Waltheof replied, "Take it if you can, for assuredly I will not surrender it while life lasts." The King then bribed the Danes to withdraw, by a large sum of money and permission to ravage the northern coasts, and invested the city. A breach was made in the walls, and William of Malmesbury says—"Waltheof, a man of great muscular strength and courage, stood in the breach, and killed a great number of Normans who attempted to enter." He states, also, that a battle was fought outside the walls, and that Waltheof was the victor. The siege lasted six months, and the city was reduced at last by famine, after which the King committed the horrible crime of laying waste the country from York to Durham so effectually that for nine years neither spade nor plough was put in the ground, and the miserable survivors who escaped his sword were compelled to eat the most loathsome food to sustain life.
Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, and Waltheof fled to Scotland, but afterwards tendered their submission to the King, the latter in person, the other by proxy. Waltheof was a man of immense power and influence as Lord of Hallamshire, Malton, and many another broad manor in Yorkshire and other counties, and was, besides, a skilful warrior and brave soldier, and the King, admiring his qualities, longed to win him over as his liege man. He therefore pardoned him, restored him to his Earldoms, and added thereto that of Northumbria, from which he had deposed Gospatric. Moreover, he gave him in marriage his niece, Judith, daughter of Eudes, Earl of Champagne, thinking thus to make sure of his loyalty.
Soon after he entered upon his new Earldom he committed a crime which is a blot upon his name, but which was considered justifiable in that age. A deadly feud existed between the descendants of Ughtred and those of one Thorbrand of York. Thorbrand was the enemy of the father of the second wife of Ughtred, who only obtained her hand by undertaking to kill him, but was murdered himself by Thorbrand. Earl Ealdred then, in retaliation, assassinated Thorbrand, and was in turn killed by Carl, son of Thorbrand, and a series of murders followed, which were completed by a wholesale massacre of the sons of Carl by Waltheof, when they were feasting at the house of their elder brother at Settrington, two only escaping.
There was a great feast in the eastern counties to celebrate the marriage of Ralph, Earl of Suffolk, with Emma, daughter of Roger, son of William, Earl of Hereford, and Waltheof was one of the guests. This marriage had been prohibited by the King, who was now in Normandy, and advantage was taken of his absence to consummate it, which was, in the eye of the law, a treasonable act. After the dinner, the conversation turned upon the tyranny of King William, and, as the guests became heated with wine, they framed a plot to depose him, and place one of themselves as King in his room, the rest to be his proximate peers. Waltheof is said to have taken the oath on compulsion, but the following morning repented of having done so, and went to Archbishop Lanfrane for absolution, who advised him to go to the King, explain the matter, and implore his pardon. He had, however, foolishly mentioned it to his wife Judith, who, wishing to get rid of "the Saxon churl" and marry a Norman, sent an exaggerated account of the conspiracy to her uncle, with the intimation that her husband was most deeply implicated in it. Waltheof went to Normandy, revealed the plot to the King, and asked his forgiveness for the part he had been compelled to take in it, who assured him of pardon, and they returned to England together.
The King, however, who had now for some time looked upon Waltheof as too powerful for a subject, thought this a favourable opportunity to get rid of him, and when he arrived in England, committed him to prison at Winchester. He then caused him to be arraigned at the Pentecostal gemôte, on a charge of treasonable conspiracy, and he was condemned to death. A few days after he was brought out into the market-place at Winchester, and there beheaded; the first instance, says Kennett, of decapitation in England. Ingulphus says that Judith might have saved him, but she desired his death that she might marry again, and afterwards experienced feelings of remorse for her cruelty. She subsequently fell into disgrace with her uncle for refusing to marry one who was lame. Her name appears in Domesday Book as Lady of the Manors of Hallam, Sheffield, and Attercliffe.
By his wife Judith he had issue, three daughters, co-heiresses—Matilda, who married first Simon de St. Liz, and secondly, David I., King of Scotland, thus conveying the Earldom of Huntingdon to the Scottish Royal Family; Alice, who married Richard Fitz Gilbert, whose granddaughter and heiress married Richard Fitz Ooth, from whom was Robert Fitz Ooth, who claimed the Earldom of Huntingdon on the failure of the Scottish male line, and who is generally supposed to be identical with the outlaw Robin Hood; and Judith, who married first Ralph de Toney, secondly Robert, son of Richard de Tonbridge, from whom descended the Barons and Earls Fitzwalter, the Earldom becoming extinct, and the Barony falling in abeyance in 1753, the latter being called out in 1868, in the person of Sir Brook William Brydges, fifth Baronet of, County Kent.
[The Murderer's Bride.]
