Gone Medieval - The Murder of Thomas Becket

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Today on Gone Medieval we arrive at one of the most consequential events in English history; the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. A moment in time that is famed for its horrendous brutality, but from which it is impossible to look away.Across four special episodes, Gone Medieval is charting Becket's meteoric rise, his disastrous fall leading to his murder and the spectacular consequences which spawned a world famous legacy.Matt Lewis and Dr. Eleanor Janega relive the events of the 29th of December, 1170, in forensic detail to unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett. Was his murder an unfortunate accident, an unauthorised execution, or a dance intentionally choreographed to give birth to a saintly legend?Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis. It was edited by Joseph Knight, the producers are Joseph Knight and Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘MEDIEVAL’ https://historyhit.com/subscriptionYou can take part in our listener survey here:  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. This is Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga. And I'm Matt Lewis. You have joined us at a time of great foreboding. This is the third episode in our special series investigating the murder of the Archbishop Thomas Beckett in 1170. And tragedy is almost upon us. Our previous two episodes traced the Archbishop's rise to power and witness the destruction of his relationship with King Henry II.

Do go back and listen to those if you haven't already. But now we arrive at the pinnacle. One of the most consequential events in English medieval history, a moment in time that is famed for its horrendous brutality, but from which it is impossible to look away. All events up to now head in one direction, Beckett's inescapable fate. We will be reliving the events of the 29th of December 1170 as they happen,

going over it all in forensic detail. Our aim is to unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett. Was his murder an unfortunate accident, an unauthorized execution, or a dance intentionally choreographed to give birth to a saintly legend? Our experts today are contemporary eyewitness accounts, most notably Edward Grimm, a monk who was there in Canterbury on that fateful Eve, from those within touching distance who witnessed the slaughter at first hand. But first, let's go over what we commonly know, the version of events that were taught in school and which loom large in the popular imagination. Beckett was appointed by King Henry II as Archbishop of Canterbury to be his yes man. Up until this point, he had been great friends with the king, and so Henry was confident that Beckett would do as he wished.

But things unravelled quickly. Beckett wasn't quite the pushover Henry had imagined. When the king passed a set of laws that aimed to limit the power of the church called the Constitutions of Clarendon. In 1164, Beckett pushed back and refused to sign them. Henry, known for his fierce temper, was apoplectic and put the Archbishop on trial. Beckett, unsure as to how long the king's rage would last, fled to France, fearing for his life. Whilst the Archbishop was in self-imposed exile, Henry decided to crown his eldest son, Henry the younger, as junior king to secure the line of succession. But this angered Beckett, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, should have presided over the ceremony himself. In a needlessly spiteful repost, Beckett excommunicated the bishops involved

in the coronation and provided the spark that triggered Henry's now famous explosion. Who will rid me of this troublesome priest? He's thought to have said. The scene was set for an almighty reckoning, four knights overheard the king's outburst and took it upon themselves to see through his orders. They rode hard to Canterbury and burst into the cathedral looking for their prize. Beckett, defenceless and wearing a hair shirt, knelt before them, seemingly welcoming the oncoming storm. The knights packed him to death and then fled, leaving the archbishop, ruinously dismembered and bleeding out on the cold stone cathedral. But as with all history, it's written by people with their own motivations, clouded by agenda and shrouded as if written in a darkened room.

The story you've just heard is but one version of events. The truth is usually much more interesting. So let's start at the beginning with all of our major players and where they are. We've got Thomas Beckett in his salubrious rooms. in Canterbury. We have the monks in the cathedral saying their prayers, writing their books, doing all the monthly things we expect them to do. We have Henry over in Normandy getting drunk, which, you know, good for him. Office Christmas party. Absolutely. And you've got the office, the knights, skulking around in the background, generally being rowdy and being Larry. And you've got, I don't know, I guess some horsies in the stable. I hope they're being given some fair

nice oats for Christmas. Some lovely roast meats, some alcohol flowing. This is a party on one side of the channel. And Henry the second may have said some stuff. You know, we all say a lot of things, don't we? It's just, Christmas feast, drinks are flowing. Can we even remember what we said the night before? And it's like your ex-friend too, right?

So you're out here. You just think you're having a nice time at Christmas. And yeah, you're mad about your bestie. Turning is back on you. trash talking to you through every court in Europe. Yeah, I mean, something probably got said. I will say that. Yeah, he's not in the WhatsApp group anymore, so you can say what you like about him, right?

He's never going to find out what you said. And I guess those words that Henry uses, so Henry hears that Beckett has gone back to England. Theoretically, they've patched it all over. He's going to re-crown Henry the Young King. Everyone's going to be friends again. It's all going to be great. Beckett's got back to England. Excommunicated a load of Henry's friends, bishops,

and nobleman, and that when it gets to Henry is what tips him over the edge. I will say that it does make perfect sense for him to just explode with rage, right? You're the king, you're kind of used to things being your way. All of this is incredibly controversial in and of itself, because, you know, the fact is, yeah, up until now, for the most part, kings were just appointing whatever bishops they want. That's how Thomas got to the throne in the first place. And then to do this kind of like pivot, that's going to make you mad.

