Geoffrey joined his youngest brother John in making war on Richard, who retaliated by invading Brittany. Henry called his sons to England in November, and caused them to make peace with each other. He then sent Geoffrey to Normandy. Geoffrey held a parliament at Rennes in 1185, and promulgated a series of six articles called the ‘Assize of Count Geoffrey,’ to restrain the partition of baronies and knight's fees, to prevent the marriage of heiresses without permission, and generally to preserve the rights of the lord (Morice, Histoire de Bretagne, i. 303). Before the spring was over, Geoffrey was worsted by Richard, who had renewed the war against him, and Henry was forced to go over to Normandy and bring Richard to order. Geoffrey was, however, wrathful with his father; he had set his heart on obtaining Anjou after the death of the young Henry, and his father would not give him the county, for he made Richard, now his eldest son, duke of Normandy and count of Anjou in the stead of Henry. Geoffrey's attempt to gain Anjou was no doubt at the bottom of Richard's quarrel with him, though it was nominally about boundaries. Philip of France urged Geoffrey's claim, and Geoffrey, when he found that his father would not be moved, went to Paris in 1186 and, it is said, engaged in a plot against him. Philip received him with joy, for Geoffrey is said to have proposed to transfer his homage for Brittany from his father and Richard and become the man of the king of France, receiving from him the office of grand seneschal. While he was in Paris he died on 19 Aug. at the age of twenty-eight, being killed, according to some accounts, in a tournament (Gesta Henrici, i. 350; Hoveden, ii. 309), according to others dying of disease (Gervase, i. 336; Rigord, Recueil, xvii. 20), of a fever (Giraldus Cambrensis, De Instructione Principis, p. 34), or of a sudden complaint in the bowels which seized him on account of his threats against his father (Gesta Henrici u. s.). Philip lamented much for him, embalmed his body, and buried it in the church of Notre-Dame. Geoffrey was good-looking and fairly tall, a good soldier, and an eloquent speaker, but he was false and plausible, universally distrusted and known as a mischief-maker and a contriver of evil (De Instructione Principis, p. 35; Topographia Hibernica, p. 199; Gesta Henrici, i. 295, passim). He left a daughter named Eleanor (two daughters according to Ralph de Diceto, i. 41), and his wife Constance with child. She bore on 29–30 April in the following year a son, Arthur [q. v.], the victim of his uncle King John's ambition.
[Gesta Henrici, vol. ii., R. Diceto, Gervase, Roger de Hoveden, all ed. Stubbs (Rolls Ser.); William of Newburgh (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Giraldus Cambrensis, De Instructione Principis, Anglia Christiana, and Topogr. Hibern., Opera, vol. v. (Rolls Ser.); Robert of Torigni, ed. Delisle; Canon. Laudunensis, Recueil des Historiens, vol. xiii., Rigord, tom. xvii., Geoffrey of Vigeois, tom. xviii.; Morice, Histoire de Bretagne, vol. i.; Norgate's Angevin Kings, vol. ii.]
GEOFFREY de Muschamp (d. 1208), bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, was probably a member of the family of Muschamp, barons by tenure of Wallovere in Northumberland (Nicolas, p. 343). Geoffrey was appointed archdeacon of Cleveland in 1189, after the death of Henry II, and without the knowledge of King Richard. Geoffrey of York had made use of his position as chancellor to affix the late king's seals on his own authority, probably acting on directions given by Henry before his death. In spite of the manner of his appointment, Muschamp sided with the chapter in the subsequent quarrel between that body and the archbishop; he was one of the envoys sent on behalf of the chapter to Rome, whence in September 1194 they returned with letters of absolution. Soon after the archbishop, having made peace with Richard, got Muschamp disseised of his archdeaconry on the ground that the appointment was informal. At Southwell in 1195 Muschamp resisted John, bishop of Whithern, who was acting for the archbishop. In June of the same year he was present as archdeacon of Cleveland at the legatine visitation held by Hubert Walter at York. In 1198 he was elected bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, apparently by the monks of the latter place without reference to the canons of Lichfield (Matt. Paris, ii. 444), but by the advice of Hubert and favour of King Richard. He was consecrated by Hubert at Canterbury on 21 June 1198 (his own autograph in the archives of Canterbury). He was present at John's coronation in May 1199 and at the council of Westminster in 1200. In 1204 he appears as a commissioner to decide the suit between the Bishop of Worcester and abbey of Evesham (Chron. Evesh. p. 130). According to Gervase (ii. 100) he was one of the bishops who fled from England in 1207. He died on 6 Oct. 1208, and is said to have been buried at Lichfield, which church he endowed with twenty marks annually for beer. Like other bishops of Lichfield and Coventry, he is also called bishop of Chester.
[Annales Monastici; Roger of Hoveden; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 436, 446.]
