rials of Fountains.’
- ‘A Summer's Day at Bolton Abbey,’ 1847.
- ‘Visitors' Guide to Redcar,’ 1848.
- ‘On the Oath taken by Members of the Parliaments of Scotland from 1641,’ 1854.
- ‘Notes on the Manuscripts at Ripley Castle,’ 1864.
His manuscripts were after his death purchased by Edward Akroyd of Halifax, and presented by him to York Cathedral Library.
[Canon J. Raine's preface to Memorials of Fountains, 1878, vol. ii.; Memoir by Edward Peacock, F.S.A., in Walbran's Guide to Ripon, 11th edit. 1875; Ripon Millenary Record, 1892, ii. 175; portraits are given in the last two works.]
WALBURGA or WALPURGA (d. 779?), saint, abbess of Heidenheim, was the sister of Willibald [q. v.] and Wynnebald. Their legend calls them the children of a certain Richard, but the name is an impossible one. Boniface (680–755) [q. v.] wrote from Germany, asking that the two nuns Lioba and Walburga might be sent to him (Mon. Mogunt. ed. Jaffé, p. 490), and it is therefore supposed that Walburga was with Lioba at Wimborne, and that she went with her to Germany in 752. Legend, no doubt wrongly, makes Walburga accompany her brothers to Italy in 721. She was present at the death of her brother Wynnebald in 761 at Heidenheim (Holder-Egger, Mon. Ger. Scriptt. xv. 80), and was made abbess of that double monastery. She was living in or after 778, when an anonymous nun wrote lives of her brothers. These lives have been wrongly ascribed to Walburga herself, because the authoress was, like her, of English birth, a relative of the brothers, and a nun of Heidenheim. The writer refers to Walburga as one of her sources of information.
[Mon. Ger. Scriptores, xv. 80, 117, the best edition of the lives of Willibald and Wynnebald; Life of St. Walburga by a Monk, Wolfhard of Herrieden, written at the request of Erchimbald, bishop of Eichstädt (882–912), who removed the relics of Walburga from Eichstädt (whither they had been moved in 870) to Monheim, in 893, in Acta SS. Boll. Feb. iii. 523. There is a long list of lives in Chevalier's Répertoire. On the Walpurgis myth, see Rochholz, Drei Gaugöttinnen, Leipzig, 1870.]
WALCHER (d. 1080), bishop of Durham, was a native of Lorraine, of noble birth, who became a secular priest, and one of the clergy of the church of Liège. In 1071 he was appointed by the Conqueror to succeed Æthelwine as bishop of Durham, and was consecrated at Winchester by Thomas, archbishop of York. As he was being led up the church for consecration, Queen Edith or Eadgyth (d. 1075) [q. v.], the widow of the Confessor, thinking of the lawlessness of the people of the north, and struck by his aspect—for he was very tall, and had snow-white hair and a ruddy complexion—is said to have prophesied his martyrdom. By the king's command he was conducted by Gospatric, earl of Northumberland [q. v.], from York to Durham, where he was installed on 3 April. The Conqueror visited Durham in 1072, and, according to a legend, determined to ascertain whether St. Cuthbert's body really lay there; but while Walcher was celebrating mass before him and his court on 1 Nov. a sudden heat fell upon him, and he left the church in haste. With Waltheof [q. v.], who succeeded Gospatric in that year, Walcher was on friendly terms, finding him ready to carry out every disciplinary measure that the bishop desired to have enforced in his diocese. His church was in the hands of secular clerks, who had little that was clerical about them either in dress or life; they were fathers of families, and transmitted their positions in the church to their sons. One trace only existed of their connection with the earlier guardians of St. Cuthbert's relics: they used the Benedictine offices at the canonical hours. Walcher put an end to this, and, as they were seculars, made them use the same offices as other clerks. Nevertheless, secular as he was, he greatly preferred the monastic to the clerical life, is said to have thought of becoming a monk, designed to make the clergy of his church monastic, and laid the foundations of, and began to raise, monastic buildings adjacent to it, but was prevented by death from going further. He actively promoted the restoration of monasticism in the north which was set on foot by Ealdwine or Aldwin, prior of Winchcombe. Aldwin, moved by reading of the many monasteries that in old time existed in Northumbria, was eager to revive them, and, in company with two brethren from Evesham, settled first at Munecaceastre (Monkschester or Muncaster), the present Newcastle. Walcher invited them to come to him, and gave them the ruined monastery at Jarrow, where they repaired the church, and, being joined by others, raised monastic buildings. Delighted with their work, Walcher gave the new convent the lordship
