A king’s intemperate outburst is taken at face value

English kings have garnered something of a reputation down the ages for not being the most temperate and good-natured examples of humanity. Those who wielded real executive power, unfettered by a counterweight as pesky as a parliament, probably saw it as part of the job description to throw their weight around and generally stomp about armed with a surly, irritable mien. Of course, for centuries it was generally accepted that whoever was monarch had been anointed by God to reign over the nation. It’s little wonder, therefore, that kings expected to get their own way and would turn unpleasant if they felt their will was being obstructed, no matter how trifling the impediment might be.

Henry II, the first Plantagenet king, was certainly not known for suffering fools gladly. Coming to the throne in 1154 at the tender age of 21, he inherited a kingdom that had been wracked by the tumult of an 18-year civil war that had only very recently been brought to a close (see Henry I indulges in a few lampreys too many). A firm hand was needed if England and Normandy – the lands over which he ruled – were to become strong again and Henry made it plain from day one of his reign that he would brook no opposition in making that happen. However, there was one person with whom he would enjoy very cordial relations: his chancellor and right-hand man, Thomas Becket (the man whom we used to know as Thomas à Becket).

Becket was born in London, probably in 1120. His parents were from Normandy (Caen and Rouen) and had settled in the English capital, where Gilbert Becket had become a wealthy merchant. An intelligent and charming young man, Thomas soon found himself appointed by Henry as the archdeacon of Canterbury on the recommendation of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury. He made a success of the post, and the king duly made him his chancellor, an extremely powerful position in the kingdom.

When Theobald died in 1161, Henry took it into his head to make Thomas archbishop of Canterbury, imagining that by this appointment he would control the Church. Becket warned his royal friend that it would not be a good idea to choose him. As head of the Church in England, he explained, he would feel obliged to stand up for the institution even if that meant going against the king’s express wishes. Naturally, Henry prevailed and, on 2 June 1162, Thomas Becket was rather reluctantly ordained. Almost overnight the newly fledged archbishop abandoned his somewhat Rabelaisian courtier persona and put on the mantle of the pious and incorruptible clergyman. Indeed, he threw himself so wholeheartedly into the rôle that he gives every appearance of having had a religious conversion. He seems to have become the devout God-fearing individual he supposed an archbishop of Canterbury would have to be.

It did not take long for Becket’s prophecy to come true. Two years after taking up his post, things came to a head when Henry called a conference at which he attempted to secularise the judicial system. At the time, England had two types of courts, which were presided over by the State or the Church. The Church courts, which had the right to try allegedly errant clergymen, tended to be a great deal more lenient than those run by the State, with even priests who were rapists and murderers allowed to atone for their crimes by a mere act of penitence. This was an inconsistency Henry wished to abolish by eradicating the Church courts. Becket initially accepted this move but then changed his mind.

The archbishop dug his heels in and found himself summoned to Northampton Castle for a frank exchange of views with Henry’s supporters about the matter. Becket quickly realised that, to all intents and purposes, this was a kangaroo court trying him for his refusal to submit to the king’s demands. Fearing that he was due to be imprisoned or quietly eliminated, he escaped from the castle while everyone slept and fled with all haste to France, pursued to the coast by the king’s envoys. He lived for a couple of years at the Abbey of Pontigny before spending four more at the Abbey of Sens, all the while continuing as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Things might conceivably have continued in this fashion – with Canterbury Cathedral permanently an archbishop short and the English Church (with its massive estates and business interests) trundling along with a perpetually absent leader – until either Henry or Thomas died. However, in May 1170, the hornets’ nest was poked again. Henry decided to have his son, Henry the Younger, crowned king, in recognition that he would indeed become king when he (Henry II) died. This was a practice carried out by the Capetians, the dynasty that ruled France from 987 to 1328, and Henry felt it might strengthen his own hand on English soil if an obvious successor had not only been lined up but crowned to boot.