Again, some drinks are probably involved, right? And so we have this real clash of personalities, and it's not just personalities as we would understand them. Kings understand themselves as having power given to them by God. So when people go against you and they say that they can do it because of God, yeah, you're probably going to come out harder. So I imagine Henry said something. Yeah, and I guess you've got to throw in that Plantagenet Tempor.

as well. You know, it's Henry's son, Richard, the first who will famously describe them as the devil's brood. You know, they're all descended from a demoness. So you can throw in a bad-tempered king who believes he is all-powerful and someone's standing up to him. So when he put in a job as a stooge to do something for him, he's standing up to him and refusing, and he's drunk. Yeah. And, you know, and he's surrounded by guys with weapons who basically can do violence licitly. And that's the entire reason that knights exist. We have the three parts of medieval society, know those who pray, those who fight, those who work, and these are the guys who can fight. Now, are you supposed to go around killing priests? No, no. But the point is, it's not really illegal either. There's this real gray area here,

because fundamentally, the guy who makes the law is the king. And if the king says he wants someone dead, well, hey, that's fine. However, look, I'm team. that I don't think who will rid me of this troublesome priest as a line that probably didn't happen it's too good

yeah yeah so we've tried to chart that line backwards so who will rid me of this meddlesome priest is iconic because it's the 1964 Beckett film we're doing chef's kisses here

I love it great stuff that and the line in winter oh brilliant perfect perfect and they obviously you know Hollywood is going to give us

this really snappy punchy line because anything any longer loses the audience, who will rib me of this meddlesome priest? Perfect. Yeah. Great. It really sets you up for this, but it also still contains a little bit of ambiguity, right? So even from a Hollywood perspective, yeah, that's something that could be interpreted by a bunch of knives as let's go kill Thomas Beckett now.

But there is still that little bit of questionability in there, I suppose. I mean, I guess the first thing to say here is obviously that's a line in English, which Henry he did not speak. No, I mean, Henry, you know, famously, there's that quote about him, understanding every language from the Holy Land to Lisbon, but speaking only French and Latin himself. So he definitely didn't say that line because he definitely didn't say anything in English. So it's going to be something that is either in Latin or French that is then transposed out of it,

right? So, you know, as you say, we've got the 1964 film Beckett, who comes up with that beautiful line. In 1957, this is also. in the Pears-Compton biography of Beckett, which is entitled The Turbulent Priest, right? So that really kind of slams things home. And if we trace it back a little bit further, we can get into the 19th century.

So 1821, we've got Chronicle of the Kings of England. Everything in history is called the Chronicle of the Kings of England. So this is an 1821 Chronicle of the Kings of England. And that gives this line as, Who shall deliver me from this turbulent priest? And it paraphrases a footnote, which has a longer version, will none of these lazy, insignificant persons whom I maintain

deliver me from this turbulent priest? I'm afraid that goes so hard. Like, yes, get them. Get those knights. Like, they're just here drinking on your dime, Henry. They can't even go kill a bitchup for you. Honestly. And it's interesting here that we're now moving away

from just him being annoyed at Beckett. He's shouting at the men in the room with him. They're the lazy and significant people. Yeah, so it's like this takes on more of a direct challenge. So whereas, you know, oh, who will rid me of? That's just, oh, there's a lot more question. Guys, it was a rhetorical question. Yeah, honestly, this is a lot more like, no, I said,

if you want to keep drinking free wine at Christmas, go out and get me ahead, kind of a deal. Yeah, it's interesting that we step away from that, the directness that we can hear in that. A hundred years later, lots of that directness has gone. Ambiguity has come into it. We can go back a little bit further, 1777. We've got a history of King Henry II.

in which the writer describes Henry as being very unfortunate to have maintained so many cowardly and ungrateful men in his court, none of whom would revenge him of the injuries he sustained from one turbulent priest. This is so Georgian. I'm sorry, I love this. It's so, like, I can just see someone wearing a wig in pantaloons writing this out. It is so of its time. It's a real 18th century statement.

You know, you still have these same sentiments in there, but it's said as though it's kind of like a play. You know, I'm expecting an actor to go, yeah, and then say it, you know. Or it sounds a little bit to me, like you could almost do this. He was very unfortunate. What an unfortunate chap? Is that really how we're positioning Henry II? He's an unfortunate man. I mean, one thing about Henry II that I will say till my grave is that this was a man

who knew what he was doing. You do not maintain the Angevin Empire through accident. It's simply a lot of land to govern, and he has an incredible force of work. will is something that I think is perfectly safe to say about Henry. The next one that we go back to is from 1740 from another Chronicle of the Kings of England. I'm going to leave this one to you because you've led into this perfectly with how it could be read. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this turbulent priest? This is probably modeled on Romans 724.

Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. So we have a really good kind of biblical precursor here. And this does a couple of things, right? In the first place, it shows that Henry has a good biblical education like any strong medieval monarch, right? But it also, again, we've got this sort of ambiguity creeping back in. Yeah, yeah. And it definitely, as a line that gives me Blackadder of the third vibes with the actors, get that nice wide stance and build up.

Yeah, absolutely perfect. But then we can go all the way back to the. account of a monk named Edward Grimm who was there. He was there when Beckett was murdered, I should clarify, he wasn't there when Henry said these words. So even here, we have to take it with a little bit of a pinch of salt. So we can imagine that having watched Beckett get murdered, he has gone to try and find out what Henry might have said to someone that could have led to this. So we can imagine he did some research, albeit he's going to be asking a room full of drunk guys

what they said at Christmas at the party. This is a real don't-ass, don't-tale situation. I feel like, you know, what happens at Christmas stays at Christmas until someone gets murdered, I'm afraid. But we can take the murder seriously from here, but once you see a grizzly murder in front of you, you know, when you're sleuthing and kind of like going back in time to try to pick up the pieces,

you're still going to come up with a kind of dramatic reading. And of course, by this time, someone's been murdered, so everyone is immediately on Thomas's side. Yeah, I'm going to try the Latin. I hate doing this. I hate doing this, but I'm going to try it. So Edward Grimm records the words in Latin as, Inertes at miseros homines,

enutrivi et Eriksi in regno meo, queen neck feedem ferunt domino so. Quem a plebio, quandan clerico, tam probos, patuendo, Iludi. everyone can now complain about my attempt at Latin. Look, we don't know how they said it, okay? Calm down. This translates for those of us who haven't had Latin drilled into them as what miserable drones and traders have I nurtured and promoted in my household

who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a lowborn cleric. And I think this is a really interesting form of words. It gets us as close to the time as we can, albeit that Henry is desperately trying to extricate himself from any accusation that he's directly ordered Beckett's murder. But this feels very much like it's an attack on the men in the room. There is no sense of somebody rid me of him. What are you guys doing allowing me to be treated this way? My majesty is being affected and part of you guys' job is to uphold that majesty. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's no point in having knights at all if they don't actually do things for the king.

