Early life and friendship with Henry II
Thomas Becket (c.1120-1170) was the son of a well-connected London merchant. After studying in Paris, he was appointed clerk to Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury (1139-1161) who sent him to study ecclesiastical law in Italy and France. Becket proved himself such a highly able administrator that Theobald recommended him to the future King Henry II. The two became good friends – hunting, gaming and fighting in battle together and, on Henry’s accession in 1154, he appointed Becket as his Royal Chancellor, a role in which Thomas excelled.
Appointment and exile of an Archbishop
When Archbishop Theobald died in 1161, Henry saw his chance to impose his authority on the English church and to install his own man as Archbishop, even though Becket was not even ordained. The king intended that Becket act as both Chancellor and Archbishop. Becket pleaded with the king not to proceed (he could foresee the conflict that lay ahead) but Henry ignored him. Becket was ordained as a priest on 2nd June 1162 and, on the following day, as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Becket took his role as head of the Church in England extremely seriously and soon resigned as Chancellor, against the king’s wishes. Over the next two years, relations between the two deteriorated further and, in 1164, they fell out when Becket withdrew his support for Henry’s plans to introduce the Constitutions of Clarendon, which would place the Ecclesiastical Courts under royal jurisdiction. In November 1164 Becket was charged with misappropriation of royal funds and, fearing imprisonment or worse, he was forced to flee to France and spent the next six years in exile.
Reconciliation and return to Canterbury
In June 1170, Henry had his son crowned (as Henry the Young King) by the Archbishop of York. Becket was outraged. Only the Archbishop of Canterbury, having the direct authority of the Pope, was empowered to crown a monarch. Thomas appealed to Pope Alexander III and succeeded in having the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury excommunicated for their role in the coronation. Under threat of excommunication himself, Henry was persuaded to seek a reconciliation. The two met in France in July 1170 and Becket agreed that the coronation of the young Henry could be allowed to stand. In return, Henry acknowledged the excommunication of the three bishops, and agreed that the Constitutions of Clarendon would not be applied to Ecclesiastical Courts. Becket returned to England on 1st December 1170, well aware of the dangers that awaited him. He had made many enemies in the King’s court and among the church hierarchy. The details of the reconciliation were not widely known, and Becket’s enemies were inclined to ignore or misinterpret them.
Still contesting their excommunication, the aggrieved bishops travelled to the Henry’s court near Bayeux, Normandy to petition the king directly, arriving on or around Christmas Day 1170. The bishops’ petition added unfounded allegations of treason on Becket’s part to their other grievances against him. On hearing (the lie) that Becket had been travelling around England raising an army to oppose the younger Henry, the king is reported to have said, “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and promoted in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born clerk”.
Murder in the Cathedral
The story of how four knights of the royal household (Reginald fitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy and Richard de Brito) travelled to Canterbury to carry out the King’s perceived command is well documented. Eye witness accounts tell of the knights’ confrontation with Becket in the Archbishop’s Palace on 29th December 1170, his retreat through the cloister to the Cathedral, his pursuit by the armed knights and his murder in the transept. William de Tracey struck the first blow, and after another two sword blows, as Becket lay on the floor, Richard de Brito delivered the coup de grâce with such force that the point of his sword snapped off on the stone.
The murder of an archbishop in his Cathedral was a sacrilege. The Cathedral had been desecrated. The knights never returned to the King’s court in France and were sent to Rome to seek penance from Pope Alexander for their mortal sin. The Pope sentenced them to go on a 14-year penitential crusade to the Holy Land, from which they never returned.
The aftermath
Following the murder, the Cathedral was closed to the public for several months. It reopened in April 1171 and was re-consecrated in September of that year. Almost immediately, pilgrims were drawn to Canterbury to pray at the tomb of the Martyr, where it was observed that sick and infirm pilgrims were being miraculously cured of their illnesses and infirmities. In February 1173 Thomas was canonised as a saint, barely two years after his death. Meanwhile, though King Henry vociferously denied his involvement in the murder, he was widely believed throughout the Christian World to have been complicit, and he was obliged to seek absolution from the Pope, which was eventually granted in 1172.
Henry’s penitence was not believed in England so, on the 12th July 1174, he came to Canterbury to perform an elaborate act of public penance. The king walked barefoot through the city to the Cathedral wearing sackcloth. At St Thomas’ tomb in the crypt, he was symbolically scourged with five strokes of a rod by each of the bishops and abbots present, and three strokes by each of the 80 monks of Christ Church Priory. Henry was left to fast and pray for forgiveness at the tomb until the following morning, when he was released from the Crypt and absolved from his sin by Prior Odo.
Significantly, Henry honoured the agreement not to apply the Constitutions of Clarendon to the church, and the ecclesiastical courts continued to deal with offending clergy and members of Holy Orders for the next 358 years until the Act of the Submission of Clergy in 1532.