Son of King Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, Edward spent his youth in exile at the Norman court during the Danish conquest of England. He returned in 1041 and was crowned king the following year. His twenty-four-year reign was marked by peace, judicial reform, and the rebuilding of the great Romanesque abbey church at Westminster — finished a week before his death and consecrated days before the Norman Conquest.
He married Edith of Wessex, daughter of Earl Godwin, but the marriage produced no heir — a fact medieval hagiography again interpreted as a vow of chastity. His childlessness opened the succession crisis of 1066 that drew William the Conqueror to England; the Bayeux Tapestry opens with his death and burial at Westminster.
His tomb at Westminster Abbey, never disturbed by the English Reformation, is one of only a handful of medieval English saints' shrines that survived intact. He has been the patron saint of the English monarchy since the 12th century, and the Stone of Scone, the Coronation Chair, and the entire ritual of English coronation revolve around his shrine.