| Notes |
Waltheof was involved in a revolt, although he never openly rebelled ag a i n s t t he King. Nevertheless, he was jailed and after more than a year w a s e x e c uted by beheading on St Giles's Hill outside Winchester on 31 Ma y 1 0 7 6 . H e spent almost a year in confinement before being beheaded on M a y 3 1 , 1 0 76 at St. Giles's Hill, near Winchester. He was said to have s p e n t t h e months of his captivity in prayer and fasting. Many people bel i e v e d i n his innocence and were surprised when the execution was carrie d o u t .
"Waltheof was the last of the Old English earls to survive under Willia m I , h i s e x ecution for treason in 1076 marking a significant stage in t he a r i s t ocratic and tenurial revolution which followed 1066. As one of t h e f e w E n glish magnates not from the Godwin faction, he accepted and wa s a c c e p ted by William I, witnessing royal charters and remaining loyal t o t h e n e w r egime until 1069 when he joined with the Danes in their inva si o n o f N o rthumbria.
[[Category: 11th Century]][[Category: Honour of Fotheringhay]][[Categor y : E a r ls of Northampton]][[Category:Earls of Huntingdon]]
== Biography ==
}'''Waltheof''' of Bamburgh, Earl of Northumbria (1050 - 31 May 1076) [ [ #Powlett|Powlett]]: p.105 Digital Image (Statue)
=== Titles ===Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton.[Cockayne, Gibbs e t a l . , C o mplete Peerage, 2nd ed. Vol.6 "Huntingdon" p.638.] Histor ia n A n n W i lliams also describes him as an Earl of Bamburgh (but not of a l l N o r t humbria).[Williams, Ann (1995) ''The English and the N o r m a n C onquest'' [https://books.google.be/books?id=Su1IbQKzocsC&lpg=PA5 8 & v q = judith&pg=PA60 p.60]]
}
=== Parents ===
Siward, Earl of Northumbria (1041-55) and Aelflaed, daughter of Aldred, e a r l o f B e rnica[The Battle Abbey roll : with some account of the Nor m a n l i n eages. London: J. Murray, 1889; Visitation of Cornwall, Vivian e d . , 1 8 8 7, p.105 Digital Image (Statue); second son; Waltheof may have b e e n b o r n about 1050, and it was later believed that Siward intended him t o r u l e n o rth of the Tees. The death in battle in 1054 of a much older b ro t h e r , Osbearn, made Waltheof his father's heir, but too young to succ e e d a s e a rl of Northumbria when Siward himself died in 1055.]
=== Marriage ===
: m. Judith of Lens 1070. Issue: 2 dau.[Judith's page says she had 3 k i d s ; m a rriage to cement Waltheof into the new ruling group around Willi a m . W a l theof and Judith had two daughters, Maud and Alice (also known a s J u d i t h).]
:* Maud, Countess of Huntingon
::: m.1 Simon St. Liz de Senlis
::: m.2 David I of Scotland
:* Alice (Adeliza, etc.)
=== Property ===
By 1066 Waltheof owned manors in eight counties, mostly in the east mid l a n d s ( Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, and L i n c o l nshire), but also two big manors near London (Tottenham and Waltha m s t o w ) and the large soke of Hallamshire in the West Riding of Yorkshir e .
=== Execution ===
Waltheof was involved in a revolt, although he never openly rebelled ag a i n s t t he King. Nevertheless, he was jailed and after more than a year w a s e x e c uted by beheading on St Giles's Hill outside Winchester on 31 Ma y 1 0 7 6 . [He spent almost a year in confinement before being beheaded o n M a y 3 1 , 1 076 at St. Giles's Hill, near Winchester. He was said to hav e s p e n t t he months of his captivity in prayer and fasting. Many people b e l i e v ed in his innocence and were surprised when the execution was carr i e d o u t .]
"Waltheof was the last of the Old English earls to survive under Willia m I , h i s e x ecution for treason in 1076 marking a significant stage in t he a r i s t ocratic and tenurial revolution which followed 1066.
As one of the few English magnates not from the Godwin faction, he acce p t e d a n d was accepted by William I, witnessing royal charters and remai n i n g l o yal to the new regime until 1069 when he joined with the Danes i n t h e i r i nvasion of Northumbria.
He was prominent in their capture of York, hoping, no doubt, to be rest o r e d t o h is father's position. This opportunism is perhaps more charact e r i s t ic of English magnate reactions to the political turmoil of 1065-7 0 t h a n a n y supposed national feeling. However, the revolt and invasion w e r e d e f eated by William's winter campaign of 1069-70.
It is a measure of William's insecurity that when Waltheof submitted in 1 0 7 0 h e w a s restored to royal favour and, in 1072, added the earldom of N o r t h u mbria to his holdings. To bind him more tightly to the Norman disp e n s a t ion, William gave him his niece Judith in marriage. But in 1075, W a l t h e of was implicated in the largely French revolt led by Ralph, earl o f N o r f o lk, and Roger, earl of Hereford. Despite his lack of military ac ti o n , h i s confession, apparent contrition and the support of Archbishop L a n f r a nc, Waltheof was executed on 31 May 1076.
