Edward the Confession

My knowledge of Anglo-Saxon history is poor, and always has been. As an Englishmen, I am ashamed that I am ill at ease with our truly English kings, such as Edgar, Alfred, Aethelred and Edmund, as though our history only began with the Norman yoke in 1066.

I therefore read Peter Rex’s biography of King Edward the Confessor (Amberley, 2013), the last but one Saxon monarch who ruled for two decades in the eleventh century. He is also one of the few English kings to have formally undergone canonisation by a Pope. Although I think such a process and its consequent recognition utterly worthless, I was curious to see just how holy and pious this admired royal figure really was. As far as I could tell, he was not particularly sanctified. The best that can be said is that he did not keep concubines and mistresses at a time when others usually did, and that he was relatively peaceful when most rulers were little better than gangsters and warlords, and also pirates if they had the benefit of a fleet. Edward was educated, and enjoyed conversation with clergy, while donating land to monasteries. However, he had a bad temper, nursed grudges, ordered the assassination of disagreeable Welsh princes and exiled various characters if he thought they offended his dignity. Many kings did far worse, of course, but Edward the Confessor (which means a saint who was not troubled by martyrdom) was a good king by the standards of the middle ages, the bar of which is set astonishingly low.

Although the book helped me to differentiate between some of the characters of the period, such as Kings Harold Godwinson, Harold Harefoot and Harald Hardrada, and some of his earls such as Siward, Leofric and Godwin, as well as great Danes including Cnut and Harthacnut, there was little which offered spiritual inspiration, including priggish Edward. Saxon England may or may not have been a feted golden age, but there was little evidence of pure, evangelical faith. Quite what King Edward confessed, I am not clear, but unless it was Jesus Christ and His gospel of grace, he was no more a saint that I am a plum pudding.