Gospatric or Cospatric (from the Cumbric "Servant of [Saint] Patrick"),[citation needed] (died after 1073), was Earl of Northumbria, or of Bernicia, and later lord of sizable estates around Dunbar.
Symeon of Durham describes Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, as maternal grandson, through his mother Ealdgyth, of Northumbrian ealdorman Uchtred the Bold and his third wife, Ælfgifu, daughter of King Æthelred II.
The Life of Edward the Confessor, commissioned by Queen Edith, contains an account of the pilgrimage to Rome of Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria.
King William's authority, apart from minor local troubles such as Hereward the Wake and Eadric the Wild, appeared to extend securely across England.
According to Anglo-Norman chroniclers, in 1072 William the Conqueror stripped Gospatric of his Earldom of Northumbria,[9] and replaced him with Siward's son Waltheof, 1st Earl of Northampton.
Gospatric did not long survive in exile according to Roger of Hoveden's chronicle:[N]ot long after this, being reduced to extreme infirmity, he sent for Aldwin and Turgot, the monks, who at this time were living at Meilros, in poverty and contrite in spirit for the sake of Christ, and ended his life with a full confession of his sins, and great lamentations and penitence, at Ubbanford, which is also called Northam, and was buried in the porch of the church there.Neil McGuigan has argued that Waltheof's Norman earldom did not extend beyond the River Tyne, and that Gospatric may have continued to rule the territory to the north from Bamburgh until the late 1070s.