And more particularly, you know, the king in this case, he's over in Normandy, just trying to keep everything right in his empire. He should feel as though he can leave for a little bit and have people help things take over, I suppose. You're right here, you know, we have what we would consider to be kind of the traditional slur on Thomas, which is that he's lowborn, which is absolutely the case. It has more of a feeling of verisimilitude about it for me

because it seems a lot more like what we do see as contemporary criticisms of Thomas, absolutely. So it may be that Edward Grimm is picking up on the vibes around how everyone was feeling about Thomas in the buildup to all of this, but it seems much less of a direct, someone go and do something. It's almost Henry saying, I'm surrounded by idiots. Exactly, right. So given that, do you, Matt, feel like when the Knights did this, this is something that they feel kind of spurred to? Or do you think that this is like, yeah, they were sent out the door with like, and now go off and kill Thomas Beckett, please? I mean, everything that we have points to them just taking it upon themselves, doesn't it? Because Henry will later on not want to be anywhere near an order or an instruction to do this.

So everything that we have points to this idea that, you know, Henry says these words, And we have to presume four drunk nights at a Christmas feast as well, kind of look across the table at each other and go, guys. Yeah, just go. Should you do it? Should you do it? Like laser eyes at each other. Just being like, huh, uh, here's how we're going to make a name for ourselves. You know, this is how we are going to rise through the levels of the court.

Let's just, but having said that, at some point, one presumes they sobered up. Somewhere in the channel crossing, perhaps, they're going to, at a point in time, regain consciousness. And they still do it anyway, right? So it is one thing to say they're kind of cajoled or insulted and they're drunk and everyone's acting a bit silly. But there still is a point in time where, you know, cooler heads would prevail, one would assume. Yeah, you would think even halfway across the channel when you wake up with a hangover, guys, what are we doing? We're going to go, what? No, no, no, no, no.

I mean, that does lean into the idea that they felt like there was some compulsion, some drive, some mission to go over there and do it. otherwise you would like to think they would have woken up and thought, let's just forget it. But they don't. You know, obviously, one way or another, Thomas ends up dead. And we do have these records that there's four theoretical nights, and we've got some name alerts here. Reginald Fitzers, bring it back.

Where have all the Fitzerses is gone? Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, and Richard Le Breton. However, four nights is it? Is it four nights? because this is, you know, one of those little pieces of medieval showmanship, I think, because, oh, four horsemen, right? So it's not even really possible for us to say, I think, 100 percent, yeah, here's these guys, and they were definitely doing this acting alone because there's a specific apocalyptic reference to the four horsemen of the apocalypse here, right? And all medieval people are going to understand that immediately. You know, to them, this is a reference that they are going to get. Yeah. And we do get lots of accounts when we get to Canterbury that there's by no means just four people that turn up. They are being singled out for a reason. We're given four names. But as you say, that four is significant. We need to be very careful about how much of this was driven by just those four men and how much they're singled out because they fit a nice, neat, empty space in the puzzle.

Fundamentally, as we say, you know, at one point in time, you are going to sober up if it's just four drunk guys. However, if you've got people, together a whole party of people, then suddenly we've got a lot more, oh, well, this is an official mission kind of a deal. It's a lot less just ad hoc. It's more like, well, you can't just tell all 40 people, oh, we've messed up, let's turn around now. And again, when we go back to Henry trying to extricate himself from any involvement, the idea that he sent a huge posse of dozens and dozens and dozens of men, that looks far more organized than four guys getting on their horses and thinking, let's go and murder someone. And I mean, one thing that could be happening here is we've got four named individuals.

These could just be the most prominent guys involved. You know, you're not going to name every usher or squire or whatever who's on along there. But if you've got a bunch of sirs in the room, it's like, well, name these guys, they can be the fall guys. And they're technically serving the king here in that way, at the very least. Yeah. But we do get some lovely descriptions of them from Chronicles. So William of Nubra in particular describes them as having wrought themselves up to the commission

of iniquity through zeal for their earthly master and then calls them the servants of Satan. I mean, we're painting a picture. That is so good, though. I mean, granted, I'm incredibly biased towards medieval people, obviously. But, you know, what a way with words. But I love this through the zeal for their earthly master. So here we are, once again, kind of bringing out this. royal church rivalry.

So, oh, you're serving your earthly master, the king. You're not thinking about your heavenly master, the Lord, who doesn't want you to kill an archbishop, obviously. And it's also interesting that we get earthly master so close to being servants of Satan. It's very dangerously close to calling Henry names. Because it is very, very like just saying the king of Satan, hello. Which, oaf, that would get you in some real trouble. But, I mean, he's tone of line here is William of Newport.

work. Yeah, I think so. Roger of Houdin also gives us a nice line. He says that these knights were destined by their daring to commit so enormous a crime to blemish the glories of knighthood and the honours of their ancestors with perpetual ignominy. Well, but you know what this does? You get in here a real good chunk of light between Henry and the knights. It's like, oh, see, it was the knights. It was the knights. They're the ones. Their ancestors are the ones who are going to have the perpetual ignominity. Not the Anshman's. Like, no, no, that's fine.

Like, don't even worry about Henry the Young King. He's, he's not involved in this. Like, he has nothing to do with it, right? Yeah, yeah. It's the knights barters who are turning in the grave. All right, Matt. So what do you think? Four guys and a turbulent priest, or what's your take?

