Crumbling support and a lack of respect for him as king led to Edward suffering from a series of strokes in 1065 which led to his death, bringing to a close the longest single rule of an English king since Cnut, and the last before the Norman invasion. The final king to rule would do so for a mere two years before being defeated at some battle you’ve probably never heard of.
One of the major building projects begun during Edward’s reign, and very much still standing and active today, is the Norman cathedral known as the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, or more commonly Westminster Abbey. A story goes that a local fisherman saw a vision of St. Peter on the Thames at the site where it now stands, and its building commenced in 1042, a Benedictine abbey having stood previously on the site but been destroyed. Most people consider maybe booking themselves a plot or at least checking out places they might wish to be buried, but when you’re a king no “six paces of the vilest earth will suffice”, and so Edward wanted to rebuild what was then called St. Peter’s Abbey as a place to house his mortal remains.
It is the first building in England constructed in the Romanesque style, and therefore the first Norman building raised on English soil. Indeed, after Edward had been buried there the first recorded coronation of a King of England would be the first Norman king, William the Conqueror, less than a year after Edward’s passing. It was in fact only completed a mere few days before Edward’s death, and is now one of the most important and significant buildings in Great Britain.
As for who was going to take over from Edward. He confessed, he wasn’t sure, and his dithering and indecision may have given the Normans the chance they were waiting for. Having professed celibacy, Edward had no children of his own, certainly no son and therefore no heir, so there were several claimants. First up was Edward Aetheling, known, perhaps dismissively, as Edward the Exile, the son of Edmund Ironside who had been banished from England by Cnut, along with his brother, Edmund, and sent to the Swedish court. The orders from Cnut were to do the two children in, but, Snow White-like, the Swedish king had been a mate of Aethelred and so declined to kill them, sending them instead to Hungary (presumably without enlightening the then King of England). When Edward the Confessor found out in 1056 that Edward Atheling was still alive he invited him back to England, intending him to be his heir. This would allow the ancient House of Wessex to reclaim its lineage and push back against the Danish established House of Denmark.
It was not to be.
Edward the Exile arrived in England and promptly became Edward the Expired. No details are given of his death, but he was only on English shores a matter of days when he died. Given that his presence threatened the claim of the Godwins, you would imagine they had something to do with it, but I can’t find out anywhere whether he died of natural causes, an accident, or was murdered. Either way, the end result was that the last of the bloodline of the Saxon kings died with him, or rather with Edward a few years later.
Then there was William I, Duke of Normandy and later to be known as William the Conqueror, whom it is believed had visited Edward when Godwin was in exile and secured from him a promise to be his successor. However in the end the Confessor went with this guy.
Harold Godwinson (1022 - 1066)
After briefly coming out of a coma from which he would never again rise, admittedly. But still, for whatever reason, it was the son of the Earl of Godwin whom Edward marked as his successor. In the event, Harold’s would be perhaps the shortest reign of an Anglo-Saxon king - and the last - as he would sit on the throne for a mere 282 days, only sixty days longer than Edmund Ironside, but still leaving poor old Sweyn Forkbeard with the wooden spoon for his 41 days. Still, Sweyn was not of the House of Wessex, so this certainly makes Harold’s reign the second-shortest of the Saxon line. Harold’s being picked out by Edward as the go-to guy is depicted in the famous Bayeux Tapesty, though really the king is only pointing to him, and could, for all we know, be saying “anyone but this guy!” They wouldn’t have had time to clarify what he meant, as he never again regained consciousness, dying on January 5 1066, a year which, had he known (or cared) was to be a momentous one in English history.
There is plenty of argument about the validity of this, but on the Norman side it was said that Harold, having been shipwrecked on his way to France, was taken prisoner by a French count (no I said
count!)but released by William, then Duke of Normandy, and that afterwards he had promised the English throne to William, presumably at the behest of Edward. Back then though, kings didn’t decide who would be the next in line (despite the story about Edward’s deathbed selection of Harold) and so neither Harold nor even Edward is believed not to have had the authority to make such a promise, if indeed he ever did.
Be that as it may, William was pissed. He had waited for Edward to push off this mortal coil, and now that he was gone, he would be damned if he’d let some little snotnose take the throne that was not rightfully his. So he did what all claimants do when their claim is spurned, and prepared to invade England.
The next great chapter of English history was about to be written, and as ever, it would be written in blood.