Geoffrey Ridel was the nineteenth Lord Chancellor of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, from 1162 to 1173.

Ridel was probably the great-nephew of Geoffrey Ridel, who died in 1120 and was a royal justice. He was a royal clerk by about 1156, when he first starts witnessing charters. He was a king's clerk before he was Archdeacon of Canterbury, which office he held by March 1163. He performed the duties of the chancellor's office after Thomas Becket

Thomas Becket

Thomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion...

's resignation of the office, but no documents explicitly name him to the office. He also served as a royal judge. By 1165, Ridel was a baron of the Exchequer.

During the controversy between King Henry II of England

Henry II of England

Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...

 and Archbishop Thomas Becket, Ridel supported the king. Ridel was one of the persons whom the Constitutions of Clarendon

Constitutions of Clarendon

The Constitutions of Clarendon were a set of legislative procedures passed by Henry II of England in 1164. The Constitutions were composed of 16 articles and represent an attempt to restrict ecclesiastical privileges and curb the power of the Church courts and the extent of Papal authority in England...

 were addressed to, along with Richard de Luci

Richard de Luci

Richard de Luci was first noted as Sheriff of the County of Essex, then he was made Chief Justiciar of England.- Biography :His wife Rohese, who is named in several documents, was a sister of Faramus of Boulogne...

 and Richard of Ilchester

Richard of Ilchester

Richard of Ilchester , also called Richard of Toclyve or Richard of Toclive, was a medieval English statesman and prelate-Life:He was born in the diocese of Bath, where he obtained preferment...

. Ridel went to Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 in 1164 to represent the king before the papal curia, and in 1166 opposed Becket once more. By 1169 he was urging King Louis VII of France

Louis VII of France

Louis VII was King of France, the son and successor of Louis VI . He ruled from 1137 until his death. He was a member of the House of Capet. His reign was dominated by feudal struggles , and saw the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England...

 to no longer give refuge to Becket. Becket's supporters called Ridel the "archidiabolus", or "our archdevil", a play on the office of archdeacon which Ridel held. Ridel also urged King Henry's son, Henry the Young King

Henry the Young King

Henry, known as the Young King was the second of five sons of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine but the first to survive infancy. He was officially King of England; Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou and Maine.-Early life:Little is known of the young prince Henry before the events...

, to refuse to see the archbishop in 1170, telling the prince that Becket wished to disinherit the prince.

After the controversy was resolved, Ridel was rewarded with a bishopric. He was elected to the see of Ely in late April 1173 and consecrated on 6 October 1174 at Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

. For a number of years previous to his election he had been the custodian of the see, and had received the episcopal revenues. He resigned the chancellorship when he became a bishop. He continued to be involved in governmental affairs, attending councils and escorting King Henry II's daughter Joanna to Provence when the princess was sent to Sicily to marry King William II of Sicily

William II of Sicily

William II , called the Good, was king of Sicily from 1166 to 1189. William's character is very indistinct. Lacking in military enterprise, secluded and pleasure-loving, he seldom emerged from his palace life at Palermo. Yet his reign is marked by an ambitious foreign policy and a vigorous diplomacy...

. He also continued to hold the office of baron of the exchequer at least as late as 1185.

Ridel died on either 20 or 21 August 1189. After his death, King Richard I of England

Richard I of England

Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...

 confiscated his personal property, because Geoffrey had died without a will. The bishop's estate at his death included over 3000 marks in coins, as well as agricultural supplies and gold and silver plate. He was buried in Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral is the principal church of the Diocese of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, and is the seat of the Bishop of Ely and a suffragan bishop, the Bishop of Huntingdon...

. During his time as bishop, he built much of the western transept of Ely Cathedral.