Edward the Confessor (died 1066), the last king of the house of Wessex, ruled England from 1042 to 1066. Attracted to religion and to Norman culture, he was not a vigorous leader. He gained a reputation, not fully deserved, for sanctity and was eventually canonized.

The youngest son of Ethelred the Unready and his Norman wife, Emma, Edward was born sometime after 1002. When Ethelred's authority crumbled in the face of Danish invasions and dissensions among the English nobility, Emma and her children took refuge in 1013 at the court of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Ethelred died in 1016, and Edward's eldest brother, Edmund Ironsides, succeeded him but died later the same year. Cnut of Denmark was in possession of England, and Edward and his remaining brother Alfred were in exile in Normandy. As he grew up, Edward became thoroughly imbued with Norman manners.

After Cnut's death in 1035, England experienced several years of...