Saint Thomas Becket
The Fallen Archbishop
Join me today to meet a saint martyred on the fifth day of Christmas.
Name: Thomas Becket
Life: 1118 - 1170 AD
Status: Saint
Feast: December 29
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It was the year 1161, and King Henry II of England was trying to decide who should receive one of the greatest gifts he had to offer. The gift was the king’s backing to replace the old Archbishop of Canterbury, the most important clergyman in the kingdom of England. Henry had a name in mind: Thomas Becket.
From King Henry’s point of view, Thomas Becket was perfect. He was a clergyman - if not a very good or sincere one. Becket was brilliant, trained in civil and canon law, and a quick-study at virtually everything else, from siege warfare to diplomacy. And perhaps most importantly, from Henry’s point of view, Thomas Becket owed him.
It was certainly true that Becket owed the king a great deal. Young Thomas Becket was born into an England with not one but two aristocratic systems. Less than a hundred years before, England had been conquered by the Normans, and the Norman aristocracy dominated the land. Beneath them, still hanging on in a few places, was the displaced Saxon aristocracy. The Beckets, though, weren’t any kinds of aristocrats. Thomas’ father had been a merchant in London.
The only asset that young Thomas Becket had was himself. Tall and slim, with pale skin and an angular face, Becket made an impression on those around him with his quick mind and photographic memory. Eventually, a friend introduced him to Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Theobald had not gotten where he was without the ability to recognize talent, and after one meeting he asked Thomas Becket to join his entourage. Suddenly, Becket had the opportunity to find a career in the Church.
Soon, Becket was a deacon. He studied law, both the canon law that governed the lives and doings of the clergy and religious, and the civil law which applied to secular people. Becket went to France to study. Soon he was one of Theobald’s most valuable counsellors, helping the archbishop to steer the Church through the chaos and weakness of the reign of King Stephen.
Then, King Stephen died. Henry Plantagenet - Henry II as we remember him - became king, and immediately began to put the kingdom back into order. Henry knew he needed men to help him do this, and his search for talent led him to Thomas Becket.
In the reign of King Stephen, power had flowed out of the monarchy to the feudal lords. King Henry wanted that power back. Thomas Becket would be the perfect man to help him get it. Becket was fearless and intelligent, and best of all because he was low-born, Becket had no natural allies among the nobility. He would be the king’s man.
And so it was that at Christmas of 1154, King Henry bestowed on Thomas Becket his first great gift. The merchant’s son would be raised above the great lords of the land, to become become the Lord Chancellor of England.
King Henry turned out to have judged well. Thomas Becket was willing to do the hard work to restore order, and bring back power to the king. Becket worked hard, and Henry, for his part, was delighted in his chancellor. At one point, the king even managed to scandalize the court when he returned from a trip and breezed by everyone, including his son, to go and embrace his chancellor to find out how everything was going.
Just as King Henry had hoped, Thomas Becket’s talents at law transferred into other areas. Henry went to war, in Wales, and then in France, and Becket raised a contingent of knights and rode with him. Becket wasn’t a trained warrior, but it turned out his nimble mind was good for warfare too, and Becket developed an interest in siege warfare. On several occasions, enemy castles were said to be impregnable, until Thomas Becket and his men came along and the chancellor figured out a way to get in.
In time, Henry needed an ambassador to France. Becket led the embassy, travelling in shocking luxury with, as it was rumored, no less than twenty four changes of clothes. The chancellor also had an entourage of knights, assistants, horses, warhorses, a wagon train with two wagons just for carrying ale, fighting dogs, racing dogs, and the mark of an discerning medieval ambassador: a small troop of monkeys trained to sit on the horses and pretend that they were riding.
Everyone could see that Thomas Becket was good at being Chancellor. He seemed to be enjoying it too, dressing in the fine clothes of his office. Many thought that this was inappropriate for a clergyman, that Becket had abandoned his vocation. Maybe that was partially true, although later, details would emerge that suggested that Becket was struggling, spending days in splendor and nights in prayer and meditation. But as far as King Henry was concerned, everything was perfect. Thomas Becket was Henry’s man, which made him the best replacement Henry had when Archbishop Theobald died and it was time to choose a new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1161.
Oddly enough, the only person who thought this was a bad idea was Thomas Becket himself. He raised his concern with the king, but Henry brushed them aside. And so it was that Thomas Becket became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, and almost immediately, things began to fall apart.
The way the king saw it, he now had his man in the Church. But Thomas Becket saw things differently. He suddenly bore the responsibility for the souls of the English, and for the Church in England. Under that weight, Becket began to change. His life became more careful. He prayed more. His preaching became more serious, and more sincere. The new Archbishop began to discipline himself in physical ways, wearing an uncomfortable hair shirt under his luxurious clothes.
