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In the autumn of the year of Gerberoi Malcolm had made another wasting inroad into Northumberland. With the King absent and Northumberland in confusion through the death of Walcher, this wrong went unavenged till the autumn of 1080.
And to that cry, Walcher himself and his companions, the murderers of Ligulf among them, were slaughtered by the raging multitude who had gathered to avenge him. The riot in which Walcher died was no real revolt against William's government. Such a local rising against a local wrong might have happened in the like case under Edward or Harold.
Now beneath this tree, far removed from the fire, sat a great swarthy fellow, chin on fist, scowling down at that which lay at his feet, and of a sudden he spurned this still and silent shape with savage foot. "Oswin!" he cried, "Walcher! Throw me this useless carrion into the pool!" Hereupon came two sturdy rogues who, lifting the dead betwixt them, bore her to the edge of the silent pool.
The rising was soon crushed, but, a few years later, Bishop Walcher was obliged to grant to the citizens the charters which Bishop Gérard had refused them, and even when, in 1107, the Emperor Henry V tore up Cambrai's charter, the town preserved its sheriffs and magistrates.
The visit of 1082 was a memorable one; there is no more characteristic act of the Conqueror than the deed which marks it. The cruelty and insolence of his brother Ode, whom he had trusted so much more than he deserved, had passed all bounds. In avenging the death of Walcher he had done deeds such as William never did himself or allowed any other man to do.
"Why truly, brother my lord, if one there be can twang a lusty bow and hath a cool and soldier-like head 'tis Jenkyn o' the Ford, and after him Walcher, and after him " "Jenkyn, do you henceforth look to our archers. Are these matters heard and known among ye?" "Aye!" came the thunderous answer.
They are commonly Normans, but Walcher, who became Bishop of Durham in 1071, was one of those natives of Lorraine who had been largely favoured in Edward's day. At the time of William's death Wulfstan was the only Englishman who kept a bishopric. Even his deprivation had once been thought of.
The failure of Walcher, Bishop of Durham, to keep his own subordinates in order, led to a local riot, in which the bishop and many of his officers and clergy were murdered, and which was avenged in his usual pitiless style by the king's brother Odo.
The years from 1069 to 1080 were evil years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed; and, as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of Bayeux and Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more, partly in revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead, and partly to punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman territory.
But Northumberland, close on the Scottish border, still needed an earl; but there is something strange in the choice of Bishop Walcher of Durham. It is possible that this appointment was a concession to English feeling stirred to wrath at the death of Waltheof. The days of English earls were over, and a Norman would have been looked on as Waltheof's murderer.
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