St Edward the Confessor

October 13th was the feast day of St Edward the Confessor. This was the date of the elevation and translation of relics at the time of his canonisation in the reign  of King Henry II.

 

St Edward as depicted at the beginning of the Bayeux Tapestry

Image: Wikipedia 

St Edward is going to be more in the public consciousness in coming months as the Coronation approaches - it is his crown, his chair, his staff, his sapphire and his foundation at Westminster with his shrine that will be central to that, Of those items only the sapphire in the Imperial State Crown can be now directly linked to him as a secondary relic, the others are replacements or named after him.

Medieval centuries held him up as a pattern of kingship. Thus the use of his regalia, of his image which appears to have been painted on the back of the Coronation Chair, the use of a Coronation oath to secure adherence to the good laws of King Edward were a pledge of good governance from a new monarch. What those medieval kings, let alone modern governments would think of the tradition of his abolition of taxes because they were an occasion of sin is a question to reflect upon. One legacy of that was the royal bargain with the Cinque Ports to provide ships when needed to defend the Narrow Seas rather than fund a navy through taxation. How the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Defence Secretary might re-work that today I leave for your consideration. That bargain however presumably underlies the right of the barons of the Cinque Ports to bear the canopy over the monarch on their way in procession to be crowned. The canopy was last used in practice in 1821, but the barons still retain the right to do so and are present at the Coronation.

The apogee of the cult of St Edward was achieved in the reign of King Richard II, a munificent patron of Westminster. a devotee of the sacral kingship expressed in the cult of St Edward and who in his latter years impaled the  arms assigned to the Confessor with his own, suggesting spiritual union or close indentification.

 

St Edward the Confessor from the Wilton Diptych circa 1397

Image: historylearningsite.co.uk

St Edward along with St Stephen of Hungary, St Olav of Norway, St Wenceslaus of Bohemia, and, slightly later, St Louis in France is one of those saint-kings whose cult helped define and shape the exercise of royal authority in succeeding centuries and to legitimise it through relics and symbols.

St Edward Pray for The King and his realms