Note 1508 — Chapter VII · RICHARD AND ENGLAND. 1189–1194.

In the first chapter of his Life by Gerald (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 363), we are told that Geoffrey was scarcely twenty when elected to Lincoln, i.e. in 1173. But in l. i. c. 13 (ib. p. 384), Gerald says that he was consecrated to York “anno ætatis quasi quadragesimo,” in 1191. These two dates, as is usual with Gerald in such cases, do not agree, and neither of them pretends to be more than approximate. Still it seems plain that Geoffrey’s birth must fall somewhere between 1151 and 1153. Even if we adopt the latest date, he must have been born in the same year as Eleanor’s first son—the baby William who died in 1156—and must have been at least two years older than the young king, four years older than Richard, and fourteen years older than John.