Sigurd , Danish Jarl of Northumbria BIORNSSON

                   on the history of the Earldom of Huntingdon:

The first post-Conquest Earl of Huntingdon appears to have been Waltheof,son of Siward Earl of Northumberland and indeed Siward's successor in thelatter Earldom as well.  Waltheof was later beheaded for conspiringagainst William the Conqueror.  [Burke's Peerage]

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The county which gives designation to this earldom of Huntingdon was,according to Dr. Heylin, a thickly wooded forest until the reign of the2nd Henry, when the timber was first cleared away; the chief town, fromthe celebrity of the forest as a chase, was called Huntingtown, whichsoon became abbreviated into Huntington, or Huntingdon. The Earldom ofHuntingdom was conferred by William the Conqueror upon Waltheof (son ofSyward, the Saxon Earl of Northumberland), who had m. the dau. of thatmonarch's sister, by the mother's side, Judith. He was also Earl ofNorthampton, and of Northumberland, but conspiring against the Normans,he was beheaded in 1073 at Winchester, leaving issue, Maud and Judith.[Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages,Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 467-8, St. Liz, Earls ofHuntingdon]

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Waltheof was the last of the Old English earls to survive under WilliamI, his execution for treason in 1076 marking a significant stage in thearistocratic and tenurial revolution which followed 1066. Younger son ofSiward, the Danish earl of Northumbria (1041-55) and Aelflaed, daughterof Aldred, earl of Northumbria, Waltheof received an earldom consistingof the shires of Huntingdon, Bedford, Northampton, Rutland, and Cambridgein 1065. As one of the few English magnates not from the Godwin faction,he accepted and was accepted by William I, witnessing royal charters andremaining loyal to the new regime until 1069 when he joined with theDanes in their invasion of Northumbria. He was prominent in their captureof York, hoping, no doubt, to be restored to his father's position. Thisopportunism is perhaps more characteristic of English magnate reactionsto the political turmoil of 1065-70 than any supposed national feeling.However, the revolt and invasion were defeated by William's wintercampaign of 1069-70. It is a measure of William's insecurity that whenWaltheof submitted in 1070 he was restored to royal favour and, in 1072,added the earldom of Northumbria to his holdings. To bind him moretightly to the Norman dispensation, William gave him his niece Judith inmarriage. But in 1075, Waltheof was implicated in the largely Frenchrevolt led by Ralph, earl of Norfolk, and Roger, earl of Hereford.Despite his lack of military action, his confession, apparent contritionand the support of Archbishop Lanfranc, Waltheof was executed on 31 May1076.

The king's motives are obscure. Waltheof was the only prominentEnglishman to be executed in the reign. Perhaps his removal was part ofWilliam's justifiably nervous response to the problem of controllingNorthumbria. It may have made sense to take the chance to remove apotential --- and proven --- focus of northern discontent. Yet Waltheof'sheirs were not harried, one daughter, Matilda, marrying David I ofScotland (1042-53), and another Ralph IV of Tosny, a leading Normanbaron.

Waltheof is a significant reminder that the period around 1066 wastransitional, with no necessarily definite beginnings or endings.Waltheof adapted to the new order, falling foul, it seems, of theambitions and schemes of others, not least of parvenus Frenchmen. Hemarried into the new elite, yet embodied the old. Heir to both Englishand Anglo-Danish traditions, it was he who completed one of the mostcelebrated of Anglo-Saxon blood-feuds. In 1016, Uchtred, earl ofNorthumbria was murdered by a northern nobleman called Thurbrand. He was,in turn, killed by Uchtred's son and successor, Ealdred, who was himselfslain by Thurbrand's son, Carl. Waltheof's mother was Ealdred's daughterand he avenged his great-grandfather and grandfather by massacring anumber of Carl's sons.

Waltheof was buried at Crowland Abbey where, as did many martyrs to royalpolicy in the middle ages, he found posthumous fame in a cult which, bythe mid-twelfth century, was venerating him as a saint. Yet his career inthe north shows that not far beneath the measured tones of Normanpropagandists or the efficient gloss of English bureaucratic proceduressimmered the violence of Dark Age epic. [Who's Who in Early MedievalEngland, Christopher Tyerman, Shepheard-Walwyn, Ltd., London, 1996;Encyclopædia Britannica CD, 1997]