Edward the Confessor (between 1003 and 1005 to 4 or 5 January 1066), son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, is one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066.
Edward has traditionally been seen as unworldly and pious, and his reign as notable for the disintegration of royal power in England and the advance in power of the Godwin family.
His biographers, Frank Barlow and Peter Rex, dispute this, picturing him as a successful king, who was energetic, resourceful and sometimes ruthless, but whose reputation has been unfairly tarnished by the Norman conquest shortly after his death.
Other historians regard this picture as only partly true, and not at all in the later part of his reign.
Edward succeeds Cnut the Great's son Harthacnut, restoring the rule of the House of Wessex after the period of Danish rule since Cnut had conquered England in 1016.
When Edward dies in 1066 he is succeeded by Harold Godwinson, who is defeated and killed in the same year by the Normans under William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.
Edward is called Confessor, the name for someone believed to have lived a saintly life but who was not a martyr, in Latin S. Eduardus Confessor rex Anglorum, as opposed to S. Eduardus Martyr rex Anglorum.
He is canonized in 1161 by Pope Alexander III, and is commemorated on 13 October by both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.
Saint Edward was one of the national saints of England until King Edward III adopted Saint George as patron saint in about 1350.
