Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/25

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king's son Edmund in 1016, and together they ravaged the shires that refused to help them against the Danes. Finding, however, that Canute was threatening York, Uhtred hastened northwards, and was forced to submit to the Danish king and give him hostages. Canute bade him come to him at a place called Wiheal (possibly Wighill, near Tadcaster), and instructed or allowed his enemy Thurbrand to slay him there. As Uhtred was entering into the presence of the king a body of armed men of Canute's retinue emerged from behind a curtain and slew him and forty thegns who accompanied him, and cut off their heads. He was succeeded in his earldom by Canute's brother-in-law Eric, and on Eric's banishment the earldom came to Uhtred's brother, Eadwulf Cutel, who had probably ruled the northern part of it under Eric.

By Ecgfrida, Uhtred had a son named Ealdred (or Aldred), who succeeded his uncle, Eadwulf Cutel, in Bernicia, the northern part of Northumbria, slew his father's murderer, Thurband, and was himself slain by Thurbrand's son Carl; he left five daughters, one of whom, named Elfleda, became the wife of Earl Siward [q. v.] and the mother of Earl Waltheof [q. v.]. By Ethelred's daughter Elgiva, Uhtred had a daughter named Aldgyth or Eadgyth, who married Maldred, and became the mother of Gospatric (or Cospatric), earl of Northumberland [q. v.]. He also had two other sons—Eadwulf, who succeeded his brother Ealdred as earl in Bernicia and was slain by Siward, and Gospatric. His wife, Ecgfrida, married again after he had repudiated her, and had a daughter named Sigrid, who had three husbands, one of them being this last-named Eadwulf, the son of her mother's husband. Ecgfrida was again repudiated, returned to her father, became a nun and died, and was buried at Durham (on these northern marriages see Robertson's Essays, p. 172).

[De Obsid. Dunelm. ap. Sym. of Durham, i. 215–20, also ii. 197, 383; Will. of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum, ii. cc. 170, 180 (both Rolls Ser.); A.-S. Chron. ann. 1013, 1016; Flor. Wig. (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Freeman's Norm. Conq. i. 358, 394, 416.]

W. H.

UHTRED, UTRED, or OWTRED (1315?–1396), Benedictine theologian, sometimes called John Utred, was born about 1315 at Boldon, North Durham, whence he is also called Uhtred Boledunus, and erroneously Uhtred Bolton. Apparently about 1332 he entered the Benedictine order, being at Michaelmas 1333 attached to the cell at Boldon belonging to the Benedictine monastery at Durham. In February 1337 he was sent to London, and in March 1340 was one of the scholars regularly sent by the Benedictines of Durham to undergo the regular course of study at Oxford. In 1344 he removed to Stamford, probably because the Benedictines had a cell there, and not owing to the secession thither from Oxford ten years before. In 1347 he was again at Oxford, and probably graduated in arts, having accomplished the requisite seven years' course of study. At Michaelmas 1352, after the further requisite four or five years' study, he was licensed ‘ad opponendum,’ i.e. to dispute with incipient graduates, a license which apparently conferred the degree of B.D. Two years later he was licensed to lecture on the Sentences, and in 1357 on the Bible, thus becoming ‘sacræ theologiæ professor’ or D.D. (Vita Compendiosa apud Add. MS. 6162, f. 31 b; cf. Rashdall, Universities, ii. 452–3). In these capacities he had some notable disputations at Oxford, mostly attacks on the friars (Little, Greyfriars at Oxford, pp. 243, 253). One John Tryvytlian celebrated these performances in a poem on Uhtred, printed in Hearne's ‘Vita Ricardi II’ (App. p. 357), and again in Wood's ‘History and Antiquities’ (ed. Gutch, i. 491). Bale and other writers have described Uhtred as a supporter of Wyclif, but the only ground for the assertion is that both attacked the friars. Bale also states that the Dominicans at Oxford accused Uhtred of introducing new opinions, and endeavoured to procure his expulsion from the church. In 1367 Uhtred was appointed prior of Finchale Abbey, and in 1368 sub-prior of Durham. He was reappointed prior of Finchale in 1379, 1386, and 1392, and sub-prior of Durham in 1381.

In 1373 Uhtred was sent, with Wyclif and others, by Edward III to Bruges to complain of various proceedings of the pope, such as keeping benefices vacant (Higden, Polychron. viii. 379; Walsingham, Hist. Angl. i. 316; Rymer, Fœdera, Record ed. iii. 1007). In 1374, as proctor for Durham, he attended a great council held at Westminster, under the presidency of the Black Prince, to determine the question of papal tribute. According to the curious account given in the ‘Flores Historiarum,’ Uhtred maintained the temporal suzerainty of the pope, which was unanimously approved; but on the following day an opposite decision was reached. Uhtred retracted his opinion, and answer was returned to the pope that King John's surrender was invalid as lacking the consent of the barons and the realm (Flores Hist. Rolls Ser. iii. 337–9). Uhtred was again