General Notes

Gospatric; installed 1068/9 by William I the Conqueror as Earl, then predominantly an administrative post after his payment of a heavy fine or what would now be thought of as an entrance fee (though his hereditary claim through his maternal grandfather also played a part).  Later (Oct or Nov 1072) deprived of the Earldom on a charge of having taken part in a massacre at Durham; fled to Scotland, where his cousin Malcolm III of Scotland granted him the Mormaership of Dunbar.  [Burke's Peerage]

A subsequent Earl of Nothumberland was Gospatric, son and heir of Maldred, who in turn was son of Crinan, Lay Abbot of Dunkeld in what is now Perthshire.  Gospatric held the Earldom from c Feb 1068/9 to 1072. Gospatric had a hereditary claim to the office of Earl of Northumberland, as did several of his successors.  Disloyalty or incompetence in governing could lead to an Earls being deprived of his position, however, and when Gospatric rebelled he was ejected.  [Burke's Peerage, Earldom & Dukedom of Northumberland, p. 2117]


Pilgrimage to Rome 1061.