Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/272

 [q. v.], bishop of Durham, and was always ready to enforce the bishop's decrees.

Through his mother Waltheof inherited the blood feud which had been begun by the murder of his great-grandfather, Earl Uhtred, and, hearing in 1073 that the sons of Carl, the murderer of his grandfather Ealdred, were met together with their sons to feast at the house of their eldest brother at Settrington in the East Riding, he sent a strong band of men, who fell upon them unawares, slew them all except two of Carl's sons—Canute, who was extremely popular, and Sumorled, who chanced not to be there—and returned to their lord laden with spoil of all kinds. In 1075 he was present at the wedding feast of Ralph Guader [q. v.] or Wader, earl of Norfolk; and he was invited to join in the conspiracy, that was made on that occasion, to divide the whole country between him and the Earl of Norfolk and Hereford, one of them to be the king and the other two earls. He appears to have been entrapped against his will into giving his consent ( an. 1074;, pp. 534–5, represents him as refusing his consent, but swearing secrecy). He repented, and as soon as he could went to Lanfranc [q. v.] and confessed to him the unlawful oath that he had taken. The archbishop prescribed him a penance, and counselled him to go to the king, who was then in Normandy, and lay the whole matter before him. He went to William, told him what he had done, offered him treasure, and implored his forgiveness. The king took the matter lightly, and Waltheof remained with him until his return to England, when the rebellion was over. Before long, however, the Danish fleet, which had been invited over by the rebels, appeared in the Humber, and the king caused Waltheof to be arrested and imprisoned.

At Christmas he was brought to trial before the king at Winchester, on the charge of having been privy to, and having abetted, the late rebellion, his wife Judith informing against him. He allowed that he knew of the conspiracy, but flatly denied that he had in any way abetted it. Sentence was deferred, and he was committed to stricter custody at Winchester than before. In prison he passed his time in seeking to make his peace with God by prayers, watchings, fastings, and alms-giving, often weeping bitterly, and daily, it is said, reciting the whole psalter, which he had learned in his youth (ib. p. 536; ) He is also said to have besought the king to allow him to become a monk (Liber de Hyda, p. 294).

Lanfranc expressed his conviction that the earl was innocent of treason and that his penitence was sincere That he did take the oath of conspiracy seems as certain as that he speedily repented of doing so. It is probable that the other conspirators, with or without his assent, used his name to induce the Danes, with whom it would have great influence, to invade England; that he did not tell this to the king, and possibly was not aware of it; and that when William found that the Danish fleet had come, he thought far more seriously of Waltheof's part in the conspiracy than before, and was led by his niece, the earl's wife, to believe, truly or falsely, that her husband was the cause of their coming.

On 15 May 1076 his case was considered in the king's court; he was condemned to death for having consented when men were plotting against the life of his lord, for not having resisted them, and for having forborne publicly to denounce their conspiracy. The order for his execution was soon sent down to Winchester, and early on the morning of the 31st he was led forth from prison before the citizens had risen from their beds, for his guards feared that a rescue might be attempted, and was taken to St. Giles's Hill, which overlooks the city. He wore the robes of his rank as earl, and when he came to the place where he was to be beheaded distributed them among the clergy and the few poor men who happened to be present. He asked that he might say the Lord's prayer. When he had said ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ his voice was choked with tears. The headsman would wait no longer; he drew his sword, and with one blow cut off the earl's head. The bystanders declared that they heard the severed head clearly pronounce the last words of the prayer, ‘but deliver us from evil, Amen.’

Waltheof was tall, well made, and extra-ordinarily strong. Matchless as a warrior, he was weak and unstable in character; he seems to have been made a tool of by the conspirators in 1075, and was probably so deficient in insight as to interpret the Conqueror's clemency to him in 1070 as a sign of weakness, and the subsequent favour that he showed him as a proof that his importance was far greater than it really was. In spite of his vengeance on the family of Carl, which must be viewed in connection with the barbarous state of the north and with the doings of his immediate ancestors, he was a religious man, a constant and devout attendant on divine services, and very liberal to the clergy, monks, and poor. He enriched the abbey of Crowland in South Lincolnshire, bestowing on it the lordship of Bar-