Edward - Confessor or Con?

Edward - Confessor or Con? (part 1)

I am strictly a 1066 Battle of Hastings enthusiast but while things are happening in the background with my choice of battlesite I have looked into the life and times of Edward the Confessor. What I found was curious and when looked at as a whole, pointed to some rum goings on. It could be that I'm making 2 plus 2 equal 5 but in Edward's case, I'm sure the answer isn't 4. 

There are 4 main reasons why I think that it is not Edward that is buried in Westminster 

        1. Ignorance of the way that a King is selected in England.    

        2. Continuance of a vow of chastity even when married. 

        3.  The use of poison as a means of getting rid of opponents.

        4.  The hyper-focus of Edward in completing the building of Westminster Abbey. 

There are other things that require addressing too. 

There are two standard texts on the subject of King Edward and these are "Confessor: Last of the Royal Blood" by Tom Licence and "Edward the Confessor" by Frank Barlow. Neither author wants to get involved in Edward's religious life yet this is the place where we see Edward functioning. Admittedly, there is a lot of work to do in winnowing out the truth from the "brown-nosing" but it needs to be done to reveal the character of the man not just a litany of things he did or did not do. And in discovering the character of the man we need to ask some searching questions as to who the man really was. 

I'm going to bring into the mix two further texts. The first one being "Life of St. Edward the Confessor" by St.Ælred of Rievaulx ( translation by Fr Jerome Bertram, FSA) and "The life of St. Edward, King and Confessor" by R.F Jerome Porter.