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After six years in exile in France, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was back in England and headed once more for his cathedral. His flock rejoiced at his homecoming, lining the road before him with their cloaks and crying, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
A month later, the fragile peace he had reached with his rival, King Henry II, was already unraveling. It seemed inevitable that the competing authorities of church and throne would continue to clash. Becket’s excommunication of several bishops who sided with the king, along with nobles who held church lands unlawfully, made Henry and his barons furious.
Four barons decided to take action, once and for all, to rid England of this man. On Tuesday, December 29, 1170, they confronted Becket in the Archbishop’s palace and ordered him to absolve the bishops or leave the kingdom. “Never,” Thomas replied. “Once I behaved like a timid priest and left England. I have not come back in order to flee. If I am allowed to perform the duties of the priesthood in peace, I shall be glad; if not, God’s will be done with me.”
Thomas’ monks hurried him into the cathedral, where they thought he would be safe from violence. The knights burst through the heavy doors of the great church. They tried to take Thomas prisoner, but he resisted. When one knight whirled his sword over his head, Thomas stopped fighting. After two blows to the head, he prayed. After several more blows, Thomas Becket was dead.
A Defender of the Church
What sort of dispute between a high churchman and his king could end in murder? For Thomas, the issue was the very life of the church in England. How could an archbishop properly care for his people if the king held the right to select bishops, seize church lands and revenue, and require state consent to excommunicate land holders or even to visit the Pope? Thomas believed he could not pastor his clergy when they could be tried and punished in civil rather than church courts. To compromise these principles meant compromising his calling. Thomas loved God too much to abandon his church and his people.
Ironically, Thomas was a close friend and trusted adviser of Henry’s before they became enemies. He was born in London in 1118, the son of a merchant, and educated in a monastery. His summers were spent on a baron’s estate, learning the ways of the nobility. After studying law in Paris, he returned to London and eventually became a deacon in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s household. His exceptional church service won him recognition, and when the twenty-one-year-old Henry ascended the throne in 1154, he appointed thirty-six-year-old Thomas as chancellor.
Thomas threw himself wholeheartedly into his King’s service. His lavish lifestyle brought him both praise and criticism. While living austerely himself, he held back nothing from his guests. It was said that the chancellor’s household served the best wines but that the chancellor himself drank only boiled water. As a young man, he had taken a vow of chastity, yet his strikingly tall figure often sported the most fashionable clothing. He entertained with such grace and style that an invitation to Thomas’ household was more sought after than the king’s. He personally led the royal army in Toulouse, France, to victory over disputed land. Clearly, this was not the usual behavior of a deacon!
In England, church and state had been deeply entwined for many years. Under the feudal system of government, monarchs gave land to people, both lay and cleric, in return for certain services, such as revenue and defense. In the eleventh century, however, spiritual reform resulted in a strong papacy with centralized authority over the clergy.
When Henry offered Thomas the archbishop’s post in 1162, he was reluctant to accept it, warning the king that he would have to serve God above royalty. For Henry, however, there was no difference between service to the church and service to the state. He wanted Thomas to be archbishop and chancellor at the same time. An archbishop who was also chancellor would help Henry regain the state’s eroding control over the church. But when Thomas accepted the archbishopric, he resigned as chancellor, a move which both surprised and insulted the king.
Full Surrender to Christ
In this transition from statesman to churchman, Thomas experienced a deep conversion. Although his behavior had never been scandalous, his ostentatious lifestyle and obvious ambition were evidence of a shallow commitment to the Lord. When he became archbishop, however, Thomas knew he served no higher master and he strove to become worthy of the honor. He rose before dawn each morning, said the Divine Office, and privately washed the feet of thirteen poor men. He said Mass with great reverence, and wore simple monastic clothing over a hair shirt. Thomas’ loyalties were no longer divided—he had fully surrendered himself to Christ.
Disputes with the king began almost immediately. If Henry had believed that Thomas, his good friend, would continue to do as he asked, he quickly realized he was mistaken. Thomas ardently defended the church and her rights. Henry felt betrayed by a man he had raised up from a “low” birth to become the second most powerful person in England. To Henry, Thomas was profoundly ungrateful.
Henry asked Thomas to swear that he would abide by the ancient customs that had prevailed between church and state. Thomas and his bishops agreed but included in their oath of loyalty the phrase, “saving my order,” meaning they would observe the customs as long as they did not conflict with their obligations to the church. At a meeting in Clarendon in 1164, Henry asked the bishops to sign sixteen declarations, known as “constitutions,” which put in writing the controls over the church which the king desired. When spelled out, these went much farther than Thomas had imagined. He accepted a copy of them, which signaled his assent, but immediately regretted his action. Leaving the council deeply saddened, Thomas refused to put his final seal on the document. He wrote to the Pope, asking to be forgiven for turning his back on the church.
The Sword and the Cross
Henry was so angered at Thomas for challenging his authority that he summoned the archbishop to a trial on trumped-up charges of embezzlement. Sensing that martyrdom might be the outcome of the dispute, Thomas celebrated a special Mass to honor St. Stephen the Martyr. He arrived at the trial at Northampton castle, holding a heavy cross before him. His opponent, the bishop of London, Gilbert Foliot, feared a confrontation between sword and cross and warned Thomas: “If the king draws his sword and you brandish your cross, there will be a disaster.” Thomas replied, “My cross is a sign of peace for myself and the English Church.”
The trial was the breaking point of the crisis. Before the sentence of treason could be declared, Thomas rose from his seat and hurriedly left the castle. Shouts of “traitor” filled the hall, along with threats of violence.
Feeling that his life was in danger, Thomas escaped in disguise and sought refuge in France. He spent the next six years in monasteries, immersing himself in prayer. During this difficult time, he prepared his soul for what he knew might be the ultimate sacrifice—martyrdom. Thomas continually sought help from the Pope and the bishops in England, but all attempts at negotiation failed.
Finally, a fragile agreement was reached, and Thomas returned to England. On Christmas Day, as he preached to the crowds in the cathedral, Thomas predicted that they would soon lose their spiritual father. Henry had become alarmed over reports that Thomas was traveling with armed knights—although they were for his protection, not for a planned uprising. The king was also fuming over Thomas’ excommunications of two bishops who were supporting the throne. Barons who were siding with the king assumed that Henry wanted Thomas’ life. Without the king’s permission, four barons took off to arrest the archbishop. What started out as an arrest, however, became a murder in the cathedral itself.
Victory for the Church
When the king learned of Thomas’ death, he burst into tears and shut himself up in his room for three days. In friendship and in enmity, Henry had never stopped caring for Thomas. He swore on the Bible that he did not order the death, but took responsibility for his part in inciting the barons. In repentance, he renounced the Clarendon constitutions. Thomas had shed his blood, and the church had its victory.
Two days after Thomas Becket died, the wife of a knight who had made a vow to “Thomas the Martyr” was healed of blindness. Numerous miracles followed, and only three years later, the archbishop was canonized. For hundreds of years thereafter, Canterbury was a mecca for pilgrims, who knelt at the site of Thomas’ martyrdom and prayed for his intercession. Even the barons who killed him later repented and built a hospital and a monastery in his honor. Thomas became the shepherd who cared so much for his sheep that, like Christ, he was willing to lay down his life for them. Even his enemies came to admire this man who had stood for his church and, like a knight, defended it to his death.