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Edward the Confessor (1042 - 1046) |
AR Penny
Struck: 1046 - 1048
Mint: London (Mon: Goltsige)
Size: 18.3mm
Weight: 1.16g
Die Axis: ~90°
Grade: VF
Ref: North 817, Seaby 1174.
Obverse: OBV: +EDPER - DR(EX?), diademed and draped bust left, sceptre before.
Reverse: REV: + GOLTSGE ON LVND, short voided cross within, a quadrilateral with three dots at the ends and one at the center.
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Edward the Confessor was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy. He succeeded Cnut the Great's son and his own half-brother Harthacnut. He restored the rule of the House of Wessex after the period of Danish rule since Cnut conquered England in 1016.
Edward's Norman sympathies are most clearly seen in the major building project of his reign, Westminster Abbey, the first Norman Romanesque church in England. This was commenced between 1042 and 1052 as a royal burial church, consecrated on 28 December 1065, completed after his death in about 1090, and demolished in 1245 to make way for Henry III's new building, which still stands.
Edward was the only king of England to be canonized by the pope. He is regarded by most historians as an unlikely saint, and his canonization as political, although some argue that his cult started so early that it must have had something credible to build on. Saint Edward's feast day is 13 October, celebrated by both the Church of England and the Catholic Church.
In later life Edward suffered a series of strokes which may have led to his death on 5 January 1066. He was buried in Westminster Abbey and his wife’s brother Harold Godwinson was crowned the same day. Harold was defeated and killed in the same year by the Normans under William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. Edward's young great-nephew Edgar the Ætheling of the House of Wessex was proclaimed king after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 but was never crowned and was peacefully deposed by William after about eight weeks.
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