Thomas Becket
Chancellor of Henry II, then archbishop of Canterbury. He refused to accept the king’s Constitutions of Clarendon, spent six years in exile in France, and was killed in his cathedral by four knights soon after his return.
Thomas was chancellor to Henry II of England when the king gave him the see of Canterbury in 1162, and within a year he was resisting the king’s wish to try clergy in the lay courts (Roger of Hoveden, Chronicle 1162–1163). He would not seal the customs written down at Clarendon (Roger of Hoveden, Chronicle 1164), fled in disguise by Sandwich to Flanders and France (Roger of Hoveden, Chronicle 1165), and came back only at the end of 1170.
Edward Grim, who stood beside him, records his answer to the knights who came for him in the cathedral: he was no traitor to the king but a priest, and ready to die so that the church might have liberty and peace (Edward Grim, Life of Thomas 80–82). Roger of Hoveden gives the day of his death as the fifth day of Christmas and says that miracles followed at his tomb and in many countries (Roger of Hoveden, Chronicle 1171).
In the timeline
- 29 December 1170, firm dateThe Murder of Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, back from six years of exile for resisting Henry II’s claims over the church, is cut down by four knights in his own cathedral. He is venerated as a martyr, and the king does public penance at his tomb.
Primary sources
Chronicle
- Roger of Hoveden, Chronicle 1162–1163sourcebooks.fordham.edu
- Roger of Hoveden, Chronicle 1164sourcebooks.fordham.edu
- Roger of Hoveden, Chronicle 1165sourcebooks.fordham.edu
- Roger of Hoveden, Chronicle 1171sourcebooks.fordham.edu
Life of Saint Thomas
- Edward Grim, Life of Thomas 80–82sourcebooks.fordham.edu