“Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?!” – A remark allegedly uttered by England’s King Henry II, said to have unwittingly incited the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Canterbury Cathedral is probably one of England’s most well-known and popular historic buildings. Still the base the Church of England even today, it has played host to many important religious events and individuals and innumerable tourists from all over the world.
Not everybody, however, remembers it as one of history’s most notorious crime scenes.
Yes, it was the scene of medieval England’s most notorious murders, a tale involving Church, State, international politics, personal and political rivalries and betrayals, the Archbishop of Canterbury (still head of the Church of England today) as victim and no less a figure than King Henry II as allegedly having ordered his murder. Not a tale you’d usually associate with a place of religious worship.
So, with the scene set, let’s take a trip back to Merrie Old England in the year 1170.
Henry II and Thomas Becket had known each other for many years. Indeed, in their younger days Henry had come to regard Thomas as a tutor, mentor and friend until they fell out over their official duties. Henry was of noble birth, born to be a King and to rule a nation. Thomas, on the other hand, arrived considerably lower down medieval England’s pecking order. He was the son of a Gilbert Beket who was either a landowner or a lower-level knight. Not a peasant, by any means, but barely a nobleman by the standards of his time and place.
Thomas entered the priesthood and, through connection, talent and strong religious fervour, rose through the ranks until finally securing the most important post in the English Church. In 1162 he became Archbishop of Canterbury and, as such, began to believe firmly that his loyalty to God outranked his loyalty to Henry II, a mere mortal. Unfortunately for both of them, especially Thomas, Henry saw things differently. Kings of the time believed themselves to have been chosen by God and so were only answerable to God. Thomas, being Archbishop of Canterbury, believed that he best served God by serving the Church and, if the King disapproved then so be it.
The battle lines between Church and Crown were already drawn when Thomas was appointed Archbishop. Both Church and Crown were powerful landowners, had the right to collect taxes and tithes and various other rights that made both very powerful and, as such, not always trusting of each other. The problem came when the Crown effectively demanded that all institutions and citizens place themselves under its absolute authority and the Church, believing that God’s laws trumped those of mortals (even royal ones) began increasingly trying to protect and improve its own powerbase at the expense of the Crown.
Henry, having initially been delighted at Thomas taking over as Archbishop (possibly because he thought an old friend of far lower social standing would be easily-manipulated into obedience) was equally appalled when Thomas, a religious devotee of immense conviction) began responding to the demands of the Church and the Pope (then an extremely important political as well as religious figure in medieval Europe) far more willingly than to his old friend and King, Henry II.
Becket and Henry II, former friends turned bitter enemies.
Friction between the two former friends steadily grew into open feuding. Henry felt Thomas had betrayed him as a friend, affronted him as a mere subject presuming to defy his King and that his greater loyalty to the Church made him a potential threat to Henry’s own powerbase and the social order in general. In the ever-widening rift between the Church and the Crown, something had to give. Whether Henry deliberately decided it would be Thomas Becket’s life (Becket became a saint of both the Catholic Church and the Church of England after his murder) remained open to question for centuries afterward.
By 1170 the rift between Henry and Thomas and, by extension, between Church and State, had widened to seemingly unbridgeable dimensions. Henry’s demands had grown increasingly insistent and his anger increasingly hard to control. Thomas, on the other hand, responded to his former friend’s increasingly heavy-handed approach by defying him with increasing flagrancy. The feud between them had developed to the point where even the Pope himself had been forced to take notice and intervene.
The final straw came in 1170 when Thomas, by now exiled to France but still holding the post of Archbishop, took offence at two senior noblemen deciding to crown an heir-apparent to replace Henry if he were to die. Crowning an heir-apparent was the job of the Archbishop, not of the nobility. Thomas responded by excommunicating the two nobles and the heir-apparent, expelling them from the Church and so ensuring their eternal residence in Hell when they died. Henry was apoplectic with rage and it was during a discussion of his former friend that he was said to have uttered the immortal words:
“Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?!”
Well, four of Henry’s knights, believing that it was a Royal command rather than a simple expression of fury, chose to do exactly that. They would also desecrate part of Canterbury Cathedral itself in doing so. Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy and Richard le Breton promptly rode for Canterbury Cathedral where Thomas, now grudgingly allowed to return from exile by Henry after the Pope’s intervention, had no idea that he was about to be brutally murdered. Nor, almost certainly, did Henry, but that didn’t stop many from believing that he’d finally lost patience and had the Archbishop killed.
Canterbury Cathedral, home of today’s Church of England and site of Becket’s brutal murder.
Finding Thomas at the Cathedral they confronted him, demanding that he come with them to Winchester to account for his actions. Thomas, perhaps realising that he might not reach Winchester alive and being well aware that the law allowed him to use holy places as a sanctuary, refused to leave the Cathedral and go anywhere with them. This didn’t stop the knights from fulfilling their self-appointed mission. Instead they simply cast off the robes hiding their armour, collected their weapons and chased Becket through his own Cathedral, hacking away at him as they went. Finally, in the Cathedral quire and in front of the monks as they were chanting prayers, they finished the job. Becket was brutally hacked to death and eyewitness Edward Grim (himself wounded during the murder) gave the best account of exactly what happened:
“The wicked knight leapt suddenly upon him, cutting off the top of the crown which the unction of sacred chrism had dedicated to God. Next he received a second blow on the head, but still he stood firm and immovable. At the third blow he fell to his knees and elbows, offering himself a living sacrifice, and saying in a low voice ‘For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death.’”
“But the third knight inflicted a terrible wound as he lay prostrate. By this stroke, the crown of his head was separated from the head in such a way that the blood white with the brain, and the brain no less red from the blood, dyed the floor of the Cathedral. The same clerk who had entered with the knights placed his foot on the neck of the holy priest and religious martyr, and, horrible to relate, scattered the brains and blood about the pavements, crying to the others ‘Let us away, knights, this fellow will rise no more.’”
An artist’s impression of the murder scene.
Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, lay hacked to pieces in his own cathedral. He suffered most, but he wasn’t alone. The four knights were promptly excommunicated by the Pope and, as such, lived as fugitives in fear of eternal damnation for their crime. Henry II, who probably never intended to incite the murder of his former friend and Archbishop, suffered greatly from detractors who were vocal in suggesting his having done exactly that. Becket himself earned a posthumous sainthood, considered a martyr by the Catholic Church and later (after Henry VIII dissolved the Catholic Church in England) by the Protestant Church of England.
Becket himself, given his religious devotion was strong enough that he defied a King who could have had him executed or assassinated with a simple command, might have considered his death as the highest form of service to his Church and his calling. Which only goes to show one thing – be careful what you wish for.