Edward the Confessor and abbacies. However, his appointments were generally respectable. When Odda of Deerhurst died without heirs in 1056, Edward seized lands which Odda had granted to Pershore Abbey and gave them to his Westminster foundation; the historian Ann Williams observes that "the Confessor did not in the 11th century have the saintly reputation which he later enjoyed, largely through the efforts of the Westminster monks themselves". After 1066 there was a subdued cult of Edward as a saint, possibly discouraged by the early Norman abbots of Westminster, which gradually increased in the early 12th century . Osbert of Clare, the prior
Paul Atkinson (confessor) his status as a Catholic priest. One governor of his prison, Hurst Castle on the Solent, allowed him to walk outside of the prison; but complaint was made of this and the leave was revoked. He died in prison in 1729 after nearly thirty years. He was buried in Winchester's Roman Catholic Cemetery. Paul Atkinson (confessor) Paul Atkinson (c. 1655 – 15 October 1729), born Matthew Atkinson, was a 17th and 18th century English Roman Catholic priest, regarded as the penal times in the English Church. who is viewed as a martyr due to dying in prison for his Catholic