I am going to stick with four main knights, who they obviously felt that they could pin this on. We know that they arrive at the head of a much larger group. And for me, that leans into Henry being involved more than he would ever like to let on because something organised is happening. Whether he directly said to these four men, get some people together and go and do this, or whether they took it upon themselves, I guess is different. But it's much more organized than just four random guys heading off into the night

to go and do something silly on a whim. I completely agree. For me, I suppose the way I read this is that Henry, was gassing these guys up to go do something. But I think that what he kind of intended was like a light roughing up, right? Or maybe not so light roughing up. I don't think that he meant for Thomas to get fully killed. But there is a long tradition in the medieval period of beaten up priests in the street.

We've got popes who've been beaten up in the street. You know, it is not unusual for this sort of thing to happen. And I also think there is an important fly to put in this ointment. And that is Thomas when they get to Canterbury. Okay, so speaking of to Canterbury, we have been in Normandy in the King's Palace feasting and eating roast meat, but here it's a much more sober picture. Now, I'm not here to say that Thomas Becka isn't living a pretty nice life in comparison to, say, a quite poor peasant, but it's much more austere. It's December, and whilst Christmas is a feast when you were a king, when you are a priest, you're supposed to put the brakes on it a little bit. it's cold, it's drizzly, you know, it's December in England.

Yeah, I think we're thinking Bearstone, a bit of candlelight, just enough to see by it's fairly dark December, very short days. They're living in this kind of gloom, but that reflects the need to suffer during all of these periods. So we think of the bright lights and the roast meat of Henry's party on one side of the channel. On the other side, I think we have a much dingier, darker, danker picture. of men in their old stone cells with just a little bit of candlelight. And here we get to Thomas Beckett, who seems like he's ready for this.

I mean, this is a man who has come back to England under cover of patching things over with Henry. Everything's going to be great. I'm going to re-crown your son. Everything is now fixed. The King of France and the Pope are on board for this. I kind of had enough of Beckett as well. So they're all for Henry and Beckett getting back together. Henry has let Beckett back into England for the first time in six years. And what does Beckett do? He repays him by excommunicating lots of the people closest to Henry. So I find it impossible to imagine that Beckett is sitting in Canterrey thinking

Henry's going to be fine with this. He is going to come over here and we are just going to hug it out like bros. Like that cannot be what he thinks. He knows that he's escalating. Absolutely. You cannot excommunicate. of the king's friends and then just say, I feel like there will be no repercussions for saying they're all going to hell.

That's not how it works, right? So the real question is, what is Thomas up to? Why is he poking the bear? Why is he setting fire to their recently patched up friendship again? I mean, is this just what he's like? Is he just a bit of a stirer? I think that's in there. but I come down on the side slightly of he knows what he's doing, right?

And we get these guys through the Middle Ages. There's a lot of dudes who end up getting killed, especially for religious reasons, who were given every opportunity to wind it right back, but instead turned up the heat. And for me, that's what's happening here. It's kind of a medieval equivalent of being a reality TV star, isn't it? It's a shortcut to eternal fame, unfortunately.

in the medieval mind. You want to be a saint. That's forever. And people are trying to be saints all the time. You know, for us, it just seems like hubris now. And also, you know, who wants to be stabbed to death. Okay, that's fair. Okay, like, I probably wouldn't sign up for that bit.

But you're absolutely right. This is something that people grow up dreaming of and thinking about. And we have to put ourselves in the mindset of this is attainable if you follow specific steps. And this is why I think that Thomas knows what he's doing, because there are these hallmarks of saintliness all around the death. Very carefully arranged. And we get kind of Roger of Howden puts these words into Beckett's mouth that when the monks, you know, welcome him back to Canterbury, he's literally saying, I have come to you to die among you. And then he goes on to say, in this church there are martyrs. And before long, God will increase the number of them. I mean, it's not very mysterious, is it, Thomas?

No. And I mean, he would have to know as well. You know, so this is one of the things what's complex about the, are there four horsemen or a number? Four horsemen, sure, they could just sneak up on you and you're like, oh, gosh, there's four guys here suddenly. But a whole retinue of royal people coming, someone saw them on the way, right? Yeah. And this is why this attitude that we can see possibly in Thomas is why I think he's the fly in the ointment when the knights get there. It's possible Henry sent them over to just kick him out of Canterbury again,

you know, drag him back across the sea, stop him doing all of this stuff that is against what they'd agreed when he let him back into England. But they're going to come up against a guy who has come there for a very deliberate purpose and a guy who invariably gets what he wants. All right. So we're coming up to the break. Where are all of our men right now? We have a lot of pieces in play. We do.

So Henry, still at Berlewa in Normandy, nursing his hangover, trying to remember what he said the next morning, counting the knights that are at his court and trying to do the maths and work out. Are there four missing? I'm sure I had more around here. Maybe they're in my other trousers, I don't know. We've got knights who are on their way to Canterbury, but not just four of them. There is a posse that's going to arrive at Canterbury. So we have men in their saddles pounding through the muddy streets of Canterbury in December approaching the cathedral. And we have Beckett in his rooms in Canterbury. And I would wager what he's doing now because you and I are agreed.

We think he knows what's coming slash. We think that he wants a very specific thing to be coming. So he would be doing what any good Christian would be doing, which is preparing for death. so he would probably be giving confession. He would probably be praying and he dresses himself in a very specific way, which lets us know that he wants to be a saint. And the question is whether he always dressed that way

or whether he had one ear out waiting for the clatter of hooves coming up the drive as a reason to get dressed in that specific. So here we are in Canterbury. It is a disgusting, drizzly, December mud-filled, you know, England. Well, welcome to England. Hey, look, look, I love it here, whatever. But here come the knights, and they break into the cathedral rooms. And what they're attempting to do at first is just find Thomas and arrest him.