In ordinary circumstances, the ceremony would have been performed by the archbishop of Canterbury. Instead, Henry chose Roger de Pont l’Évêque, Archbishop of York, to do the duties, thus snubbing Becket and, for that matter, putting himself in the wrong with Pope Alexander III as well. It turned out to be a cunning move, for the king had correctly anticipated that the clergyman would be itching to re-crown Henry the Younger himself simply to reassert his rights as Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry met Becket at Fréteval in Normandy in July and offered him the chance to carry out a second coronation ceremony if only he returned to England. The archbishop duly made his way back in December 1170 after a six-year exile. It’s fair to say that he felt a certain amount of trepidation about his homecoming, particularly since he was held in contempt by England’s powerful barons. (A second crowning of Henry the Younger would eventually take place in 1172, but by then Becket would be long dead.)

With a crushing inevitability, relations between the archbishop and the noblemen deteriorated even further and Becket chose Christmas Day to excommunicate from the Church one Ranulf de Broc and his partisans. It was this action that was to be Becket’s undoing. The king had taken himself off to Normandy for Christmas, but news of the excommunication did not take long to reach him.

Posterity has handed down to us several variations of what happened next. What we do know is that Henry became particularly irate and frustrated at this latest turn of events. He lashed out at those around him, somehow forgetting that it was he himself who had chosen Becket as his Archbishop of Canterbury against his erstwhile friend’s own advice. He bellowed something to the effect of, ‘What sluggards, what cowards have I brought up in my court, who care nothing for their allegiance to their lord?’ The exact wording of the next sentence, the one that sealed Thomas Becket’s fate, is disputed. It appears to have been on the lines of, ‘Have I no friend who will rid me of this upstart priest?’ or, ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ or perhaps, ‘Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?’

Whatever the precise phrasing, four knights who happened to be within earshot clearly felt they understood the king’s meaning and rode off for the coast to board a boat to Kent. They entered Canterbury Cathedral on the night of 29 December 1170, just four days after the excommunications had taken place. Becket was standing by the high altar. It appears that initially the knights intended to do no more than arrest the archbishop, but when he did not yield to them and instead clung unto the altar, they set about him, hacking at his head until his skull was split open.

It is often said that Henry II’s outburst was in no way intended to intimate that he wanted Becket killed but had arisen from his exasperation with the cleric and was merely rhetorical. To be fair to the monarch, he was a great advocate for the rule of law and the concept of trail by jury, and although he doubtless considered himself above the law, he is unlikely to have wanted his former friend murdered. He certainly repented of his part in the crime afterwards. As soon as he heard of it, he put on sackcloth and ashes, and fasted for three days.

However the king meant his words to be understood, the fallout from them has been dramatic and long-lasting. Ironically, the murder had the effect of making the Church stronger and the king weaker. The people declared Becket a saint, even before the pope managed it (in 1173), and the outrage at the Church courts was washed away by a wave of sympathy. The following year, in a very public show of contrition, Henry walked barefoot to Thomas’ shrine at Canterbury Cathedral, allowing himself to be flogged by monks en route.

Canterbury became a major place of pilgrimage, almost on a par with Santiago de Compostela. As a result, the Kentish city became extremely wealthy, with the saint’s shrine morphing into a treasure trove of gems and objects made of precious metals. Some historians have posited that, over 350 years later, it was this ostentatious display of wealth that persuaded the perennially acquisitive Henry VIII that there was much to be said for closing down all the monasteries, helping himself to their riches, and setting up the Church of England as a rival to the Catholic Church.

Furthermore, ten months after the killing, Henry took himself off to Ireland (with a reported 400 ships, 500 knights and 4,000 men-at-arms) in a bid to escape some of the opprobrium aimed at him both by his people and the pope. Adding Ireland to his kingdom had always been on Henry’s agenda, but the fallout from the murder meant it suddenly became very convenient to start pursuing that end. While he was in the country, several Irish princes came to pledge their loyalty to him at Cashel. So began Britain’s long, bloody and bitter involvement in Ireland, which continues today and will doubtless do so until the entire island becomes Irish once more. And almost certainly after that, too.