife (1016-1016) and finally by Canute, Swein’s son (1016-1035).

Emma married Canute in 1017, and thus became Queen of England for the second time. She had a further two children by Canute.

Canute was succeeded first by a son from his first marriage, Harold (1035-1040) and then by his son by Emma, Harthacanute (1040-1042).  Finally, in 1042 Edward became king of England, but it would seem that Emma was not overly fond of her son, Edward. After Harthacanute died, Emma supported a different candidate for the English throne.  It is said that Edward stripped his mother of her possessions and left her in poverty in Normandy.

Edward surrounded himself with Norman favourites – this did not please the Saxon nobles.  The anti-Norman faction was led by Godwin of Wessex and his son, Harold Godwinsson, two of the most powerful men in England.  Edward had married Godwin’s daughter, Edith, but the marriage was childless.

Edward’s greatest achievement was the construction of a new cathedral, where virtually all English monarchs from William the Conqueror onward would be crowned.  The new church was consecrated at Christmas, 1065, but Edward was too ill to attend.

On his deathbed, Edward named Harold as his successor, instead of the legitimate heir, his grandson, Edgar the Ætheling. Edward died on 4 January 1066 and was buried in Westminster abbey.

When Henry II ascended the throne in 1154, he promoted the cult of King Edward the Confessor. Osbert de Clare,  a monk of Westminster, wrote a life of Edward, in which the king was represented as a holy man, reported to have performed several miracles and to have healed people by his touch. Edward was canonised in 1161.

There is some question as to what kind of person Edward was. After his death, he was the object of a religious cult, but that could be viewed as a strictly political move. Some say, probably correctly, that he was a weak, but violent man and that his reputation for saintliness was overstated, possibly a sham perpetrated by the monks of Westminster in the twelfth century.