Edward the Confessor King Henry II and Pope Alexander III He was called 'Confessor' as the name for someone who was believed to have lived a saintly life but was not a martyr. In the 1230s King Henry III became attached to the cult of Saint Edward, and he commissioned a new life by Matthew Paris. Henry also constructed a grand new tomb for Edward in a rebuilt Westminster Abbey in 1269. He named his eldest son after him. Until about 1350, Edmund the Martyr, Gregory the Great and Edward the Confessor were regarded as English national saints, but Edward III preferred the
Iste confessor all others, 3 Brother was he to all the world’s forgotten; 4 One, then, in songs of praise we sing his glory, 5 Glory and praise be to our God forever, </poem> The translations below are non-metrical, and literal line by line translations. Iste confessor Domini colentes <poem> 1 Iste confessor Domini colentes // Quem pie laudant populi per orbem: [If it is not the day of his death, the last line is changed to:] 2 Qui pius, prudens, humilis, pudicus, // Sobriam duxit sine labe vitam, 3 Cuius ob præstans meritum frequenter // Ægra quæ passim iacuere membra, 4