Yeah, so they will be working their way through the cloisters, heading for the biggest room, the Archbishop's room, and they find Thomas reportedly in there eating a meal. So super chill, absolutely fine with the fact that these guys are bursting into his rooms, almost feels like he was expecting this. He's been waiting for this, and he's been very cool. And this is kind of a neat symmetry here for dramatic purposes. We go from one feast to another, but there's also like very, very different vibes, right? This sets up Thomas as the cool as a cucumber guy.

oh, well, some of us get drunk and shout at knights at our feast, and some of us are just hanging out, having a nice little cape on. Yeah, he's got his Jedi master kind of hood up here. And the knights, essentially, their initial demand is that Beckett reverses the excommunications of those bishops and nobleman who had supported Henry. So their immediate demand isn't that he's under arresting. They're drawing swords immediately. what they say to start off with is reverse those excommunications, Tom. Now, according to Edward Grimm, what is happening here is that Thomas says that's all well and good, but we can never reverse the excommunication from a higher authority because of a lower one.

And this is a really interesting kind of reversal of all the things that people say about Thomas Beckett ordinarily, right? or they're like, oh, he's lowborn, he is lowborn. And his point here is that none of that matters, because the minute God enters the equation, I outright all you boys. So you can just calm down. Nothing like that is going to happen for you. And it's incredibly inflammatory because he's also positioning Henry's power

as below God, but also below Thomas's own power. He's saying, I can't undo what I've done because the king says so, because the king isn't the important one here. And given the reason that Thomas had been put in the position of Archbishop of Canterbury, given, I mean, the general pressures around Europe, I guess, about who appoints bishops, where does the power rest between the crown and the church? Is the pope actually a supreme secular ruler as well? This is a really naughty, but inflammatory comment.

And it's also directly calling into question how he got there. This is Henry's guy. He wasn't put there because the papacy was like, oh, we really love Thomas Beckett. Like, I've got to have him as Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the Archbishop of Canterbury because that's what Henry wanted. So this is a pretty turn on a dime kind of way of putting things, really. And it plays into, I think I shared notion that Thomas knows exactly what he's doing. He's escalating here.

He's driving the pressure up on these four men who've come into his room. And he has no intention of doing what they want. And I mean, it works, right? The knights are a bit flabbergasted. They kind of think, you know, if you run in here with swords and say, like, let's get to this. I think that they really did expect that there was going to be a reversal and kind of a come down here. But instead, this just amps up all of the energy in the situation because not only are they already here, but they're being made to look foolish. Yeah, so they then break out the threats of violence, which, you know, for four,

Fighting men, this is what they know. They're not getting what they want. The next step is or else. And Beckett reacts to that or else really calmly. So the knights are unarmed. They say, I'm going to be back in one minute with a sword, you know, and they leave basically an angry mob

outside to make sure that Thomas doesn't go anywhere. And Thomas is like, yeah, no, I'm good. Like, I'm not going anywhere. I simply love to sit here and be threatened by a mob. Yeah. So they go outside, which again tells us they've left their weapons outside. They didn't come with murder directly on their mind, but Thomas has wound them up to the point where they've gone outside to collect their weapons. And we can picture the scene from what Edward Grimm describes of the monks kind of beginning to panic.

These aren't fighting men. These are the opposite of fighting men, confronted by four knights who have threatened violence in a cathedral, and they've literally gone outside to get the... means to inflict that violence. The monks seem to be panicking and they sort of cajole Thomas into the nave of the cathedral because they believe he'll be safe there. And they're sort of the image that Edward Grim paints is of them sort of packed around him, holding him in the centre of themselves to keep him safe. They're clearly frightened. And you would be at this point, right? Because the fact that the knights are unarmed, this isn't a surprise. You don't go into the house of a major lord armed. And the archbishop fundamentally is a major lord. And, you know,

more particularly a religious one, there are these aspects of holiness that are at play here. So what you would always do is say, well, I'm leaving my sword outside before you go in specifically to be like, I'm not here to murder you. And more particularly, you do this with churches in general because no one wants weapons in a church, right? You know, the idea here is that there is the bloodshed side of things and there's the heavenly side of things and never. the Twain shall meet. So yeah, it makes sense that the monks say, okay, that is it. We're going into the cathedral because they're like, no one would kill someone in a cathedral. No. And interesting that Edward Grimm kind of says, Beckett didn't particularly want to go. And the monks kind of have to

egg him along by saying, oh, it's time for Vespers. You know, it's time for a service. So we can picture it sunset here. If it's Vespers, that's the service that takes place at sunset. the light is beginning to fade in the cathedral. It's a dark, dingy December evening now. Twilight is here, and they managed to convince Thomas to go in. And I guess one of the questions here is, does this give him a moment to dress himself properly? I say yes. Okay, I'm sorry, right?

Because when we say, just to be clear, dress himself properly, Thomas dons the least comfortable bit of clothing in the medieval wardrobe, a hair shirt. Now, a hair shirt essentially is a bunch of naughty, incredibly rough cloth, and the point of it is that it sucks. It shapes you, and it's super, super uncomfortable, and it sort of claws your skin off as you wear it. And now, saints absolutely love to wear hair shirts. But more particularly, saints that are from incredibly wealthy, comfortable. backgrounds wear hair shirts. So say you are a royal saint like the French king Saint Louis. Oh, Louis, he wore a hair shirt underneath all his kingly finery. So you can see,

oh, he's really pious even though he's wearing fancy things. Same deal for an Archbishop of Canterbury. To be taken seriously as an Archbishop, you need your cool little Bishop tiara, you need all of these golden robes, all of these understandable things. But oh, you can see he's really pious at heart because he's wearing this hair shirt. I'm sorry, the fancy lad from, you know, London, wearing a hair shirt all the time. No, I'm not buying it. Like, if he had been wearing it longer than just this evening,

I'm giving it, like, from the time that the Knights landed in England. That's when he's been wearing this shirt. And again, the idea would be that if something dramatic happens, you would be discovered to be wearing a hair shirt. There wouldn't be this idea that you would put it on specially for this to happen. We're meant to imagine that Thomas, has no idea what's about to take place. And he's always wearing this hair shirt.

