if he was indeed the son of William fitz Duncan, was alive for the first seven years at least of his time as a Bishop of the Isles. So long as his father was alive, Wimund need hardly "[feign] himself to be the son of the earl of Moray and that he was deprived of the inheritance of his fathers by the king of Scotland" as William says. But William may be anticipating himself; Wimund's first conflict was not with his uncle King David I, but with a fellow bishop, and there is no reason to suppose that these two conflicts were linked. During Wimund's episcopate, or shortly before its beginning, Gille Aldan was consecrated Bishop of Whithorn, probably by the agreement of Fergus of Galloway and Archbishop Thurstan, and with the approval of Pope Honorius III. The lands of the recreated Bishopric of Whithorn had probably been subject to the Bishops of the Isles, and for rival bishops to employ armed force to drive off their rivals was hardly unknown. Thus, rather than to gain his inheritance, Wimund's struggle with Gille Aldan was apparently an attempt to prevent his bishopric being partitioned in favour of a rival. After being captured, he was blinded and castrated and spent the rest of his life at the monastery at Byland Abbey in North Yorkshire. Notes References John of Fordun, Chronicle of the Scottish Nation. Edited by William Forbes Skene, translated by Felix J.H. Skene. Reprinted, Llanerch Press, Lampeter, 1993. R. Andrew McDonald, Outlaws of Medieval Scotland: Challenges to the Canmore Kings, 1058–1266. Tuckwell Press, East Linton, 2003. William of Newburgh, Historia rerum anglicarum, Book 1 Ch.24, "Of bishop Wimund, his life unbecoming a bishop, and how he was deprived of his sight", Full-text online. Richard Oram, David I: The King who made Scotland. Tempus, Stroud, 2004. "Heard at Byland: Wimund’s Woes" from Byland Abbey website, Retrieved Jan. 2005. 12th-century Christian monks 12th-century Scottish bishops Bishops of the Isles Eunuchs Furness People of the Kingdom of the Isles