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Edward the Confessor

The pious Anglo-Saxon king whose death in 1066 set off the Norman Conquest.

Edward the Confessor (reigned 1042–1066) was the last king of the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex. Half-Norman by birth and famous for his piety, he founded the abbey at Westminster in the 1050s and was buried there shortly after its consecration. His death without an heir in January 1066 set off the succession crisis that led to the Norman Conquest.

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He was canonised as a saint in 1161 and is one of England's patron saints. Westminster Abbey, rebuilt by Henry III in his honour, has remained the coronation church of every English and British monarch since 1066.

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