It just happens to have been wearing it when all of this plays out. Yeah, it's a real, oh, I didn't notice you there kind of moment, but for wearing weird uncomfortable clothes. Yeah, Thomas is always scratching himself. You would notice. That's what I'm saying, you know? But this, for me, is absolutely kind of a stage managed moment.

He knows what he's doing. This is a choice. But if he knows what he's doing, it means that he knows that there's a possibility that he dies. And the final part, when the knights have gone outside, the monks have managed to convince Beckett to get into the cathedral to celebrate Vespers. There's then a few monks who sort of suggest they're going to go and close and bolt the door

while these guys are outside because then problem solved. But that's not necessarily what Beckett wants. Yeah, so there's two things at play here, right? So on the one hand, Beckett says, don't bolt the door. And on the one hand, it's like because he's saying, oh, we all need to be able to enjoy Vespers. Oh, the church is close to no one. You know, the poor must hear Vespers.

But also, he is, I would argue, gunning for a sainthood. He's like, I am ready to die. Like, this is a cannot wait to die today in the cathedral. Yeah, along with the hair shirt, he's donned his martyr-me-quick hats that he got at Blackpool. And, you know, Edward Grimm, so our eyewitness has Beckett tell the monks not to go and shut the door and say, it is not proper that a house of prayer, a church of Christ, we made a fortress, since although it is not shut up, it serves as a fortification for his people. We will triumph over the enemy through suffering rather than by fighting, and we come to suffer, not to resist. Absolutely, which is, you know,

the Christian goal, the Christian aim. We find this to be weird, right? Like, we think why would anyone want to die, you know, martyrdom, that can't be fun. But it really can't be undersold. This idea of, this is a direct line to heaven. If you get martyred, that is just straight in. That is a beeline. And if you believe in the medieval Christian version of events, you're just good then. Like, okay, brill. Yeah, nice. And so at this point, we have the knights come bursting back into the cathedral. They're now armed. They've come with weapons. Edward Grimm, describes how he stood beside Beckett as the knights come in. He says that they have their swords drawn.

So I guess the question is, what are they really thinking at this point? For me, I think that they are just upping the threat level. You know, this is like when you've got an angry cat and it starts arching its back, right? Like, this is the equivalent. It's like, oh, I've got a sword right here. How about now? You know, like, it's a constant uping of what the threat level is in order to assess. potentially call Thomas' bluff, is what I would say.

Because Edward Grimm is also clear that the rest of the four still remain outside the cathedral. It's just these four guys that come in, although they are accompanied now by a gent with the name who ought to be a giveaway. Hugh the evil. Not Hugh the evil. I mean, who knew that Hugh the evil was going to be involved in this at all? He's usually so sound, you know? Like, I just, I can't believe this.

He's normally such a good, solid guy. but then Hugh the evil clerk comes along with the four knights like he's leading them towards Beckett as sort of a facilitator for all of this now. So we are now at the very centre of a significant confrontation. And if we think about Henry for a moment again, he's still in Normandy. And I guess our question is, is he aware of what's going on? Has he sent someone over there to do something,

or being it might not have been this, is he completely oblivious to the fact that someone has taken it upon themselves to go and do this supposedly on his behalf? My vote is that Henry's never oblivious about anything. I mean, things don't happen like this in Henry's realm without him knowing that it's going to happen. But what I would say is,

I do not think he thought it would go down like this. Because this is a huge L, right? Like, this is a PR nightmare at the very, very least. And it takes a lot of undoing on Henry's part. So I firmly believe that Henry sent those guys over there in order to do some light slap fighting, some rough housing,

probably haul Thomas back here and get yelled at. But I don't think that he was like, and also please murder this man. I'm sure it'll be fine. No one will be mad at me. Yeah, and I would tend to agree. And I think maybe it just reaches the point where the knights are thinking,

we can't go back to Henry and say we can't get an archbishop out of a church. Us four big butch knights with all our armor and weapons and all our mates, we can't get this 50-year-old guy and carry him out of a church and bring him back to you. Who wants to explain that to Henry? And fundamentally, you know, I do think that what Thomas is doing here is he's poking the bear, right? You know, he's making it almost impossible to climb down from this. There are rituals around this sort of thing. There is a real idea of thinking about reputation in the Middle Ages.

It's called your pharma, your reputation, right? And if you are a knight, your willingness to do what it takes for your king is what your pharma is all about. And so how are you going to go back with your tail between your legs to Normandy and say, we got outsmarted by a priest? So if we get back into the cathedral, what we now have, from some of those eyewitness accounts is very much a blow-by-blow, move-by-move account of what happens as all of this breaks down.

So the knights have burst into the cathedral. They found this knot of monks gathered around the altar, and they start out by one of them shouts, where is Thomas Beckett, traitor of the king and kingdom? Now, Beckett is in the middle of a little jelly donut of monks and just doesn't say anything, right? He is surrounded on all sides by a lot of monk action. So again, they repeat, where is the Archbishop?

And it's at this point that Beckett steps out from the group of monks and says, the righteous will be a bold lion and free from fear. Oh, he was practicing that all night. He was in the mirror, buddy. Oh, it's good. It's very good. It's a quality line, just loud enough for all the monks to hear it so that they can write it down and report it later.

Write that down. Did you get that? Do you need to say again? Yeah, it's good, right. Grim, do you have a quill? Good. And then he describes Beckett, stepping down the stairs from the altar

and saying to the knights, here I am, not a traitor of the king, but a priest. Why do you seek me? Here I am ready to suffer in the name of he who redeemed me with his blood. God forbid that I should flee

on account of your swords or that I should depart from righteousness. And then I imagine he puts his hand together and goes, oh. For the monks, this is like, oh, this is like a dis, right? You know, just straight up like, oh, you think you can just come in here. Like, no, I'm hard. I'm hard, actually, but hard in the name of J.C. our Lord and Savior.

