Two days later Walter of Rouen landed at Shoreham.[1504] He was evidently not wanted now to act as a check upon William of Longchamp; he might almost expect to be soon wanted as a check upon John; but meanwhile, he could only stand aside and watch the effect of the new arrangements. His passive attitude gave, however, an indirect support to the chancellor; after midsummer, therefore, the latter ventured to repudiate the concessions wrung from him at Winchester; he again advanced upon Lincoln, and formally deprived Gerard of the sheriffdom, which he conferred upon William de Stuteville.[1505] Once more the other bishops interposed, backed now by the Norman primate. Another assembly met at Winchester on July 28,[1506] and here a fresh settlement was made. Gerard was reinstated in the sheriffdom of Lincolnshire, pending his trial in the king’s court; William and John were both bound over to commit no more forcible disseizures; the disputed castles were to be again put in charge for the king, but through the medium of the archbishop of Rouen instead of the chancellor, and John was allowed no voice in the selection of the castellans, who were chosen by the assembly then and there. If the chancellor should infringe the agreement, or if the king should die, these castles were to be given up to John; but all reference to his claims upon the succession to the throne was carefully omitted.[1507] The contest almost seemed to have ended in a drawn battle. It was strictly a contest between individuals, involving no national or constitutional interests. The barons, as a body, clearly sided with John; but, just as clearly, they sided with him from loyal motives. The authority of the Crown was never called in question; the question was, who was fittest to represent and uphold it—the king’s chancellor, or his brother. Of treason, either to England or to Richard, there was not a thought, unless—as indeed is only too probable—it lurked in the mind of John himself.

A drawn battle, however, could not possibly be the end of a struggle between two such men as John of Mortain and William of Longchamp. In the autumn a new element was added to the strife by the return of Archbishop Geoffrey of York. For thirty-five years Geoffrey had been the eldest living child, if indeed he was not actually the first-born, of Henry Fitz-Empress;[1508] but of the vast Angevin heritage there fell to his share nothing, except the strong feelings and fiery temper which caused half the troubles of his life. As a child he had been brought up at court almost on equal terms with his half-brothers;[1509] he seems indeed to have been his father’s favourite, till he was supplanted by the little John. When he grew to manhood, however, Henry could see no way of providing for him except by forcing him into a career for which he had no vocation. At an early age he was put into deacon’s orders and made archdeacon of Lincoln;[1510] in 1173, when about twenty years of age, he was appointed to the bishopric of the same place.[1511] The Pope, however, demurred to the choice of a candidate disqualified alike by his youth and his birth; and when the former obstacle had been outlived and the latter might have been condoned, Geoffrey voluntarily renounced an office in which he would have been secure for life, but which he had never desired and for which he felt himself unfit,[1512] in order to become his father’s chancellor and constant companion during the last eight years of his life. It was Henry’s last regret that this son, the only one of his sons whose whole life had been an unbroken course of perfect filial obedience, had to be left with his future entirely at the mercy of his undutiful younger half-brother. Richard received him with a brotherly welcome;[1513] when, however, he nominated him to the see of York, he was indeed carrying out their father’s last wishes, but certainly not those of Geoffrey himself. Richard seems to have thought that he was held back by other motives than those of conscience or of preference for a secular life; he suspected him of cherishing designs upon the crown.[1514] It can only be said that Geoffrey, so far as appears, never did anything to justify the suspicion, but shewed on the contrary every disposition to act loyally towards both his brothers, if they would but have acted with equal loyalty towards him. As soon however as the tonsure had marked him irrevocably for a priestly life,[1515] Richard’s zeal for his promotion cooled. The bishop of Durham, who was striving to make his see independent of the metropolitan,[1516] and a strong party in the York chapter with whom Geoffrey had quarrelled on a point of ecclesiastical etiquette, easily won the king’s ear;[1517] it was not till the very eve of Richard’s departure from England that Geoffrey was able to buy his final confirmation both in the see of York and in the estates which his father had bequeathed to him in Anjou;[1518] and in March he was summoned over to Normandy and there, like John, made to take an oath of absence from England for three years.[1519]

