A Deathbed Prophecy Of King Edward The Confessor~

[eleni]

A Deathbed Prophecy Of King Edward The Confessor

 

“Just now two monks stood before me, whom I had once known very well when I was a young man in Normandy, men of great sanctity, and for many years now relieved of earthly cares. And they addressed me with a message from God.
 ‘Since,’ they said,
‘those who have climbed to the highest offices in the kingdom of England,
the earls,
 the bishops and abbots,
 and all those in holy orders,
are not what they seem to be,
 but, on the contrary,
are servants of the devil,
 on a year and one day after the day of your death God has delivered all this kingdom,
 cursed by Him,
 into the hands of the enemy,
 and devils shall come through all this land with fire and sword and the havoc of war.
’ Then I said to them,
 ‘I will show God’s design to the people,
 and the forgiveness of God shall have mercy upon the penitents.
 For He had mercy on the people of Nineveh,
 when they repented on hearing the Divine indignation.
’ But they said, ‘These will not repent, nor will the forgiveness of God come to pass for them.’
 ‘And what,’ I asked, ‘shall happen?
 And when can a remission of this great indignation be hoped for?’
 ‘At that time,’ they answered,
 ‘when a green tree, if cut down in the middle of its trunk,
and the part cut off carried the space of three furlongs from the stock,
 shall be joined again to the trunk
, by itself and without the hand of man or any sort of stake, and begin once more to push leaves and bear fruit from the old love of its uniting sap, then first can a remission of these great ills be hoped for''

King Edward died on January 5, 1066. One year and one day after his death, on January 6, 1067, the Roman Catholic William the Conqueror was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey.
 Then began a terrible campaign of pillage and bloodshed by the Conqueror against the English people,
which culminated in the pseudo-council of Winchester in 1070, when papal legates deposed the Orthodox Archbishop Stigand, who had refused to crown William, and placed the Roman Catholic Lanfranc in his place.
 On October 15, 1072, the last English Orthodox bishop, Ethelric of Durham, after anathematizing the Pope, died in prison at Westminster, and the grace of the priesthood left the English land, in accordance with King Edward’s prophecy. The last part of this prophecy remains to be fulfilled…


History of King Edward.....

St. Edward The Confessor, King Of England

 

Vladimir Moss

 
EARLY YEARS

 

            The holy King Edward was born near the beginning of the eleventh century. His father was the English King Ethelred, and his mother — the Norman princess Emma. When Queen Emma was pregnant with him, “all of the men of the country,” as his earliest, anonymous biographer records, “took an oath that if a man child should come forth as the fruit of her labours, they would await in him their lord and king who would rule over the whole race of the English.

[Keble]

This piece of misinformation never seems to die. Ebor can handle the specifics of documentation on this, so I'll confine myself to to an overall summary of what's wrong with it.

We have never been able to establish a provenance of this translation of this prophecy. Other versions are profoundly different. But what is most telling is the commentary at the end, which is solely Mr. Moss's.

William was not crowned on January 6. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a contemporary witness of whcih we have contemporary copies, he was crowned on Christmas Day. Edward did, however, die on the eve of Epiphany, according to the same source.

Mr. Moss is erroneously projecting the Gregorian/Julian calendar difference backward. In the real world, England changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. The Gregorian calendar wasn't even devised until several centuries later. But even if it had, Gregorian January 6 would not have been Julian December 25, because the Julian error increases over time. By my calculation (which might be off by a day) the offset in 1066 would have only been 5 days. But in any case, William was actually crowned on December 25th of the year in which Edward died.

[Ebor]

As Keble has written, the "Prophecy" posted here along with the work of Mr. Moss, does not give information for where it comes from.  But on the New Advent on-line RC dictionary there *is* a citation for this prophecy along with the text. 

"Ambrose Lisle Philipps in a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury dated 28 October, 1850, in giving a sketch of English Catholic history, relates the following vision or prophecy made by St. Edward: "During the month of January, 1066, the holy King of England St. Edward the Confessor was confined to his bed by his last illness in his royal Westminster Palace. St. Aelred, Abbott of Rievaulx, in Yorkshire, relates that a short time before his happy death, this holy king was wrapt in ecstasy, when two pious Benedictine monks of Normandy, whom he had known in his youth, during his exile in that country, appeared to him, and revealed to him what was to happen to England in future centuries, and the cause of the terrible punishment.

(start)
They said: 'The extreme corruption and wickedness of the English nation has provoked the just anger of God. When malice shall have reached the fullness of its measure, God will, in His wrath, send to the English people wicked spirits, who will punish and afflict them with great severity, by separating the green tree from its parent stem the length of three furlongs. But at last this same tree, through the compassionate mercy of God, and without any national (governmental) assistance, shall return to its original root, reflourish and bear abundant fruit.'
(end)

After having heard these prophetic words, the saintly King Edward opened his eyes, returned to his senses, and the vision vanished. He immediately related all he had seen and heard to his virgin spouse, Edgitha, to Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, and to Harold, his successor to the throne, who were in his chamber praying around his bed." (See "Vita beati Edwardi regis et confessoris", from manuscript Selden 55 in Bodleian Library, Oxford.)

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12473a.htm

I have broken up the paragraph to show where the prophecy starts and ends and added the words in parenthesis for clarity.  Also, please note that a clear citation is given for where this prophecy can be found: in the Bodleian LIbrary in Oxford England with the Manuscript designation clearly stated.  Also, note that this passage is markedly different from the "prophecy" put out by Mr. Moss.  There is no "year and a day" for example.

I do not yet have a copy of the translated Vita of St. Edward but I am working on it.  (Book hunting can be a slow hobby that requires patience, especially if the prey are books that don't have large press runs.)  But from my researches there are 2 "Vitae" from close to the period of St. Edward's life, that written by Aelred of Rivaulx (which is mentioned above) and an Anglo-Norman poetic one which can be viewed on the Net starting here:
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Ee.3.59/browse

with an introduction here:  http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/MSS/Ee.3.59/introduction.htm

(Side note, this is one of the really *great* things of the Net.  Things that most people will never be able to see in person are available to see on-line.  I love it.)

In reading some of the Moss' work that is also linked to, he cites a biography of St. Edward by one Frank Barlow from the 20th century.  I am looking into that, as it would be useful to see what sources *he* used and if that is where the "prophecy" that was first posted came from.

Citations and sources are important. 

Also, more on the subject of the Anglo-Saxons and "Orthodox" may be found in the thread in this section on "Western Post-1054 Orthodoxy" that Cizinec has revived.

Ebotr

[eleni]

Thank you both,
I wasn't aware...
IX
helen

[Ebor]

You are very welcome.  Posting it here helped in finding out more about it after all.   

The problem is that this piece keeps showing up and put forth as though it is true, even with the errors and the lack of a source. I have also mostly seen it on sites of followers of EO jurisdictions that are, ummm, (trying to be charitable here) splintered off from the main ones. 
 
That this piece continues to be brought up is helped by the fact that there is not a wide spread knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons or that there *are* primary sources existing like "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", in its several extant manuscripts, that are available on-line and translated into modern English (Since Anglo-Saxon or Old English can be difficult to understand.)

an example from the A manuscript for 1066

Her forðferde Eaduuard king. 
In modern writing roughly "Here forthferde Eadward King"  that is: He died. To "forthfare" is to depart, to die.

Imho, this "Prophecy" is not to be believed. That it has been used to somehow support EO is unfortunate.

Ebor

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