Yeah, and there's an element here of that continuing to poke the bear, like you're saying, he's embarrassing these nights. They've come in and said, oh, you, churchman, come with us. And he said, make me. And Edward Grimm describes him coming to a halt. standing between the altars of the Virgin Mary and St. Benedict, and that can't be an accident either. No, absolutely, right?

So there are two things that are happening here. You've got the altar of the blessed mommy of God, the Virgin Mary. Everybody loves the Virgin Mary, right? And she is somebody who intercedes for the powerless oftentimes. So she's also the queen of heaven, right? So there is this kind of pulling rank there when the Virgin Mary is involved. For St. Benedict, our good friend St. Benedict of Nursia, he is the guy who kind of really came up

with the entire concept of being a monk. So this is a call out to monasticism. This is him saying, oh, you know, I didn't really want this big political life where I've been going around Europe for years antagonizing every single king. Really, I just wanted to be like a nice monk and write texts and not be involved in politics.

Yeah, I think there's also an element. So if we've got Virgin Mary, we've got Benedict who invents monasticism kind of thing, Thomas, I think there's a little message for Henry in there too that you've put me between these two people. You made me a monk. You made me Archbishop of Canterbury. You've stuck me right in the middle of these two people.

What do you expect me to do? Do I do what they say? Or do I do what you say? And the knights have more to say, right? So according to all of the receipts, they then say, absolve and restore to communion those you have excommunicated and return to office those who have been suspended. And you can imagine them gritting their teeth, you know, this is, they're getting pretty

just wound up now. I said, restore them, you know. And Beckett, we're told, replies, no penance has been made. So I will not absolve. And this is like the last straw, right? To be fair to Beckett, I mean, yeah, it's a pretty cut and dry. Like, to be excommunicated, you need to do something that proves that you can be recommunicated, right?

but the knights just lose it here and they say, then you will now die and will suffer what you have earned. And I mean, again, we get a quote from Beckett in which he says, I am prepared to die for my lord. So that in my blood the church will attain liberty and peace, but in the name of almighty God, I forbid you to hurt my men, either cleric or layman in any way.

And I think there's so specific going on that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is a call out to what happens at the Garden of Githenemy. So basically, you know, when the Romans roll up to arrest Jesus and all the apostles are there, and granted, have they been asleep? Yes. Okay. But Jesus is like, no, no, no, no, no.

Like, it's your boy right here. Come and arrest me. Leave the apostles alone. And Thomas is doing the same thing. Now, to be clear, the knights were not threatening anybody other than Beckett. But this is still a moment for him to make a very direct parallel between. him and Jesus. Yeah, he is trying to paint a very clear picture in that moment. And I think we can see all of his experience as a senior government official, as a military man, as someone who was negotiated

on behalf of a king. We can see all of that being brought to bear in this moment. And I think one of the things that strikes me as we move into the next moment is the sheer personal bravery of Beckett, whatever we think about his motives and what's going on here, he is actively pursuing the moment of his own violent death. You're absolutely right. You know, we can poke fun at this, but the reason why martyrdom has such a cachet, and the reason why I would say Beckett is gunning for it right now,

is because actually being violently killed really sucks. That's what I've been given to understand, right? So you earn this place with God because you're willing to defend the faith with your own body, you're willing to go through pain, you're willing to suffer the ordeal of death. So this is meaningful and brave. And, well, it could never be your girl, right?

Like, no, I'm just like, yeah, okay, they're recommunicated. Get out of my face, you know? No, St. Ellen, it's. Uh-huh. And then we get this escalation, and it all seems to really erupt inside the cathedral. And again, you know, picture this moment. Monks gathered around a crowd, all of this noise and clatter growing, Thomas at the absolute centre of it where he very much wants to be.

But we then have the knights try to drag him away. They try to physically remove him from the cathedral. And Thomas clings onto this pillar to the point where these four guys can't drag him away. He's showing some pretty good strength in this moment. And he says to Reginald Fitzers, directly, don't touch me, Reginald, you who owes me faith and obedience, you who foolishly follow your accomplices. Not the first name.

It's like when your mum says your middle name. He's full-named it, Reginald. Oh, not Reginald. Oh. But interestingly, it does suggest some kind of relationship between Beckett and Reginald that Beckett is able to say, you owe me service. You know, maybe he's a sworn, he's sworn fealty to the Archbishop at some point previously. And Beckett is maybe singling him out because he can not only embarrass him,

but play on his loyalties as well and really drive home his winding up of these knights in Reginald. And I think that this is a really important point because what it shows us is how interconnected Thomas was with Henry's court. You know, these are people he knows. These aren't just like some knights. This is a guy he has a relationship with that he can call on, which does a good thing in terms of like shaming him. But also, it means he knows how to push his buttons. So he would be clear about how this would be something Reginald would hate.

Yeah. And we have Reginald say, I don't owe faith or obedient. to you that is in opposition to the fealty I owe to my Lord King. So he is there being forced to answer that question of earthly master or heavenly master. And this is actually kind of a scrupulous answer. This is kind of like, oh, really nice legal speak in the Middle Ages, right? Because he doesn't owe anybody obedience if it is in opposition, right? So he's saying, first and foremost, look, I'm a knight.

My power comes from the king. This is why I've got a sword right now. Otherwise, I wouldn't be allowed to have a sword, right? So you can't have two opposing claims to licit violence, essentially. And that's true. And it's at this point that the scuffle really breaks out. Beckett, let's go of the pillar. And we're told by Edward Grimm that what he does next is press his hands together in front of him as if in prayer.

And he leans forward extending his neck. Edward Grimm says, you know, as if he's offering it for a sacrifice. I mean, he couldn't be more clear about what he's trying to do. And we get the monks kind of shoot out from where they've been hiding. They've kind of retreated into the shadows a little bit. When all of this kicks off, they kind of rush out and try to protect Thomas again to the point where Reginald is swinging a sword. We're told he takes a little bit of skin off Beckett's scalp as he does it,

but he buries his sword in Edward Grimm's arm. So our eyewitness has a sword now kind of cleaved into his arm, trying to hold it over the archbishop and protect Thomas, and we think isn't what Thomas would have wanted, actually. No. And there is also this little thing here with the, you know, clipping a bit of the skull off. It's sort of like a reference to tauture, right? Like all monks have the little bit taken out of their thing.

