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'Waltheof' (1050-31 May 1076), Earl of Northumbria and last of the Anglo-Saxon earls. He was the only English aristocrat to be formally executed during the reign of William I. He was reputed for his physical strength but was weak and unreliable in character.
He was said to be devout and charitable and was probably educated for a monastic life. In fact, around 1065 he became Earl of Northumbria, possibly including the earldoms of Northampton and Huntingdon.
Following the Battle of Hastings he submitted to William and was allowed to keep his pre-Conquest title and possessions.
When Sweyn II invaded Northern England in 1069 Waltheof and Edgar Ætheling joined the Danes and took part in the attack on York. He would again make a fresh submission to William after the departure of the invaders in 1070. He was restored to his earldom, and went on to marry William's niece, Judith of Lens. In 1072, he was appointed Earl of Northampton.
The Domesday Book mentions Waltheof ("''Walleff''"); "'In Hallam ("''Halun''"), one manor with its sixteen hamlets, there are twenty-nine ''carucates'' [~14 km²] to be taxed. There Earl Waltheof had an "Aula" [hall or court]. There may have been about twenty ploughs. This land Roger de Busli holds of the Countess Judith." (Hallam, or Hallamshire, is now part of the city of Sheffield.
In 1075 Waltheof joined the Revolt of the Earls against William. He again repented, confessing his guilt first to Archbishop Lanfranc, and then in person to William, who was at the time in Normandy. He returned to England with William but was arrested, brought twice before the king's court and sentenced to death.
He was beheaded on May 31,1076 at St. Giles's Hill, near Winchester. Regarded by the English as a martyr, miracles were rumoured at his tomb in Crowland.
The earldom of Northampton died with him and he would remain the last person to hold a Saxon-era title until the Earl of Wessex nearly a thousand years later.

Contents

Family and children

References

Family and children

He was a son of Earl Sigurd, Earl of Northumbria.
In 1070 he married Judith of Lens, daughter of Lambert II, Count of Lens and Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale. They had three daughters, the eldest of whom, Maud, brought the earldom of Huntingdon to her second husband, David I of Scotland.
One of Waltheof's grandsons was Waltheof (d. 1159), abbot of Melrose.

References

★ Chronicle of Britain ISBN 1-872031-35-8

★ Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines 98A-23, 130-25.

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