Archbishop Becket was now even more powerful than he had been as chancellor. He commanded vast areas of land, and received feudal oaths of loyalty from powerful aristocrats, like the knight who fought under the sign of the bear, Reginald FitzUrse. Archbishop Becket put his new power into building up the Church - which was the opposite of what King Henry had been hoping for. And soon the dispute became concrete in the matter of priests and monks who had broken the law, or as it was called at the time, the question of ‘criminous clerks’.
A clergyman named Philip de Broi had been accused of causing the death of a knight. Now since he was a priest, Philip was entitled to be tried in a religious rather than a secular court. The religious court found him not guilty. Many people disagreed, and Philip was dragged before a civil court. Philip, understandably, did not want to be tried twice. But Philip did not help his case by heaping abuse and insults on the secular judge who was trying to conduct the trial. Becket got involved, trying to defuse the situation by reviewing the previous trial, and while he did not find Philip guilty of murder, he found him guilty of being a fool and insulting the secular judge, for which Philip was sentenced to be flogged.
King Henry still wasn’t happy with this outcome. The reason was that Henry and Becket weren’t really arguing about Philip or any other criminous clerks. The real debate was about power. Henry thought the Church had gained too much power under his weak predecessors, men like King Stephen. Once upon a time, Becket would probably have agreed with him. But now Becket, against his own advice, had been made the leader of the English Church, and he was looking at things from a new point of view. Making a small concession here would lead to another concession, and then another. The only way Becket could see to defend the Church was to refuse to be bullied or cajoled into giving anything up. Other people might make little compromises, might leave the Church diminished when their time had passed, but Thomas Becket would not be one of them.
King Henry, of course, could always apply the power of guilt. He did, saying to his archbishop:
Did I not raise you from a humble and poor rank to the highest peak of honour and distinction? And this did not seem enough to me, unless I also made you father of the realm, and even exalted you over myself. How is it then that so many favours, and such signs of my love for you, well known to all, could so suddenly be banished from your mind, so that not only do you turn out to be ungrateful, but even hostile to me in every way? (Michael Staunton translation)
Becket tried to explain that he was not ungrateful. He was trying to honour the king, yes, but to honour God more. The Archbishop said to the king that he had to think of that - they both did.
Yes, you are my lord, but He is my Lord and yours, and to neglect His will so that I comply with yours would not be good for you or me. For in His terrible tribunal we will both be judged as servants of one Lord, neither of us will be able to answer for the other, but each of us will, without excuses, receive according to his deeds.
Henry was not impressed.
I do not want a sermon from you. Were you not the son of one of my villeins (i.e. low born persons)?
And there it was. Henry was never really able to fathom the fact that Becket, who was a nobody, would dare to defy him. The trouble was that Becket was no longer a nobody. He was Archbishop of Canterbury, and although an archbishop might not match a king, he could come close. Especially if the archbishop did not stand alone.
The more Henry pushed for control of Church functions, the more Becket pushed back. Eventually, Becket grew worried enough that he fled England, staying in a monastery in France. The monks had heard of the good life he had enjoyed as chancellor, and were surprised to meet an archbishop who joined their ascetic practices, going even further than they did.
The effect of Becket’s flight to Europe was to involve others in what had been an English dispute. The pope got involved, as did the King of France. King Henry tried to explain that his archbishop had gone rogue. Becket held his position. There would be no compromise, and he censured churchmen who were still in England who tried to make separate compromises with royal power.
An archbishop could only operate so long from abroad. In time, Becket realized he had to go back. His people felt abandoned, and he came to believe they were right. His friends in England warned him that it was dangerous. As he told the bishop of Paris:
I go into England to die.
And so, after spending years in exile, Thomas Beckett returned to Canterbury.
For a little while, it seemed that Becket’s return might have smoothed things over. The king was still snubbing him, but at least Becket wasn’t embarrassing the king in Europe. Even so, neither Becket nor the king had moved on their fundamental disagreement. And when Becket made another move to censure some clergymen, and King Henry heard about the decision while he was visiting his lands in Normandy, in the North of modern France, the king exploded in rage and screamed:
A man … who has eaten my bread, who came to my court poor, and I have raised him high – now he draws up his heel to kick me in the teeth! He has shamed my kin, shamed my realm; the grief goes to my heart, and no one has avenged me!
Several of the king’s lords heard the outburst, and a few began to form a plan. And so, in the days before Christmas, four hard men took ship for England. Their leader was a man who had sworn fealty to Thomas Becket, Reginald FitzUrse.
On Christmas day of 1170, Thomas Becket preached to the people of Canterbury. He had no way of knowing that his assassins were already crossing the English channel. And yet, at the end of the sermon, visibly moved, he shocked the congregation by telling them that he would not live much longer. And indeed, by December 29th, on the fifth day of Christmas, the four knights had arrived in Canterbury.
The knights approached the Archbishop’s residence, but left their weapons and armour stashed outside. They caught Becket at dinner, hoping to intimidate him into compliance, or maybe to make him flee England again. Becket said, “I did not come back to flee. He who seeks me will find me here.”
