THE last coronation held in Winchester was of King Edward, later sanctified as St Edward the Confessor for his piety, in 1043, nearly 1,000 years ago.

Edward succeeded his younger half-brother Harthacnut, who had died suddenly, in 1042 but held his coronation at Winchester, probably in the Old Minster, at Easter the following year.

Edward was the final Anglo-Saxon king of England. Born in 1003, he was the son of Aethelred II (r. 978-1016), known as ‘the Unready’, and his second wife, the Norman-born noblewoman Emma. He was descended from Alfred the Great and his son Edward the Elder.

 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described his coronation:

 

1043. Here Edward was consecrated as king in Winchester on Easter Day with great honour, and Easter was then on 3 April. Archbishop Eadsige consecrated him, and fully instructed him before all the people, and fully admonished him as to his own need and that of the people. (E manuscript]

 

As was the custom, Edward’s coronation was delayed for diplomatic exchanges and to allow attendance of other kings’ representatives. It has been assumed that it was held at the Old Minster, but this is not recorded. The Old Minster was demolished after 1093 when services commenced at the new Cathedral. His enthronement was the opening scene in the Bayeux Tapestry which depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest.

 

In these times, the coronation ceremony transformed a man, albeit a royal prince and king-designate, into a consecrated king who became ‘a sacred conduit through whom God might act for His people’. Through the ceremony’s liturgy, Edward reached back to great Jewish leaders and kings such as Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon, as well as being a servant of Christ. As Christ was the ultimate model for Christian kings, Edward held his coronation in 1043 on Easter Day, the day of Christ’s resurrection.

 

The service used at the coronation appears to have been a version of the ‘Second Ordo’ which appeared in the 10th century and was based on coronation rites of the Western Franks in continental Europe. Excerpts from the ‘Second Ordo’ will be included in Winchester Cathedral’s thanksgiving service for King Charles III on Friday May 5, enhancing it as one of the main national events before the Coronation.

 

During his coronation Edward would have prostrated himself before the altar while the Te Deum was sung. He would have promised in the name of Christ to maintain peace; forbid plundering and other wickedness among men; and to uphold equity and mercy in all legal judgments. He was then anointed and invested with the regalia of his office ‘as Christ’s ruler in earthly affairs’. After the service was completed, he probably appeared before his people on a balcony on the tower westworks of the Old Minster.

 

Edward was educated at Ely and then in Normandy, where he stayed in exile for a quarter of a century because of the reign of by Scandinavian kings Sweyn and Cnut, who had married Edward’s mother Emma. In 1041 he was chosen as his successor by Harthacnut, his half-brother, and returned to England. He was acclaimed king in the following year.

 

Edward’s reign from 1042 to 1066 has had a variety of assessments by historians from the 12th century onwards. Some saw him as a devout but weak and vacillating monarch, manipulated by the Godwine family of his wife Edith the Fair, whom he married in 1045. Others stressed his tenacity and cunning which gave 20 years of peace to England, despite the persistent threats from the Danes and Normans. The 12th-century chronicler Godfrey of Winchester wrote that Edward terrified his enemies not by war but with his peace, and that no-one dared to break it. The historian Tom Licence has recently commented that ‘the terror lay in not knowing the limits of his tolerance’. Edward was reputed to have had a formidable temper. Latterly, historians have stressed the strength of his kingship, and put aside the earlier portrayal of the weak, but very holy Edward.

 

His good works were not in doubt, though. During his life, he had a reputation for holiness which was based on accessibility to his subjects, generosity to the poor and his supposedly monk-like, unconsummated marriage to Edith. It was assumed that he had been too holy for matters of the flesh. At least, he had no children by Edith who was reputed to be one of the most beautiful women in the country. Historians in the 12th century also reported that he had visions and cured scrofula (the King’s Evil) by his touch.

 

Edward was one of the founders of Westminster Abbey to which he gave ten per cent of his income. He endowed the Abbey, where his great tomb is still to be found, with generous grants of land. The Romanesque abbey was finished and consecrated shortly before his death in January 1066, although he was too feeble to attend. The king was buried there and his relics are undisturbed to this day, unlike almost all others swept away in the English Reformation of Henry VIII’s reign.

 

The main historical dispute over Edward has been whether he recognised William of Normandy (whom we know as William the Conqueror) as his heir or had nominated Harold Godwinson as his successor on his deathbed. William was related to Edward’s Norman mother Emma, his great-aunt, and it was claimed that Edward had promised the English throne to William during his long exile in Normandy. On the other hand, the Anglo-Dane Harold Godwinson was the main nobleman of England and brother of Edward’s wife Edith. The succession dispute was settled violently at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

 

After his death, there was popular impetus to recognise Edward’s saintliness, with miracles being recorded soon after his burial. The Abbey tomb was opened in 1102 and his body was found to be incorrupt; that is, the corpse had not decayed. This was interpreted as a sign of great saintliness.

 

After a period when the Normans suppressed cults of local saints, the English began to reassert themselves and developed a campaign to sanctify Edward. In the 1120s, the historian William of Malmesbury wrote of miracles Edward performed in his lifetime. In the 1130s, Osbert of Westminster, the prior of Westminster, believed that the late king cured him of a deadly fever. After an attempt to canonise Edward was turned down in 1138-39, Henry II (r. 1154-89) put his weight behind the campaign in the late 1150s which resulted in Edward being sanctified on January 5, 1161, the anniversary of his death. Subsequently his feast day was set on the January date. Edward became known as ‘the Confessor’, a saint who died a natural death, to distinguish him from his uncle St Edward the Martyr, the teenaged king who was murdered at Corfe, Dorset in 978.

 

Edward the Confessor and Edmund the Martyr, King of the East Angles, became the national patron saints until the Plantagenet monarchs replaced them with the more martial St George who remains England’s patron saint. The two saints, along with John the Baptist, are shown in the Wilton Diptych with Richard II (r. 1377-1399) in the National Gallery in London.

 

One of the main sources for this article has been Tom Licence’s biography, Edward the Confessor: Last of the Royal Blood, published in 2020 by Yale University Press. It is a recommended read.

 

Dr Tom Watson is co-editor of Record Extra, the online journal of the Friends of Winchester Cathedral, which can be found at https://www.wincathrecord.org.