He was a King with no power
The three most powerful Earls in England at the time—Leofric of Mercia, Siward of Northumbria, and Godwin of Wessex—held the real authority during Edward's reign as king. These three and the other Earls were not fond of Edward because he favored his Norman counselors. Alexander III, the pope, canonized Edward the Confessor, who went by this moniker because of his great religiosity, in 1161. He was one of England's final Anglo-Saxon kings, ruling from 1042 to 1066, an impressive twenty-four years.
The son of King Ethelred "the Unready" and his wife Emma of Normandy, the final monarch of the House of Wessex was born in Oxfordshire at Islip. He was the first child of Ethelred's new wife, Emma, and the eighth son of the king. His early years were ruined by the ongoing conflict caused by Viking assaults that attacked England. He was born around 1003. Emma of Normandy and her sons, Edward and Alfred, were forced to flee to safety in 1013 after Sweyn Forkbeard usurped the kingdom.
His family had been expelled by Danish control, thus he spent a large portion of his early years living in exile in France. After his father Ethelred died in 1016, Edward's half-brother Edmund Ironside was left in charge of defending England from Danish attack while also having to deal with the formidable threat posed by Sweyn's son Cnut.
