British King “Bullet Book,” Edward the Confessor, 1042 – 1066

BillJones

Edward the Confessor Penny, S-1179 (circa 1053 - 1056)

• Edward the Confessor was the seventh son of Æthelred II.

• He spent most of his life living in Normandy never expecting to be king. Even his mother had married Cnut and had thrown in with the Danes instead of the Saxons.

• Edward became king when he was 40 years old.

• Although Edward was king, an influential Saxon noble, Earl Godwin, had considerable power. Godwin plotted against the king.

• There was bad blood between Edward and Godwin. Years earlier Edward’s brother, Alfred had come to England, testing the waters, to see if he might become king in stead of Cnut’s son, Harold Harefoot, who was acting as the regent and later elected king. Harold arrested Alfred and blinded him so severely that he died of his wounds. Edward exiled Godwin and his sons from England in 1051.

• While Godwin was in exile, Edward met with William the Bastard, who would become William the Conqueror, and told William he would succeed him as king.

• Godwin in 1052 returned and took much of Edward’s power. Edward turned to spiritual matters. He built the first structure which was Westminster Abbey.

• Edward married Godwin’s daughter, Edith. It is said that they never had sex, and they had no children. The fact that Edward had no heirs would change British history.

• Westminster Abby was completed enough that it could be consecrated in 1065. It would become more or less the official burial place for kings.

• Edward’s health was declining when Westminster Abby as consecrated. He died and was buried there in January 1066.

• Earl Godwin died in 1053. His son, Harold, took over more of the affairs of government as Edward withdrew toward the spiritual side of life.

• Because of his devotion to the church and his pious attitudes toward confessionals, Edward obtained his historical nickname, “The Confessor.” He would be canonized a century after his death. Edward the Confessor is the only British king who has become a saint.

EVillageProwler

Nice writeup, Bill. Thanks.

One minor point of correction: the coin is SCBC 1179, not the exceedingly rare 'bust left' version of 1179 (which is SCBC 1180).

Sapyx

I've recently bought my first (and probably last; they're expensive!) Edward the Confessor coin. Mine is a "sovereign and eagles" type.

The artistic quality and the amount of different types of these late Saxon coins is quite surprising, given the blandness of the Norman and Plantagenet series.

BillJones

@EVillageProwler said:
Nice writeup, Bill. Thanks.

One minor point of correction: the coin is SCBC 1179, not the exceedingly rare 'bust left' version of 1179 (which is SCBC 1180).

Thank you for pointing that out. I bought this piece raw in a Heritage auction. The S-1180 was the number they gave it. This piece does not match the photo of S-1179 in Spink so I didn't really know what to make of this piece. For a brief while I thought that it might have been a counterfeit.