The Murder of Thomas Becket
Four knights killed the archbishop of Canterbury in his own cathedral on 29 December 1170. Thomas Becket had been Henry II's chancellor and closest friend, a worldly and effective administrator who had raised the king's revenue and led troops in the field, and Henry made him archbishop in 1162 expecting the church to be brought under control through him. He resigned the chancellorship immediately and became the most obstinate defender of ecclesiastical jurisdiction anyone could have chosen. The quarrel was about criminous clerks — whether a clergyman accused of a serious crime could be tried in the king's courts after being degraded by a church court, which Becket said was double punishment. The Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164 set out the king's position; Becket assented and then repudiated it, fled to France, and spent six years in exile writing letters and excommunicating people. A negotiated return in 1170 collapsed within weeks when he excommunicated the bishops who had crowned the king's son in his absence. Henry, in Normandy, said something — the traditional version about a turbulent priest is later, and the contemporary accounts have him asking what miserable drones he had nourished who would not rid him of it. Four knights took it as an instruction, crossed the Channel and killed Becket in the north-west transept. He was canonised within three years, Henry did public penance in 1174, and Canterbury became the richest pilgrimage site in northern Europe. The shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1538 and the bones were burned, which is a comment on how the quarrel eventually ended. A single candle burns on the site, and the spot in the transept is marked by a modern sculpture of four swords.
- Year: 1170 CE
- Category: Political Violence
