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.

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GOSPATRIC [a] son of MALDRED,[b] by Ealdgyth, daughter and heir of Ughtred, PRINCE OF NORTHUMBERLAND (and Elgiva, daughter of ETHELRED, KING OF ENGLAND), was born between 1040 and 1048; is probably identical with the "noble youth" of that name who visited Rome in 1061, in company with Tostig, the brother of Harold II; joined the Danes in an invasion of the north of England, but making peace with William I, was at Christmas 1067 entrusted with the government of Northumberland. Being, however, deprived of that post in October or November 1072, he fled to Scotland, receiving from Malcolm III "Dunbar with the adjacent lands in Lothian." He married. (----), sister of Edmund. He died probably about 1075, and most likely is the "Gospatricus Comes" whose monument was at Durham. He is stated in Hoveden to have died and been buried at Ubbanford [i.e. Norham], not long after his flight to Scotland. [CP 4:504]

(a) "Gospatric" is Celtic for "the servant of Patrick" the word "Gwas" meaning "servant" Joseph Bain found the word as "Qwaspatricius" in an inquisition.

[b] Maldred was probably brother of Duncan, King of Scotland, 1034-40, who was s. of Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld, which Crinan is conjectured (by Skene) to be the same as Crinan Tein, the father of this Maldrcd. Gospatric was thus cousin (paternally) to the Scottish and (maternally) to the English Kings.