St. Edward the Confessor: 950th Anniversary of Death

Br. Columba Maria

St. Edward the Confessor was surely the holiest king of all the kings of England. After the bloodshed of previous years, his reign was markedly peaceful. He remitted the Danegeld, or war tax, and lived off his own means. His marriage with Edgitha remained virtuously celibate by mutual consent and he completed the building of Westminster Abbey before death overtook him on 5 January 1066. His body was found incorrupt ninety eight years later when the body was placed in its new shrine by St. Thomas Becket, in the presence of King Henry II after his canonisation in 1161.

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