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
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Hurst Castle on the Solent, allowed him to walk outside of the prison; but complaint was made of this and the leave was revoked.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