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Historical person
died 1075
Edith of Wessex was the daughter of Earl Godwin and the wife of Edward the Confessor. Crowned queen in 1045, she was educated, wealthy and active as a patron, and she remained at court even during her family’s temporary exile.
Her brothers included Harold Godwinson and Tostig, placing her at the centre of the succession crisis of 1066. She survived the Norman Conquest and probably commissioned the Vita Ædwardi, an important account of Edward and the Godwin family. Edith of Wessex died in Winchester.
In K. M. Ashman’s The Challenges of a King, in AD 1045 Earl Godwin of Wessex prepares for the marriage of his daughter Edith to King Edward, securing the Godwin family's place at the centre of English government. For broader historical treatment of Edith of Wessex, see Tom Licence’s Edward the Confessor. Deryn Lake’s Sutton Place opens with Queen Edith of Wessex imagined in 1051 placing a curse on the land where Edward the Confessor hunts, making her part of the novel’s explanation for the estate’s long and troubled history.
Series
The Sutton Place Trilogy follows the fortunes of the families attached to the historic Surrey manor of Sutton Place, imagining a curse that begins in Anglo-Saxon England when Queen Edith condemns the land hunted by Edward the Confessor. Five centuries later the estate passes to the Weston family…
All books in this series
Road to Hastings traces the political rise of the Godwin family and the decisions that produced the English succession crisis of 1066. Beginning with Edith of Wessex's marriage to Edward the Confessor, the trilogy follows Earl Godwin and Harold Godwinson through exile, restoration, diplomacy and the growing influence…
All books in this series
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
