Edward's principal supporters were Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, while Æthelred was backed by his mother, Queen Ælfthryth and her friend Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester.

The leading magnates were split into two factions, the supporters of Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia and Æthelwine, who both seized some monastic lands which they believed belonged to them, but also estates claimed by their rivals.

The historian Tom Watson comments: "For an obnoxious teenager who showed no evidence of sanctity or kingly attributes and who should have been barely a footnote, his cult has endured mightily well.

"[2] Other pre-Conquest sources include Charter S 937[a] of around 999, which gives details of his election as king,[3] Byrhtferth of Ramsey's Life of St Oswald, written around 1000,[4] and parts of some manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC).

[5] The Passio et Miracula Sancti Eadwardi Regis et Martyris (Passion and Miracles of Saint Edward, King and Martyr), was written around 1100, probably by the hagiographer Goscelin.

By 878, the Vikings had overrun the kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia, and nearly conquered Wessex, but in that year the West Saxons achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Edington under King Alfred the Great (871–899).

[12] He was the first king since the early ninth century not to face the threat of imminent foreign invasion, and England remained free from Viking attacks until 980, after Edward's death.

[18] The Benedictine reform movement reached its peak in Edgar's reign under the leadership of Dunstan, Oswald, Archbishop of York, and Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester.

Æthelwold was the most active and ruthless of the Benedictine leaders in securing land to support his monasteries, in some cases driving secular clergy out of their establishments in favour of monks.

He wrote that Edward's mother was a nun at Wilton Abbey whom the King seduced, and Dunstan punished Edgar by imposing a seven-year penance which delayed his coronation.

When Eadmer wrote a life of Dunstan in the early twelfth century, he included an account of Edward's parentage which he obtained from his friend Nicholas of Worcester, who consulted ancient chronicles.

[21] No ealdorman with that name is known, but some historians identify Æthelflæd's parents as a vir potens (powerful man) called Ordmær and his wife Ealde, who gave Hatfield in Hertfordshire to Æthelstan Half-King in exchange for land in Devon.

[27] The historian Nicholas Brooks argues that Edgar must have married Æthelflæd because Dunstan backed Edward's succession to the throne, and he was a strong opponent of irregular unions who would not have supported the claim of an illegitimate son.

[37] When Edgar died on 8 July 975 there was a dispute over the succession, but as Edward was around thirteen and Æthelred six to nine, the historian Sean Miller observes that "they were surely figureheads rather than active participants".

Bishop Æthelwold backed his friend Ælfthryth, who naturally put forward the claim of her son Æthelred, while Archbishop Dunstan was Edward's chief supporter.

"[45] The Benedictine monk Eadmer of Canterbury wrote in his hagiographical life of Dunstan: The historian Ann Williams is sceptical of the last point, commenting that while it is possible that consecration of the king's wife before she gave birth may have been an issue in the tenth century, Eadmer was writing in the early twelfth century when it was an argument raised in favour of King Henry I against his elder brother, and this may have influenced his interpretation.

Æthelred was given the lands traditionally held by the king's sons, including some which had been granted by Edgar to Abingdon Abbey, and which were now forcibly repossessed by the order of all the leading nobles.

[48] The post-Conquest Passio gives a different account, claiming that Dunstan forced through the coronation of Edward as king: "But when, at the time of [Edward's] consecration, some of the leading men of the nation had wished to oppose [it], St Dunstan persevered single-mindedly in his election, and, taking hold of the banner of the holy cross which was customarily carried before him, he fixed it upright in the middle, and with the remaining pious bishops consecrated him king.

His rival Æthelwine was called amicus Dei (friend of God), and portrayed as the chief defender of the monks, by Byrhtferth,[52] who wrote that in Edward's reign: However, most historians are sceptical of the claim that the conflict was between the supporters and opponents of monasticism, and attribute the disturbances to the nobles' personal rivalries and their determination to recover or obtain compensation for lands which Edgar had forced them to give up to monasteries.

In many, perhaps most cases, it was the sharp practice involved in acquiring lands for the reformed houses that was being questioned, as the sellers (who had probably been put under considerable pressure) or their heirs sought to obtain a price closer to the actual market value.

[59] Witans (king's councils) met at Kingston upon Thames, perhaps on the occasion of Edward's coronation, at Kirtlington in Oxfordshire after Easter 977, and at Calne in Wiltshire in the same year.

[91] Yorke comments that such stories "draw upon hagiographical conventions spiced with traditional beliefs in the enmity of step-mothers for step-children, and should not be taken as reliable accounts of what actually occurred".

"[99] England had a long tradition of revering murdered kings as saints, and the circumstances of Edward's death made it almost certain that he would come to be seen as a martyr, but this did not occur immediately.

[102] As the senior ealdorman, Ælfhere was probably charged with arranging the translation of Edward's body from Wareham to Shaftesbury for a proper burial to pave the way for Æthelred's coronation on 4 May.

The Passio says that Ælfthryth had Edward's body concealed in a marsh, where it was miraculously revealed in February 979 by a column of fire, and locals took it to Wareham church for burial.

[107] However, the historian Paul Hayward points out that this second translation is not mentioned in contemporary sources and no pre-Conquest calendar prescribes a feast on 20 June; he argues that it was an invention.

[109] It was promoted initially by the ecclesiastical and secular leadership to demonstrate the sanctity of the royal office, but as Viking raids intensified they came to be seen as punishment of the English people by God for a terrible crime, the killing of the Lord's anointed, for which they needed to make amends.

[117] The historian David Rollason argues that Æthelred and Cnut promoted Edward's cult in order to heighten their prestige by emphasising the sanctity of their predecessor.

Shaftesbury, which had been founded by Alfred the Great for one of his daughters, had strong royal connections,[125] and the cult of Edward was valuable to it, giving it a high status among Wessex monasteries.

[131] In 1963, the bones were examined by the forensic pathologist Thomas Stowell, who concluded that they were of a young man between the ages of seventeen and nineteen who had suffered injuries consistent with the description of the murder in Byrhtferth's account.