According to Geoffrey’s own account, he followed his brother as far as Vézelay, and there won from him a remission of this vow.[1520] It is certain that by April 1191 Richard had so far changed his mind again as to be desirous of Geoffrey’s speedy consecration. The Pope’s consent was still lacking; and the negotiations for obtaining this were undertaken by the person who, from Geoffrey’s very birth, had been his most determined enemy—Queen Eleanor. When she went from Messina to Rome to plead his cause with Clement III. or his successor Celestine,[1521] it is plain that natural feeling gave way to motives of policy. She could now see that an archbishop of York might become very useful in England, in holding the balance between Hugh of Durham and William of Ely. His canonical authority and personal influence might furnish, not indeed a counterpoise, but at least a check to the now unlimited powers of the legate. On the other hand, it was the long vacancy of York which more than anything else had tended to Hugh’s exaltation. For ten years the bishop of Durham, with no metropolitan over him, had virtually been himself metropolitan of northern England. He strongly resented the filling of the vacant see, and had actually obtained from Clement III. a privilege of exemption from its jurisdiction.[1522] If the archbishop of York could be reinstated in his proper constitutional position, his own interests would lead him to use it for those of the kingdom and the king.

Geoffrey’s qualifications and disqualifications for such a task may be very easily summed up. He had the Angevin fearlessness, energy, persistence and thoroughness, with a fair share of the versatile capabilities of the family; he had all their impetuosity, but very little of their wariness and tact. Mingled with the Angevin fire, there seems to have run in his veins the blood, and with it the spirit, of a totally different race. If we may credit on such a point the gossip of his father’s court, Geoffrey was through his mother a child of the people—seemingly the English people—and of its very lowest class.[1523] This consideration has more interest at a later stage of Geoffrey’s career, when he stands forth as a champion of constitutional liberty. Until then, there is, so far as we can see, no evidence of any special sympathy between him and the English people. Yet the plebeian and probably English element in him existed, or was believed to exist; and if it did not become, as it easily might have done, an important element in his political career, it was at any rate not unlikely to have exercised some influence upon his character.

Eleanor’s mission to Rome succeeded. Geoffrey’s election and his claim to the obedience of the bishop of Durham were both confirmed by Pope Celestine;[1524] he was consecrated at Tours by Archbishop Bartholomew on August 18, and received his pall on the same day.[1525] He at once put himself in communication with John, to secure a protector on his return to his see;[1526] for William of Longchamp, having had no notice from Richard of the remission of Geoffrey’s vow of absence, refused to believe in it,[1527] and had not only issued orders for the archbishop’s arrest as soon as he should land in England,[1528] but had agreed with the countess of Flanders that no Flemish ship should be allowed to give him a passage. The countess, however, evaded her agreement by letting him sail from Wissant in an English boat.[1529] He landed at Dover on Holy Cross day,[1530] having changed his clothes to avoid recognition.[1531] The constable of Dover, Matthew de Clères, was absent; his wife Richenda was a sister of William of Longchamp; her men-at-arms surrounded the archbishop the moment he touched the shore, recognized him in spite of his disguise, and strove to arrest him, but he managed to free himself from their hands and make his way to the priory of S. Martin, just outside the town. Here for five days Richenda’s followers vainly endeavoured to blockade and starve him into surrender.[1532] On the fifth day a band of armed men rushed into the priory-church, and in the chancellor’s name ordered Geoffrey to quit the country at once. Geoffrey, seated by the altar, clad in his pontifical robes and with his archiepiscopal cross in his hand, set them and their chancellor at defiance.[1533] They dragged him out of the church by the hands and feet; and as nothing would induce him to mount a horse which they brought for him, they dragged him on, still in the same array, still clinging to his cross and excommunicating them as they went, all through the town to the castle, where they flung him into prison.[1534]