Eadred

Eadred was king of England from 946 until his death on 23 November 955. He is honoured as a holy right-⁠believing king, his day being 23 November. He was born around the year 923. He called himself "King of the Anglo-⁠Saxons and Emperor of the whole of Britain".

He succeeded his brother, King Edmund I, to the throne in 946, but had poor health. He was a very religious man and continued Edmund's appointment of Saint Dunstan as royal counsellor. It was Eadred who first nominated Dunstan for the episcopate, in 953, to fill the vacant see of Crediton in Devon.

At his death, at Frome, in 955, he summoned Dunstan from Glastonbury to come with his treasures. On Saint Clement's Day, the travelling party heard a voice from heaven: "King Eadred now rests in peace", and Dunstan's horse died from the angelic power it beheld. The holy king never married and had no heirs. He was buried at Old Minster in Winchester, and his nephew Edwig succeeded him on the throne.