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Author: Woodman, David

England

Published on 5 November 2020 by Penguin Books Ltd (Allen Lane) in the United Kingdom as part of ‘the Penguin Monarchs’ series.

Hardback | 160 pages
129 x 186 x 20 | 204g

Edward the Confessor, the last great king of Anglo-Saxon England, canonized nearly 100 years after his death, is in part a figure of myths created in the late middle ages.

In this revealing portrait of England’s royal saint, David Woodman traces the course of Edward’s twenty-four-year-long reign through the lens of contemporary sources, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Vita Ædwardi Regis to the Bayeux Tapestry, to separate myth from history and uncover the complex politics of his life. He shows Edward to be a shrewd politician who, having endured a long period of exile from England in his youth, ascended the throne in 1042 and came to control a highly sophisticated and powerful administration.

The twists and turns of Edward’s reign are generally seen as a prelude to the Norman Conquest in 1066. Woodman explains clearly how events unfolded and personalities interacted but, unlike many, he shows a capable and impressive king at the centre of them.