Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/273

 nack in Northamptonshire, to help Abbot Ulfcytel in building his new church, and placed his cousin Morkere, the younger son of Ligulf [see under ] by Waltheof's mother's sister, at Jarrow to be educated as a monk, giving the convent with him the church and lordship of Tynemouth (, Historia Regum, c. 166; Monasticon, i. 236). Nevertheless he unjustly kept possession of two estates in Northamptonshire that had been given to Peterborough by his stepmother, and had after her death been held, with the consent of the convent, by his father Siward for his life. He entered into an agreement with the abbot Leofric, in the presence of Edward the Confessor, by which he received five marcs of gold in consideration of at once giving up one of the estates, keeping the other for his life, but broke the agreement and kept both. During the reign of Harold he repented, and, going to Peterborough, assured the convent that both should come to it on his death (Codex Diplomaticus, iv. No. 927); they were, however, both held by the widow (Norman Conquest, iv. 257).

Waltheof's execution was an unprecedented event, and the Conqueror, who, though terrible in his punishments, never condemned any one else to death, must have been influenced in his case by some special consideration such as would be afforded by the belief that he was the main cause of a foreign invasion. The act of severity has been regarded as the turning point in William's reign, and was believed to have been connected with his subsequent troubles and ill-success (, u.s. p. 605;, p. 544). Though his father was a Dane by birth, Waltheof was regarded as a champion of English freedom and a national hero, and his penitence and death caused him to be venerated by the English as a saint and martyr. His body was first buried hastily at the place of execution; a fortnight later the Conqueror, at Judith's request, allowed Abbot Ulfcytel to remove it to Crowland, where it was buried in the chapter-house of the abbey. Ten years later Ulfcytel was deposed, possibly because he encouraged the reverence paid to the earl's memory at Crowland. His successor, Ingulf [q. v.], caused Waltheof's body to be translated and laid in the church in 1092, when, on the coffin being opened, it was found to be undecayed and to have the head united to it, a red line only marking the place of severance. Miracles began to be worked in great number at the martyr's new tomb (Miracula S. Waldevi). The next abbot, Geoffrey (d. 1124), though he was a Frenchman, would not allow a word to be spoken in disparagement of the earl, and was rewarded with a vision of Waltheof in company with St. Bartholomew and St. Guthlac, when the apostle and the hermit made up by their alternate remarks an hexameter line to the effect that Waltheof was no longer headless, and, though he had been an earl, was then a king. Under the next abbot, Waltheof, the son of Gospatric, the monks sent to the English-born Orderic, who had beforetime visited their house, to write an epitaph for the earl, which he did and inserted in his ‘History.’

Waltheof left three daughters. The eldest, Matilda, married, first, Simon de Senlis, who was in consequence made earl of Northampton [q. v.]; by him she was mother of Waltheof (d. 1159) [q. v.]; she married, secondly, David I [q. v.] king of Scotland. The second, Judith, married Ralph of Toesny, the younger; and the third married Robert FitzRichard [see under, (d. 1090?)] (, viii. 37). His widow Judith founded a house of Benedictine nuns at Elstow, near Bedford (Monasticon, iii. 411).

[Flor. Wig. (Engl. Hist. Soc.); A.-S. Chron. ed. Plummer; Orderic, Will. of Jumièges (both ed. Duchesne); Sym. Dunelm., Will. of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum, Liber de Hyda (all Rolls Ser.); Will. of Poit. ed. Giles; Vita et Passio Wadevi, Miracula S. Waldevi ap. Chron. Angl.-Norm. vol. ii. ed. Michel, of no historical value except as regards the cult; Corp. Poet. Bor.; Freeman's Norm. Conq.] 

WALTHEOF (d. 1159), saint and abbot of Melrose, was the second son of Simon de Senlis, earl of Northampton and Huntingdon [q. v.], by Matilda, eldest daughter of Waltheof (d. 1076) [q. v.], earl of Huntingdon and Northumberland. He must be distinguished from Waltheof, son of Gospatric, abbot of Crowland (, Norman Conquest, iv. 524, 603, v. 828). Waltheof showed an inclination to the church from his earliest years, and became a canon regular at Nostal in Yorkshire, not wishing to enter a house on his brother's domains, in the fear of being compelled by him to return to secular life. He quitted Nostal, and became prior of Kirkham in the same county. His biographer relates several miracles wrought by him while here, and asserts that the archbishopric of York was offered to him and refused. Doubts which had for some time troubled him as to the sufficient austerity of the Augustinian rule led to his finally quitting Kirkham, in spite of the forcible remonstrance of his monks, who even invoked ecclesiastical censure on their deserting prior. He entered the Cister-