St. Edward the Confessor

Who they were

Edward was the next to last crowned king of Anglo Saxon England, called the Confessor, which is the older title for a saint who witnesses by his life rather than by his blood. His quarter century reign was remembered for what kings rarely get credit for: peace kept, taxes remitted, justice made reachable, and a generosity to the poor so habitual that the chroniclers made it his character.

His great work was Westminster Abbey, consecrated days before his death in January 1066. He was buried there, every English monarch since has been crowned there, and his shrine still stands at its heart, the one major English shrine to survive the Reformation in place. The legend of the ring, given as alms to a beggar who proved to be John the Evangelist, is told as the beloved legend it is. The shadow he could not lift belongs in the same paragraph: he died without an heir, and the succession crisis of 1066 followed, which is what gives his second patronage its edge. He is prayed to by people handing over what they cannot control.

Why people turn to St. Edward the Confessor

Leaders finishing without a tidy succession, which anyone who has watched a family business change hands will recognize. English heritage families. And with St. Louis IX, St. Wenceslaus, St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Elizabeth of Portugal, the crowns who served rather than collected.

How to ask their intercession

At the handover you cannot secure. His patronage is doing the just work and then releasing the outcome, which is the prayer for a retirement, a sale, or a transition that will outlive you.