King Edward the Confessor

“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. Ælred, 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. 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.’ 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.”

Here is the prophecy in verse:

“The green tree which springs from the trunk

When thence it shall be severed

And removed to a distance of three acres

By no engine or hand of man

Shall return to its original trunk

And shall join itself to its root

Whence first it had origin

The head shall receive again its verdure

It shall bear fruit after its flower

Then shall you be able for certainty

To hope for amendment.”

 

From what I can see in this prophecy/vision by King Edward, the Norman Invasion of 1066 was God’s wrath on the wickedness of the English people because the Christian church had become so corrupt.  After being chastened by the Lord for three hundred years (“And removed to a distance of three acres”), the Lord would bring England back to its Christian foundations.  In 1382, John Wycliffe completed his translation of the English Bible from the Latin Vulgate.  Now the English people could begin to read the Scriptures for themselves.  1382 is a little more than three hundred years removed from 1066.

So why did I discover the prophecy of King Edward today?  It is a mirror of what is happening to the United States in 2014 (and probably for the past forty years) because there is so much sin (like abortion, homosexuality and earth worship) in this country.

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A Deathbed Prophecy of King Edward the Confessor

Norman Conquest of England

Edward the Confessor Dies–5 January 1066

John Wycliffe

Wikipedia

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne

REVIEW–Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy

Christian History

Consequences of the Norman Conquest

The Strange Funeral of William the Conqueror, 1087

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1066:  The Year of the Conquest by David Howarth, page 47:

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“In the first days of the New Year, the King’s coma or sleep was interrupted by periods of delirium, and on 4 January he was distressingly restless, though still unconscious.  They tried to rouse him from his uneasy sleep, and succeeded.  When he awoke, he asked them to assemble his household and a few more people came into the room:  we are not told who they were.  Then he began to speak in a strong voice.  But instead of telling them what they needed to know, he gave them a long account of a dream.  He had met two monks he had known in Normandy, who were long since dead.  They had told him that for wickedness of the earls and churchmen of England God had cursed the country:  a year and a day after his death, devils would come through the land with fire and sword and war.  God would only cease to punish England when a green tree, felled half-way up its trunk and the part cut off taken three furlongs away, should join itself together again by its own efforts, without the aid of man, and break into leaf and fruit again.”

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A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry