Note 551 — Chapter IV · KING JOHN 1206–1210

Rot. Pat. vol. i. pp. 89, 90; R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 222, 228, 229; Gerv. Cant. vol. ii. pp. 100, 103, 104; Ann. Waverl. and Dunst. a. 1208. All the chroniclers have confused the dates, which have to be rectified by the help of the Pope’s letters, the Patent and Close Rolls (both of which, however, unluckily fail in 1209), and Bishop Stubbs’s notes to Gerv. Cant. vol. ii. pp. 103, 104, appendix to preface, ib. pp. xci.–cviii., and W. Coventry, vol. ii. preface, pp. lv., lvi. The sees of Chichester, Exeter, Lincoln and Durham were vacant; before June 21, 1209, Hugh of Wells was elected to Lincoln by desire of the king, who sent him to Normandy to be consecrated by the archbishop of Rouen, but he went to the archbishop of Canterbury instead, and was consecrated by him on December 20 (R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 231; date from M. Paris, Hist. Angl. vol. ii. p. 120, note 4). Carlisle had been administered since 1203 by Bernard, the exiled archbishop of Ragusa. Coventry (or Chester) was vacated in October 1208 by the death of Geoffrey Muschamp, who is mentioned by Gervase among the bishops who went over sea.