The main point of this story is that the revolt met with no English support whatever.Not only did Bishop Wulfstan march along with his fierce Norman brethren Ode and Geoffrey; the English people everywhere were against the rebels.For this revolt offered no attraction to English feeling; had the undertaking been less hopeless, nothing could have been gained by exchanging the rule of William for that of Ralph or Roger.It might have been different if the Danes had played their part better.The rebellion broke out while William was in Normandy; it was the sailing of the Danish fleet which brought him back to England.But never did enterprise bring less honour on its leaders than this last Danish voyage up the Humber.All that the holy Cnut did was to plunder the minster of Saint Peter at York and to sail away.
His coming however seems to have altogether changed the King's feelings with regard to Waltheof.As yet he had not been dealt with as a prisoner or an enemy.He now came back to England with the King, and William's first act was to imprison both Waltheof and Roger.The imprisonment of Roger, a rebel taken in arms, was a matter of course.As for Waltheof, whatever he had promised at the bride-ale, he had done no disloyal act; he had had no share in the rebellion, and he had told the King all that he knew.But he had listened to traitors, and it might be dangerous to leave him at large when a Danish fleet, led by his old comrade Cnut, was actually afloat.Still what followed is strange indeed, specially strange with William as its chief doer.
At the Midwinter Gemot of 1075-1076 Roger and Waltheof were brought to trial.Ralph was condemned in absence, like Eustace of Boulogne.
Roger was sentenced to forfeiture and imprisonment for life.
Waltheof made his defence; his sentence was deferred; he was kept at Winchester in a straiter imprisonment than before.At the Pentecostal Gemot of 1076, held at Westminster, his case was again argued, and he was sentenced to death.On the last day of May the last English earl was beheaded on the hills above Winchester.
Such a sentence and execution, strange at any time, is specially strange under William.Whatever Waltheof had done, his offence was lighter than that of Roger; yet Waltheof has the heavier and Roger the lighter punishment.With Scroggs or Jeffreys on the bench, it might have been argued that Waltheof's confession to the King did not, in strictness of law, wipe out the guilt of his original promise to the conspirators; but William the Great did not commonly act after the fashion of Scroggs and Jeffreys.To deprive Waltheof of his earldom might doubtless be prudent; a man who had even listened to traitors might be deemed unfit for such a trust.It might be wise to keep him safe under the King's eye, like Edwin, Morkere, and Edgar.But why should he be picked out for death, when the far more guilty Roger was allowed to live? Why should he be chosen as the one victim of a prince who never before or after, in Normandy or in England, doomed any man to die on a political charge?
These are questions hard to answer.It is not enough to say that Waltheof was an Englishman, that it was William's policy gradually to get rid of Englishmen in high places, and that the time was now come to get rid of the last.For such a policy forfeiture, or at most imprisonment, would have been enough.While other Englishmen lost lands, honours, at most liberty, Waltheof alone lost his life by a judicial sentence.It is likely enough that many Normans hungered for the lands and honours of the one Englishman who still held the highest rank in England.Still forfeiture without death might have satisfied even them.But Waltheof was not only earl of three shires; he was husband of the King's near kinswoman.We are told that Judith was the enemy and accuser of her husband.This may have touched William's one weak point.Yet he would hardly have swerved from the practice of his whole life to please the bloody caprice of a niece who longed for the death of her husband.And if Judith longed for Waltheof's death, it was not from a wish to supply his place with another.Legend says that she refused a second husband offered her by the King; it is certain that she remained a widow.
Waltheof's death must thus remain a mystery, an isolated deed of blood unlike anything else in William's life.It seems to have been impolitic; it led to no revolt, but it called forth a new burst of English feeling.Waltheof was deemed the martyr of his people; he received the same popular canonization as more than one English patriot.Signs and wonders were wrought at his tomb at Crowland, till displays of miraculous power which were so inconsistent with loyalty and good order were straitly forbidden.The act itself marks a stage in the downward course of William's character.In itself, the harrying of Northumberland, the very invasion of England, with all the bloodshed that they caused, might be deemed blacker crimes than the unjust death of a single man.But as human nature stands, the less crime needs a worse man to do it.Crime, as ever, led to further crime and was itself the punishment of crime.
