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Edward the Confessor (c. 1004 – 4 January 1066), son of Ethelred the Unready, was the penultimate Anglo-Saxon King of England and the last of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 until his death.¹ His reign marked the continuing disintegration of royal power in England and the aggrandisement of the great territorial earls, and it foreshadowed the country's later connection with Normandy, whose duke William I was to supplant Edward's successors Harold Godwinson and Edgar Ætheling as England's ruler., who had successfully regained the throne of England after being dispossessed by their mutual step-brother, Harold Harefoot; Edward and his brother Alfred the Aetheling, both sons of Emma of Normandy by Ethelred the Unready, had previously failed to depose Harold in 1036. by both the Roman Catholic Church, which regards Edward the Confessor as the patron saint of kings, difficult marriages, and separated spouses, and by the Eastern Orthodox Church. From the reign of Henry II of England to 1348 he was considered the patron saint of England, and he has remained the patron saint of the Royal Family., Edward and his brother Alfred were taken to Normandy by their mother Emma, sister of Normandy's Duke Richard II, to escape the Danish invasion of England. Edward developed an intense personal piety in his quarter-century of Norman exile, during his most formative years, while England formed part of a great Danish empire. His familiarity with Normandy and its leaders would also influence his later rule.) to displace their step-brother Harold Harefoot from the throne, Edward escaped to Normandy after Alfred's capture and death at the hands of Earl Godwin (this murder of his brother is thought to be the source of much of his later hatred for the Earl and played a major part in the reason for his banishment in autumn 1051 after Edward said that the only way in which he (Godwin) could be forgiven was if he brought back his brother, some thing impossible to do and so he left the kingdom). The Anglo-Saxon lay and ecclesiastical nobility invited him back to England in 1041; this time he became part of the household of his half-brother Harthacanute (son of Emma and Canute), and according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was sworn in as king alongside him. Following Harthacanute's death on 8 June 1042, Edward ascended the throne. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle indicates the popularity he enjoyed at his accession — "before Harthacanute was buried, all the people chose Edward as king in London". Edward was crowned at the cathedral of Winchester, the royal seat of the West Saxons on 3 April 1043.