(Hist. St. Augustine's, pp. 350–3, Rolls Ser.), and as justiciar redressed the wrong that Picot, the Norman sheriff of Cambridgeshire, had done to the see of Rochester (Anglia Sacra, i. 336–9).
Odo was present at the synod which, at Whitsuntide 1072, decided on the claims of Canterbury. In 1075 he was one of the leaders of the host which suppressed the rising of Ralph Guader [q. v.] in Norfolk (Flor. Wig. ii. 11). On 23 Oct. 1077 he was present at the consecration of the church of Bec (Chron. Beccense ap. Migne, Patrologia, cl. 646). In 1080 he presided in a court which decided on the liberties of Ely (Hist. Eliensis, pp. 251–2), and in June 1081 was present when the claims of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds were decided (Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, i. 347–9, Rolls Ser.). In 1080 Odo was sent by William to take vengeance on Northumberland for the murder of Bishop Walcher [q. v.] of Durham. The whole county was harried, the innocent and guilty were punished indiscriminately, and Odo himself carried off from Durham a pastoral staff of rare workmanship and material (Sym. Dunelm. ii. 210–11).
Odo had now reached the zenith of his career; but by means of his wealth he hoped to rise yet higher. A soothsayer had foretold that the successor of Hildebrand should bear the name of Odo. This prophecy the Bishop of Bayeux thought to realise in his own person. So ‘stuffing the pilgrims' wallets with letters and coin’ (Will. Malm. Gesta Regum, p. 334), he bribed the leading Roman citizens, and even built himself a palace, which he adorned with such splendour that there was no house like it at Rome (Liber de Hyda, p. 296). Odo further determined to go to Rome in person, and, having bribed Hugh, earl of Chester, and many other Norman knights to accompany him, was on the point of setting out from England when William heard of his designs. The king hurried across from Normandy, and met Odo in the Isle of Wight. There, in an assembly, William set forth his brother's oppressions, exactions, and intended ambitions. Despite William's orders, no one would arrest the bishop, and the king seized him with his own hands, meeting Odo's protest with a declaration that he arrested, not the bishop, but the earl. Wace (9199–9248) alleges that Odo's intention was to secure the crown for himself in case of William's death, and that the immediate cause of his arrest was his failure to render an account of his revenues. Gregory VII severely censured the treatment of the bishop, both in a letter to William himself, and in another to Hugh, archbishop of Lyons (Jaffé, Monumenta Gregoriana, pp. 519, 571). Odo was, however, kept in captivity at Rouen for over four years. When William, on his deathbed, ordered his prisoners to be released, he specially excepted his brother; but, on the urgent entreaty of Robert of Mortain and others, at length gave way. Odo was at once set free, and was present at his brother's funeral at Caen. He speedily recovered all his ancient honour in Normandy, and, according to Orderic, already plotted to displace William Rufus by Robert in England. In the autumn of 1087 he went over to England, regained his earldom, and was present at William II's first midwinter council. But he could not recover his old importance; and, being envious of the superior authority of William of St. Calais, bishop of Durham, he now became the centre of the Norman conspiracy against William. When the war broke out, in Lent 1088, Odo himself plundered Kent, and especially the lands of Lanfranc, to whose advice his four years' imprisonment was said to have been due (Will. Malm. Gesta Regum, p. 361). The king marched against his uncle in person, and captured Tunbridge Castle. At the news, Odo fled to his brother Robert at Pevensey, where, after a six weeks' siege, he was compelled to yield, promising to surrender Rochester also, and then leave England. For this purpose Odo was sent with a guard to Rochester; but the bishop's friends rescued him, and refused to give up the city. A fresh siege soon forced Odo to seek peace once more; but it was only after a remonstrance from his advisers that William would grant any terms, and even then the bishop's petition for the honours of war was indignantly rejected. The English in William's army cried: ‘Halters! halters for the traitor bishop! Let not the doer of evil go unharmed!’ Odo was, however, permitted to depart, but with the loss of all his possessions in England, to which country he never returned.
Odo aspired with more success to hold the first place in Normandy under the weak rule of Robert. It was by his advice that, in the autumn of 1088, the duke's brother Henry and Robert of Belleme [q. v.] were arrested; and when the news brought Roger of Montgomery [q. v.] to Normandy, Odo urged his nephew to destroy the power of the house of Talvas. He also took a prominent part in the campaign of Mans in 1089, and in the opposition to William's invasion of Normandy in 1091 (Ordericus Vitalis, iv. 16). According to Ordericus, it was Odo who, in 1093, performed the mar-
