He was a very proper figure of a man — of outstanding height, distinguished by his milky white hair and beard, full face and rosy cheeks, thin white hands, and long translucent fingers; in all the rest of his body he was an unblemished royal person.
[H]e was a very proper figure of a man – of outstanding height, and distinguished by his milky white hair and beard, full face and rosy cheeks, thin white hands, and long translucent fingers; in all the rest of his body he was an unblemished royal person.
Politicians
Edward the Confessor
Last reigning king of the House of Wessex (r. 1042-1066), the Anglo-Saxon ruler whose twenty-four-year reign restored native kingship after the Danish dynasty of Cnut and his sons. Builder of Westminster Abbey and canonized by Pope Alexander III in 1161 as the only English king ever raised to the altars of Rome, he is famed in equal measure for his personal piety and his political timidity. His childless death in January 1066 created the immediate political opening for Harold Godwinson's brief coronation and William of Normandy's invasion later that year — making Edward the pious and ambiguous hinge between Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman world that succeeded it.
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