Tuesday 13th October at 6pm. CBS Mass for the Feast of St Edward the Confessor, King of England (June 1042 – January 1066). All are welcome. Plainsong Mass with Propers and Hymns for the day.

Edward is called Confessor to reflect his reputation as a pious saint who did not suffer martyrdom, as opposed to Edward, King & Martyr (978). He was canonised in 1161 by Pope Alexander III, and is commemorated on 13 October by both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. Saint Edward was one of the national saints of England until King Edward III adopted Saint George as patron saint in about 1350.

The 7th son of Æthelred the Unready and 1st of his 2nd wife Emma of Normandy, Edward was was born sometime between 1003 and 1005 in Islip, Oxfordshire. He succeeded King Cnut’s son Harthacnut in 1042 and was crowned in April 1043 in Winchester Cathedral, restoring the rule of the House of Wessex after the period of Danish rule since Cnut had conquered England in 1016. When Edward died without children in January 1066 he was succeeded by Harold Godwinson, who was defeated and killed later the same year by the Normans under William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.

In 1050 Edward and his Queen Edith, of the House of Godwin, were present at the Foundation of Exeter Cathedral when the See was moved from Crediton under Bishop Leofric. Around the same time Edward also had St Peter’s Abbey at Westminster rebuilt as the first church in England in the Romanesque style and consecrated just a week before his death.

The great neo-Byzantine, start of the 20th century, Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral also honours a St Edward in its tympanum over the West Doors, but it’s not entirely clear which one.

As the last English King crowned before the terminal split between Eastern and Western Christianity, Orthodox and Roman Catholic, in 1054, Edward the Confessor is held in high esteem by some for reasons either factional or ecumenical.