" omni laude dignus," and that his being made bishop of Lincoln was hailed with glad assent by king and clergy, and people.1 According to our Lincoln history of him, he did not prove the good bishop that might have been expected from one of so. high repute and glad acceptation. But his foundation of the Sempringham house of St. Catherine, close by Lincoln, and his appropriation to it of four churches, and of one prebend, would be a foul blot on him in Lincoln cathedral eyes, that no excellencies as a bishop would wipe away. There are also charges against him of alienating lands of the church, for purposes not mentioned, and of bestowing other lands on his relations; the loss of St. Alban's again, though no doing or fault of his, was another objection against him. It would seem that he was not at all a model bishop in all ways, but perhaps the Lincoln history gives a somewhat worse account of him than he really deserved.

After what Henry of Huntingdon tells us of Chesney and his election to Lincoln, no trustworthy notice of him is to be found in other general history. The years of Chesney's episcopate are years of all others, where English history especially fails us. The latter years of Stephen, and the first years of Henry II., have no contemporary English annalist or historian, and what the

2

jor adventu, a clero et populo cum devotione susceptus est. "Prosperet ei Deus tempora prava, et juventutem ejus foveat rore "sapientiæ, et exhilaret faciem ejus jocunditate spirituali." Ibid.

66

2 Robert de Monte is invaluable for the Norman, &c. events of the reign of Henry II.; but his notices of English affairs are few and brief. These brief notices, however, form no small part of what authentic history we have of English matters in the early years of Henry II.

nearest writers, Hoveden, Newburgh, Diceto, &c.,meagrely tell us of the events of this period, is very unsatisfactory, and not seldom plainly untrue.1 The exact chronology of this period is, of course, especially a difficult and doubtful puzzle; as to be seen in the several Infra, 36, contradictory dates, all wrong, given to the day of Chesney's death. The early Lincoln obituary, however, Infra, 164. now gives us certainly the right day of the right month, the 27th of December; and it is from no English writer, but from Robert de Monte, that we gather the assurance that it was December 27, 1166.2

n. 2.

Infra, 36, &c., and

198.

1173-1182.

Geoffrey, Elect; After a vacancy of the see of more than six years, at length, in 1173, Geoffrey, an illegitimate son of Henry II. already archdeacon of Lincoln, was elected bishop of Lincoln. He was, however, never actually bishop of Lincoln, as he was never consecrated: His benefactions, I suppose, procured him a place in Lincoln history amongst the bishops.

3

The first part of Giraldus's account of Geoffrey agrees closely with that of John de Schalby: both were no doubt, taken from the contemporary Lincoln records.

1 See Professor Stubb's Preface
to vol. i. of Hoveden (p. xl. &c.).
He says, "The latter years of Ste-
"phen, and the early ones of Henry
"II., are more scantily illustrated
"by contemporary historians than
66 any portion of our national his-
66 tory. It is more difficult to as-
"certain the exact chronology of
"these years, than that of any
"period of equal length since the
"ninth century."

2 See infra, 36, n. 2. Robert de
Monte says, under 1167,
"Ante
"quadragesimam venit rex Rotho-

"ante obierant in Anglia Robertus "Herefordensis et Robertus Lin"colniensis episcopi." (Migne, clx. 502.) Robert, bishop of Hereford, died Feb. 27, 1167.

3 Amongst other benefactions, he gave to the church two grand and sonorous bells (infra, 37, 198). This gift very probably tells us of the completion of the late Norman work, in one or other of the western towers, shortly before or during the time when he was bishop elect. We have not an atom of actual history, as to when or by whom the late Norman work of the west front was erected. A gift of bells very often followed upon the completion of a tower ready to receive them.

The latter part, relating Geoffrey's warlike services in 1174, and his always filial adherence to his father, is probably Giraldus's own.

