Danes, Saxons and Normans; or, Stories of our ancestors

by John G. Edgar

[XLII.]

From the Bayeux Tapestry.

ODO, BISHOP OF BAYEUX.

During the time that King William was on the Continent fighting with Robert Curthose, the government of England was committed to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. Before this period Odo's arrogance had been sufficiently conspicuous, and during the time he exercised viceregal functions events occurred to minister to his pride to such a degree that he became altogether intolerable.

It was one of the great objects of William the Norman to elevate those to whom he was related on the mother's side. After the death of Robert the Devil, Arlette, probably ambitious of figuring in a less equivocal position than that which she had previously occupied, united herself in marriage with Herluin de Couteville, and found herself the mother of two legitimate sons. William did not neglect their interests. One of them, Robert, became Earl of Mortain; the other, named Odo, and dedicated to the Church at an early age, became Bishop of Bayeux.

But, though Bishop of Bayeux, Odo was no meek shaveling nor pale-faced student. He was a daring warrior and a cautious libertine, and is pictured with defiance in his eye and rings on his finger; at one time leading a fiery charge of Norman cavalry, at another inditing love epistles to the dames of Rouen while pretending to be occupied with a treatise on some such relic as the finger of St. Thomas. His addiction to sinful pleasures was, in fact, notorious; and one of the results of his amours was a son, named John, who distinguished himself in the reign of his kinsman, Henry Beauclerc.

In the scenes with which the Norman invasion of England commenced, Odo of Bayeux enacted a prominent part. When Edward the Confessor expired, and Harold usurped the throne of young Atheling, and William calculated the chances of success in the event of undertaking an enterprise, Odo was one of the Normans who met at Rouen, who tendered the hesitating duke their support, and who promised to serve with money and goods, even to pledging or alienating their inheritances. On that day, also, which witnessed the battle of Hastings Odo was a prominent personage. In the morning he celebrated mass and blessed the troops; and, having performed this duty, he mounted his tall white charger and displayed his military skill by setting the cavalry in order for battle.

Hastings having been won, and the work of the Conquest proceeding, Odo's services did not go unrewarded. While his brother Robert became Earl of Cornwall, Odo became Grand Justiciary of England, and obtained the earldom of Kent; and at a later period, having meanwhile shared the whole of Archbishop Stigand's property with Adeliza, wife of Hugh Grantmesnil, he, on the forfeiture of Roger Fitzosborne, received a grant of the earldom of Hereford.

Never had fortune been more favourable to a human being than for years she seemed to Odo. Unluckily for the warlike Bishop of Bayeux, his pride swelled as his power and possessions increased; and at length, when invested, during William's absence from England, with viceregal authority, he lost all sense of discretion, and acted like a man whose head prosperity had turned.