St. Edward the Confessor

St. Edward the Confessor (c. 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England, son of Æthelred the Unready. He spent much of his youth in exile in Normandy during the Danish conquest of England, and came to the throne in 1042. His long reign was remembered as a time of relative peace, and he won the lasting name "the Confessor" for his personal piety, chastity, justice, and open-handed generosity to the poor and to the Church.

Devout and gentle by temperament, he was credited with miracles of healing — the royal "touch" for scrofula was traced to him — and above all with the founding and rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, which he endowed magnificently and where he was buried; it has been the coronation church of English monarchs ever since. His death without an heir opened the way to the Norman Conquest later that same year. He was canonized in 1161 and long honored as a patron of England and of the English royal house, a model of the Christian king.