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Waltheof of Bamburgh, Earl of Northumbria (1050 – 31 May 1076)[1]
Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton.[2] Historian Ann Williams also describes him as an Earl of Bamburgh (but not of all Northumbria).[3]
Preceded by Gospatric I |
Earl of Northumbria[1] 1072 – 1076 |
Succeeded by William Walcher |
Siward, Earl of Northumbria (1041-55) and Aelflaed, daughter of Aldred, earl of Bernica[4]
By 1066 Waltheof owned manors in eight counties, mostly in the east midlands (Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, and Lincolnshire), but also two big manors near London (Tottenham and Walthamstow) and the large soke of Hallamshire in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
Waltheof was involved in a revolt, although he never openly rebelled against the King. Nevertheless, he was jailed and after more than a year was executed by beheading on St Giles's Hill outside Winchester on 31 May 1076.[6]
"Waltheof was the last of the Old English earls to survive under William I, his execution for treason in 1076 marking a significant stage in the aristocratic and tenurial revolution which followed 1066.
As one of the few English magnates not from the Godwin faction, he accepted and was accepted by William I, witnessing royal charters and remaining loyal to the new regime until 1069 when he joined with the Danes in their invasion of Northumbria.
He was prominent in their capture of York, hoping, no doubt, to be restored to his father's position. This opportunism is perhaps more characteristic of English magnate reactions to the political turmoil of 1065-70 than any supposed national feeling. However, the revolt and invasion were defeated by William's winter campaign of 1069-70.
It is a measure of William's insecurity that when Waltheof submitted in 1070 he was restored to royal favour and, in 1072, added the earldom of Northumbria to his holdings. To bind him more tightly to the Norman dispensation, William gave him his niece Judith in marriage. But in 1075, Waltheof was implicated in the largely French revolt led by Ralph, earl of Norfolk, and Roger, earl of Hereford. Despite his lack of military action, his confession, apparent contrition and the support of Archbishop Lanfranc, Waltheof was executed on 31 May 1076.
The king's motives are obscure. Waltheof was the only prominent Englishman to be executed in the reign. Perhaps his removal was part of William's justifiably nervous response to the problem of controlling Northumbria. It may have made sense to take the chance to remove a potential --- and proven --- focus of northern discontent. Yet Waltheof's heirs were not harried, one daughter, Matilda, marrying David I of Scotland (1042-53), and another Ralph IV of Tosny, a leading Norman baron.
Waltheof is a significant reminder that the period around 1066 was transitional, with no necessarily definite beginnings or endings. Waltheof adapted to the new order, falling foul, it seems, of the ambitions and schemes of others, not least of parvenus Frenchmen. He married into the new elite, yet embodied the old. Heir to both English and Anglo-Danish traditions, it was he who completed one of the most celebrated of Anglo-Saxon blood-feuds.
In 1016, Uchtred, earl of Northumbria was murdered by a northern nobleman called Thurbrand. He was, in turn, killed by Uchtred's son and successor, Ealdred, who was himself slain by Thurbrand's son, Carl. Waltheof's mother was Ealdred's daughter and he avenged his great-grandfather and grandfather by massacring a number of Carl's sons.
bur. Crowland Abbey where,[7]
(Royal Ancestry) Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland was executed at Winchester, Hampshire 31 May 1075 (or 1076). Two weeks afterwards the king allowed his body to be removed to Croyland Abbey, Lincolnshire, where the abbot buried him in the chapterhouse.; his remains were subsequently translated into the church near the altar.
Waltheof had posthumous fame in a cult that venerated him as a saint by the mid-twelfth century[8] Yet his career in the north shows that not far beneath the measured tones of Norman propagandists or the efficient gloss of English bureaucratic procedures simmered the violence of Dark Age epic.[9]
This week's featured connections are Summer Olympians: Waltheof is 41 degrees from Simone Biles, 32 degrees from Maria Johanna Philipsen-Braun, 26 degrees from Pierre de Coubertin, 27 degrees from Étienne Desmarteau, 28 degrees from Fanny Gately, 34 degrees from Evelyn Konno, 42 degrees from Paavo Johannes Nurmi, 29 degrees from Wilma Rudolph, 41 degrees from Carl Schuhmann, 25 degrees from Zara Tindall, 29 degrees from Violet Robb and 29 degrees from Mina Wylie on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
H > Huntington | O > of Northumberland > Waltheof (Huntington) of Northumberland
Categories: 11th Century | Honour of Fotheringhay | Earls of Northampton | Earls of Huntingdon
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