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The Essay Podcast

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The Essay: Anglo-Saxon Portraits

The Essay: Anglo-Saxon Portraits: Episode 28: Edward the Confessor

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Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Episode 28

Episode 28: Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor

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Stephen Baxter creates a portrait of the remarkable Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor.

Stephen Baxter creates a portrait of the remarkable Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor, a central figure in a period of turbulent politics.

The Anglo Saxons are somewhat out of fashion, yet the half millennium between the creation of the English nation in around 550 and the Norman Conquest in 1066 was a formative one.
This major series rediscovers the Anglo-Saxons through vivid portraits of thirty key individuals.


Stephen Baxter creates a vivid portrait of Edward the Confessor. By any standards, Edward the Confessor lived a remarkable life, and left a still more remarkable legacy. He was a central figure in a period of turbulent politics, characterised by factional intrigue, rebellion, invasion and conquest. He personally experienced dramatic reversals in fortune, spending 25 years in exile before reigning as king of England for almost as long, through moments of periods triumph and humiliation. His posthumous life was similarly eventful . His death triggered the sequence of events that led to the Norman conquest; and his place of burial, Westminster Abbey, became the focal point of a cult which eventually made Edward the patron saint of the English monarchy, and the abbey a national treasure.

Producer: Sarah Taylor

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Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Portraits of ground-breaking Anglo-Saxon men and women from the era between 550 and 1066AD

Series of portraits of ground-breaking Anglo-Saxon men and women from the era between 550 and 1066AD

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