Back to the Mainly The Normans calendar
Neither Harold nor Hardicnut, the sons of
King Cnut, had any children so the Witan had to look around for someone else to be king. If you remember Ethelred the Unready had two sons, one of whom Harold
killed and one of whom ran away to be with his mother in Normandy in France. It was this son, Edward (another E) who was invited to become the next monarch.
One of the problems about this was that though Edward was the son of a Saxon king, he had spent nearly all his life in France. He spoke French better
than English and all his friends were from Normandy. Almost as soon as he became king he started giving all the top jobs to his Norman friends. A Norman is
someone who comes from Normandy. It is also very likely that he promised his throne, when he died, to his great friend William of Normandy, who was also his
first cousin once removed. As you will see this would cause a lot of problems when Edward died.
Edward was a very religious man and became known as Edward the
Confessor, partly because he liked to live among the monks. He also began the building of Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster which today is where
you will find the Houses of Parliament. The work would have almost certainly been done by Norman stone masons as they were the best in Europe at building churches.
Can you imagine how much work went into building such a massive church. Edward was made a saint in recognition of his building of the Abbey.
However, he didn’t really like the idea of ruling a country and left most of this, at first, to the Earl of Wessex, a man called Harold Godwin.
Godwin was part Danish and had risen to power under Cnut. Edward married Godwin’s daughter but, having taken a vow as a monk, he had no children.
In 1051AD Edward had an argument with Harold Godwin, possibly about the number of Normans at court, and Edward sent Harold and all his family out of
England. They came back the following year and, when Harold died in 1053AD he was succeeded as earl of Wessex by his son Harold Godwinson. Bit of clever naming
that. Harold Godwinson became the virtual ruler of England while Edward spent his time confessing.
Forward to 1066AD