If he was going to stay, the knights insisted, he had better submit to the king. And again, Becket explained that he was not willing to compromise, not even a little bit.
I will not spare anyone, no matter who he is, who presumes to violate the traditions of the Holy Roman See or the laws of Christ’s Church, and does not voluntarily make amends, nor will I hesitate to correct the offender with ecclesiastical censure.
The knights left, clearly to prepare to come armed and in force. Becket finished his dinner, intending to face the assassins where he was, but the monks and priests dragged him into the Church, assuming that no one would want to commit an act of violence in front of the altar.
And so Archbishop Thomas Becket was in the Cathedral when the four knights with some others burst in and shouted,
Where is the archbishop?
Becket stepped out into view, and said,
Here I am
The men rushed him, planning to drag him out to deal with him outside the church, or perhaps to take him prisoner, but Becket grabbed one of the stone pillars of the church and held on. At this point, most of the monks and priests in the church had run away, although one of Becket’s men remained and tried to help.
In the scramble, Reginald FitzUrse tried to pull the archbishop away from the pillar. Becket wasn’t trying to defend himself, but it wasn’t because he couldn’t. He let go of the pillar and slammed FitzUrse backward, away from him, taking the moment to remind FitzUrse that he was his sworn man. This only enraged the knight, who drew a sword and swung wildly at the archbishop. The blow missed, just shaving off the top of Becket’s scalp and lodging the blade in the arm of a clergyman who was trying to protect his archbishop. But now blood had been spilled, and there was no going back. The knights attacked the archbishop, aiming for his head, and after two more blows he fell down, whispering:
For the name of Jesus and the well-being of the Church I am prepared to embrace death.
And then one of the knights brought his sword down on the head of the archbishop, crushing through Becket’s skull so hard that the sword splintered on the stone floor of the cathedral. The knight tossed his broken sword aside, and he and the others left the body of the archbishop there in a spreading pool of blood.
In the immediate aftermath, no one was quite sure what to do. Thomas Becket had kept such a hard line that even many in the Church thought he was wrong. Couldn’t there be just a little bit of compromise? Now that Becket was dead, it wasn’t clear that anyone would defend his legacy. The clergy in Canterbury put his body in a tomb, noting as they did so that he had still been wearing his penitential hair shirt. Then they awaited for further instructions.
King Henry had not exactly ordered the killing, but he wasn’t sorry to hear about it. He sprang into damage control mode, forbidding priests or monks from leaving England by ship, to make sure the news did not reach Becket’s allies in France and in Rome. The assassins returned to their homes, probably expecting a slap on the wrist followed by years of favours from King Henry.
And so things might have gone, had not a man from Canterbury, who happened to be in the cathedral on December 29th, taken a chance, and dipped the end of his shirt in the blood of the archbishop. The man’s wife was paralyzed. Now he brought back this blood which who knew, could be a relic, and asked her to pray for the intercession of the fallen archbishop. By morning, her paralysis was gone, and when the news of what had happened got out, the people of Canterbury scrambled to find more relics of the new saint.
Tales of miracles spread. One woman, Laetitia of Winchester, asked for the saint’s prayers for her little boy, Geoffrey, who had a fever. The boy started to recover, and the relieved mother left him in a crib against a stone wall. But then, disaster. An earthquake shook the area, and the wall collapsed, smashing the crib beneath it. Laetitia prayed, again, as men cleared away three carts full of rubble to get to the place where the crib had been. It was reduced to splinters, but baby Geoffrey was lying in the middle of it, laughing and unharmed.
The story of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket spread. By the time the story reached King Henry, no amount of border control could prevent it from spreading to Europe. Pilgrims began to travel to Canterbury. The mood turned against the killers of the Archbishop. In Europe, the mood turned against the English. Across the continent, Englishmen were hounded, asked why they killed bishops. English clerics living in France were deported. Something had to be done. Henry sent the assassins to Rome, and the king himself asked the pope what to do next.
In Rome, the assassins received a heavy penance. They were sent to the Holy Land, to stand beside the brother knights of the Templar Order. They were required to remain in that place for fourteen years, and the last year of their penance would - although no one knew it yet - be the year of disaster, 1187, when the knights of Christendom would be all but wiped out by the armies of Saladin, under the Horns of Hattin. None of the killers would ever return home. But in time, other English knights would come to fight where they had, and raise their own banner as the Order of the Knights of Saint Thomas.
As for the king, Henry II and his entourage approached what was now the bustling pilgrim destination of Canterbury. Henry got off his horse and took of his shoes, walking barefoot to the tomb where he would spend the night in prayer. The man buried there had been his friend, then his uncompromising enemy. Henry had never viewed him as a peer. But now, Saint Thomas had become something different again. He had passed ahead, through God’s terrible tribunal, to become something greater, a saint, before whom even a king might bow.
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This was a lovely read. I had never read his story in full.
Praying that you find a publisher for your book. I will purchase at least 5, and give as presents.