The king's motives are obscure. Waltheof was the only prominent English m a n t o b e e xecuted in the reign. Perhaps his removal was part of Willia m ' s j u s tifiably nervous response to the problem of controlling Northumb r i a . I t m ay have made sense to take the chance to remove a potential -- - a n d p r o ven --- focus of northern discontent. Yet Waltheof's heirs wer e n o t h a r ried, one daughter, Matilda, marrying David I of Scotland (104 2- 5 3 ) , a nd another Ralph IV of Tosny, a leading Norman baron.
Waltheof is a significant reminder that the period around 1066 was tran s i t i o nal, with no necessarily definite beginnings or endings. Waltheof a d a p t e d to the new order, falling foul, it seems, of the ambitions and s c h e m e s of others, not least of parvenus Frenchmen. He married into the n e w e l i t e, yet embodied the old. Heir to both English and Anglo-Danish t r a d i t ions, it was he who completed one of the most celebrated of Anglo- S a x o n b lood-feuds.
In 1016, Uchtred, earl of Northumbria was murdered by a northern noblem a n c a l l ed Thurbrand. He was, in turn, killed by Uchtred's son and succe s s o r , E aldred, who was himself slain by Thurbrand's son, Carl. Waltheof ' s m o t h er was Ealdred's daughter and he avenged his great-grandfather a n d g r a n dfather by massacring a number of Carl's sons.
=== Burial ===
bur. Crowland Abbey where,[body initially thrown in a ditch, but wa s r e t r i eved and buried in chapter house of Croyland Abbey.]
(Royal Ancestry) Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland was executed at Winch e s t e r , Hampshire 31 May 1075 (or 1076). Two weeks afterwards the king a l l o w e d his body to be removed to Croyland Abbey, Lincolnshire, where th e a b b o t b uried him in the chapterhouse.; his remains were subsequently t r a n s l ated into the church near the altar.
Waltheof had posthumous fame in a cult that venerated him as a saint by t h e m i d - twelfth century[Cult of martyrdom: In 1092, after a fire in t h e c h a p ter house, the abbot had Waltheof's body moved to a prominent pl a c e i n t h e abbey church. When the coffin was opened, it is reported tha t t h e c o r pse was found to be intact with the severed head re-joined to t h e t r u n k. This was regarded as a miracle, and the abbey, which had a fi n a n c i al interest in the matter began to publicise it. As a result, pilg r i m s b e gan to visit Waltheof's tomb.]
: After a few years healing miracles began to occur in the vicinity of W a l t h e of's tomb, often involving the restoration of the pilgrim's lost s i g h t . Yet his career in the north shows that not far beneath the m e a s u r ed tones of Norman propagandists or the efficient gloss of English b u r e a u cratic procedures simmered the violence of Dark Age epic.[ Who's Who in Early Medieval England, Christopher Tyerman, Shephear d - W a l wyn, Ltd., London, 1996; Encyclop�dia Britannica CD, 1997; Per Jim W e b e r < /ref>]
== Sources ==
* Wright, James. History and Antiquities of the County of R u t l a n d. 1684. London. Lineage of Waltheof. page 51.[https://babel.hathi t r u s t .org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015084595555&view=1up&seq=71]* Royal Ancestry 2 0 1 3 D . R i chardson Vol. I p. 277-278. Vol. V page 489.
* Powlett, Catherine Lucy Wilhelmina. ''[[Spa c e : T h e Battle Abbey Roll with some Account of the Norman Lineages|The B a t t l e A bbey Roll with some Account of the Norman Lineages]]'' (John Mur r a y , L o n don, 1889)
* Cawley, C. (2006). Medieval Lands v.3. [fmg.ac].
* Haydn, J. (1841). [[Space: Haydn's Dictionary of Dates and Universal I n f o r m ation|Haydn's Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information]], (1s t e d , p p . 63). London: Edward Moxon and Co. [https://books.google.com/bo ok s ? i d =eo3bC8OL_CIC&pg=PA63 Google Books].::* "Beheading - or ''Decolla t i o ' ' o f the Romans, introduced into England from Normandy, (as a less i g n o m i nious mode of putting high criminals to death) by William the Conq u e r o r , 1074, when Watheof, earl of Huntingdon, Northampton, and Northum b e r l a nd, was first so executed. - Salmon's Chron."
* Vivian, J.L., ''[[Space:The Visitations of Cornwall Comprising the He r a l d s ' Visitations of 1530, 1573 & 1620|The Visitations of Cornwall Com p r i s i ng the Heralds' Visitations of 1530, 1573 & 1620]]'' (William Poll a r d & C o . , Exeter, 1887) p.105 Digital Image (Statue)
* Who's Who in Early Medieval England, Christopher Tyerman, Shepheard-W a l w y n , Ltd., London, 1996; Encyclop�dia Britannica CD, 1997
* [[Wikipedia: Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria]]
* ''[[Space:Reports and Papers of the Architectural and Archaeological S o c i e t ies of the Counties of Lincoln and Northampton|Reports and Papers] ] o f t h e A r chitectural and Archaeological Societies of the Counties of L i nc o l n a nd Northampton'' (Savill and Edwards, London, 1850) Vol. 1, [ht t p s : / /archive.org/stream/reportspapersofa01asso#page/236/mode/1up Page 2 3 6 ]
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1045 - Abt 1076 (31 years)
