abbot of Tavistock, was promoted to the bishopric of Worcester in the year 1046. He had great influence over Edward the Confessor, and procured his reconciliation to Sweyn, the son of Earl Godwin, who had revolted against him. He also restored the union and friendship between King Edward and Griffith, king of Wales. In the year 1050, he went to Jerusalem, which no archbishop or bishop of England had ever done before. On his return to England, he was sent in the year 1054 as ambassador to the emperor Henry II. He staid a whole year in Germany, and was very honourably entertained by Herman, archbishop of Cologne, from whom he learned much relating to ecclesiastical discipline, of which he made use on his return to his own diocese. On the death of Kinsius, archbishop of York, 1060, Aldred was elected in his stead, and was permitted to retain the see of Worcester with the archbishopric of York, as some of his predecessors had done. He was afterwards, however, deprived of it by the pope.

On the death of Edward the Confessor in 1066, Aldred was to have placed the crown on the head of Harold, but before the ceremony could take place, the battle of Hastings intervened. He officiated at the coronation of William the Conqueror, and gained great favour with that monarch, over whose imperious spirit he seems to have exercised a remarkable influence. At the end of a year, however, he broke his allegiance, by escaping into Scotland with Edgar Atheling. He died in September 1069, broken-hearted, according to William of Malmesbury, by the tyranny of the Conqueror. Stubbs, again, ascribes his death to grief at the invasion of the Danes.