Geoffrey at once enlists our sympathies, because of his always dutiful affection and services to his father, as contrasted with the disaffection and rebellions of the legitimate sons. Throughout he was "Vere filius natu- Infra, 37. ralis, quoniam patri naturaliter adhærens et fideliter "assistens." No doubt his right and natural place would have been in the court, and the camp, and in marshalling hosts for the wild fury of the battle-field, far rather than in peaceful cathedral precincts, and in the tender duties of a Christian bishop. His pugnacious Plantagenet propensities seem ever to have prevailed with him. As archbishop of York, which he became in 1191, he was at variance with king Richard his brother, with hi suffragan the bishop of Durham and others, and in continual high warfare with his dean and canons of York. He put himself, again, in fierce opposition to his brother John; and the last years of his archiepiscopate were spent in exile. But there is good reason for supposing that Geoffrey, in all this unseemly strife, was the gallant, though perhaps very rash and imprudent champion of righteousness. We can readily understand that he may have had good and righteous reasons for opposing measures of Richard and John: and a strong proof that he had right on his side in the quarrels with his chapter, is given by the fact that St. Hugh of Lincoln so strongly took his part. St. Hugh was a papal delegate in the matter, and went so far as to defy the papal mandate for Geoffrey's suspension. When the canons of York were urgent upon him to obey it, he curtly declared that he would be himself hanged, rather than pass sentence of suspension upon the archbishop.'

1 Hoveden says, under 1195, vol. iii. 305,-"Canonici Eboracensis

"ecclesiæ sæpe et multum sollicita-
"verunt Hugonem Lincolniensem

What little our Lincoln authorities tell us of Geoffrey, is in his favour. The York history, notwithstanding his warfare with the York dignitaries, has not a word against him on the contrary, it describes him as a "Vir magnæ abstinentiæ et summæ puritatis." Wendover, recording his death, says that for seven years he had been in exile, in the cause of the church's liberty, and the execution of justice.2

1

In his Life of Geoffrey, Giraldus says that he was older than Henry's legitimate sons, and close upon twenty years of age when elected to Lincoln in 1173.4 Again he says that Geoffrey's consecration to York in 1191 was in the fortieth year of his age. These dates of Giraldus are not exactly to be reconciled: strange indeed would it be, if in matters of date he made no

5

pro libertate ecclesiæ et execu"tione justitiæ exilium passus est, "diem clausit extremum." Geoffrey died Dec. 18, 1212. Wendover perhaps places his death at the time when the news of it reached him in England, rather than at the time of its actual occurrence. Instead of Wendover's seven years of exile, the York history has, more correctly, five years.

3 "Inter fratres legitimos, Henri cum tertium, Pictavensium quoque et Britonum comites, naturalis "ipse, natuque major, non minori "diligentia est et dilectione nutri"tus." Anglia Sacra, ii. 378.

66

4 "Cum adhuc quartum ætatis suæ vix lustrum implesset, patris assensu, unanimique fratrum con"cordia, vacante sede Lincolniensi, "in ejusdem loci episcopatum est "electus." Ibid.

5" Facta est autem hæc conse"cratio, anno ætatis consecrati XL., . anno ab incarnatione Do "mini MCXCI." Ibid., 388.

...

So.

blunder. But he is not wrong by more than a year or It is clear enough that Geoffrey was the son of some early mistress of Henry, and was born before Henry's accession to the throne of England. That he was a son of fair Rosamond, is a mere embellishment of after romance. Rosamond was a love of Henry's later years, after he had banished queen Eleanor to her long imprisonment. The only contemporary writer, so far as I know, who has any notice of Geoffrey's mother, is Walter Map, a romancing writer, and Geoffrey's bitter enemy, whose testimony therefore in this case is worth very little. He says that she was a "meretrix quædam publica, nihil immunditiæ dedignans," by name Ykenai or Hikenai; and that Geoffrey was a "filius populi," whom she had impudently deluded Henry into accepting as his son, spite of universal belief to the contrary.3

Map's name of Geoffrey's mother may perhaps be true, however untrue may be the vile character he gives her. Another bastard son of Henry II., William Longespée earl of Salisbury, is also with Geoffrey, by after romancers, made a son of fair Rosamond. Is there any evidence that these romancers are so far right, when they make Geoffrey and Longespée full brothers? I have a notion that there is proof of this, though I cannot lay my hands upon it. Now Longespée laid claim to the inheritance of a Sir Roger de Akeny; a name so near to Map's Ykenai, that we can hardly help supposing them identical. It seems probable that Geoffrey's mother was a knight's daughter or sister, and not such a low outcast as Map very improbably represents. Any notice

1 Walter Map confirms this. He speaks of Geoffrey being recognized by Henry as his son in the beginning of his reign. De Nugis Curialium, Camden Soc., 228, 1. 1.

2 See Giraldus's De Principis Instructione, p 21 and 22, Brewer.

4

3 De Nugis Curialium, Camden Soc., p. 228 and 235.

4 I am unable to give a reference for this statement, but I am assured of its truth by information from Professor Stubbs.