Revolt of the Earls

Waltheof soon lost heart and confessed the conspiracy to Archbishop of Canterbury Lanfranc, who urged Earl Roger to return to his allegiance, and finally excommunicated him and his adherents.

Roger, who was to bring his force from the west to join Ralph, was held in check at the River Severn by the Worcestershire fyrd which the English bishop Wulfstan brought into the field against him.

Ralph in the meantime encountered a much superior force under the warrior bishops Odo of Bayeux and Geoffrey de Montbray (the latter ordered that all rebels should have their right foot cut off) near Cambridge and retreated hurriedly to Norwich, hotly pursued by the royal army.

Meanwhile, the Countess held out in Norwich until she obtained terms for herself and her followers, who were deprived of their lands, but were allowed forty days to leave the realm.

It is said he had been a man of immense bodily strength, but weak-willed and unreliable yet devout and charitable, and so was regarded by the English as a martyr.