Treachery of the Earls
The year 1069 was a turning point in the Norman Conquest, for the treachery of the Earls seems to have snapped William's patience. He stripped Earls Edwin and Morcar of their titles and replaced Archbishop Stigand in Canterbury with his old friend and confidant from Normandy, Lanfranc. At the same time, he installed a Norman into the archbishopric of York, left vacant by the death of Ealdred in that year, and replaced four other English bishops implicated in the uprisings with Norman prelates. Yet he was still prepared to use Englishmen in his administration. Wulstan of Worcester was the most prominent English bishop remaining, whilst William seems to have recognised that Earl Waltheof had joined the rebellion in an effort to win Northumbria as his rightful inheritance, taken from him by Tostig in 1055. He installed Waltheof as Earl of Bamburgh and Northumbria, marrying the earl to his niece, Judith, in an attempt to secure family loyalty.
'The revolt was a disaster...'
It was a vain hope. Waltheof was implicated in the last great revolt of William's reign; the Revolt of the Earls in 1075. This was an uprising planned by the Norman Earl Roger of Hereford and the Breton Ralph de Gael of Norfolk, who were once again dissatisfied with the encroachments of the sheriffs on their traditional prerogatives. The revolt was a disaster: Ralph was bottled up in Norfolk Castle, from which he fled to Brittany (leaving his wife to surrender); Earl Roger was stopped in Herefordshire by a force led by two English bishops, among them Wulstan of Worcester; and Waltheof fled to Normandy to expose the plot and throw himself on the King's mercy. He seems to have become caught up in the ongoing feud between his patron, Archbishop Lanfranc, and Odo of Bayeux, because after a year of imprisonment, he was beheaded in the King's absence by a powerful group of his enemies led by Odo. His skald, Thorkell, wrote a telling lamentation for his dead master, which given the foolishness of his actions does not seem truly deserved:
William crossed the cold Channel and reddened the bright swords, and now he has betrayed the noble Earl Waltheof. Truly the slaying of men in England will be a long time ending.
Published: 2001-05-01
Bookmark with:
What are these?