So again, we're reinforcing the monkliness of Thomas and the fact that none of this was his fault, obviously. And then Grimm describes a second sword blow that severs Grimm's arm completely. So he's now unable to protect Thomas anymore. and he's lost one of his arms. And another blow strikes Beckett's head, and then a third causes his knees to buckle and fall to the ground. And then, again, we get Brim reporting some word from Beckett,

said, just loud enough for everyone. He says, for the name of Jesus and the protection of the church, I am ready to embrace death. I mean, that'll do it, won't it? And this is the moment we're told that he's surrounded. there is another blow that takes the top of his skull clean off. In the follow through, the sword shatters on the floor of the cathedral in a hugely symbolic way. And there is blood and brains all over the floor.

It's evocative. Yeah, I mean, I suppose if you or Thomas, you were hoping for that blow first. So it's not great that it takes as long as it does. However, it also is this opportunity for the monks to also prove their holiness. So, you know, we're getting this account from someone who's also like, yeah, and then I was really brave too. You know, so there's also a chance for him to kind of come up in the holiness stakes as a result of this. But again, that element of personal bravery on Beckett's behalf that he's effectively standing there and taking this. And Edward Grimm will say later, you know, there were no signs of defensive wounds on Thomas's body.

He didn't put an arm up to protect himself, which does take whatever game we think Beckett is playing here, an immense amount of bravery. Absolutely. And it can be two things. You can be playing a game, as you say, but fundamentally it's a dangerous one and you do have to gin yourself up for it, no? And then we get the final intervention of our friend Hugh the Evil Clark. I mean, we're told that he steps on the neck of Beckett's dead corpse causing his brains to spill out even more across the floor and says, we can leave this place, Knights, he will not get up again. I mean, Hugh, who hurt you? I know, right?

Like, Hugh has just been Biden his time. And this is interesting, though, because Hugh the evil, he really plays this role, you know, where we are meant to slightly understand that the knights and, you know, Reginald have been goaded up to this point one way or another. And sure, they could have turned back at any time. But you have, like, the heel here, right? This is who Hugh the evil is. He's the guy who's really like, I hope there's murder. or woo, woo, woo, you know, kind of a deal. And they leave.

And they've left an archbishop dead on the floor of his own cathedral. Presumably, as night is beginning to fall, it's cold in there. And now we have a dead Archbishop of Canterbury bleeding all over the floor. And I mean, it's frightening how quickly people will begin to collect that blood. But I thought we should also think about what happens to these four knights, because we do have a fate for these four knights who are accused of doing this. Absolutely. You know, they take off, right? Because one way or another, sure, were they goaded into this? Are they kind of legally protected? Yeah. Is anybody going to be really excited about this and happy? No. So they are out, right? And they go north. So out of the sphere of influence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. They flee to Nairzboro. This is up in Yorkshire. It's near York. And that is also making a real statement. about trying to get away from anyone who could retaliate against them violently.

And interestingly, into the sphere of the Archbishop of Yorker at this time is still a bit of a rival to Canterbury for supremacy in England. And there are some graphic accounts of people describing these four nights being shunned by everybody else, forced to eat alone. And we're even told that their leftovers are thrown out to the dogs and the dogs turn their noses up at the leftovers. I feel like that's not true, but that's okay. I've never met a dog who turns their nose up at leftovers. But they're clearly trying to make a point in these sources that these men, even animals, know that what they've done is wrong and you don't want to be associated with these four men. Absolutely.

And, you know, this obviously gets to the Pope because you can't kill Archbishops without the Pope finding out. And he then gives them a penance, which is that they have to go on to crusade. And they are off to the Holy Land for about 14 years. this is a really interesting point, though, because I think now when we think about murder, we think, oh yeah, gosh, you murder someone you're going to be in trouble, you're going to be imprisoned. But the medieval way of thinking about murder is not that you need to punish someone for it. In general, it's that you need to atone, especially if you're somebody fancy, like a knight, right? So you need to go do something that's going to make up for the fact that you've done something really

terrible. And in this case, they need to go do something holy because they've killed someone holy. So let's take all of that violence that you've just used in the wrong direction and put it to good use, which is, you know, murdering people in the Holy Land instead. But then we're told that none of them make it to the Holy Land. All four of them die at Montenegro on their way to the east. Their bodies were told, are taken to Jerusalem and buried at the door of a temple there. And an inscription is placed above it saying, here lie the wretched men who martyred the blessed Thomas Archbishop. of Canterbury. And I guess there's something in there that they're buried at the door of the temple. They don't make it in and that everyone who goes into the temple from that point onwards is

going to be doing so over their dead bodies. Absolutely. But at the same time, we also have this thing where this is a form of atonement. So they do make it to the Holy Land in general. So there's an understanding that they are doing the right thing one way or another. Now, do you still get to make fun of them. Yes, is this an ongoing disc track for hundreds of years? Fundamentally, it is, but there is still something in it where they're kind of trying to do the right thing. Now, unfortunately, for all of those of us who want to go clown on these knights, we can't find them any longer, because when the Ottomans took over Jerusalem in the 16th century, they rebuild the city walls, things get moved around a little too much, and our knights are lost at this point.

And maybe in a final ignominy, they are now lost. We can't even help them atone for what they've done. We can't even be aware that they're there under our feet as we walk around. So maybe that's the final ignominy is that they're forgotten and Thomas isn't. So these guys are dead much later in Montenegro and later Jerusalem. But fundamentally, we still got the corpse of the archbishop bleeding out on the floor. And so the monks swing into action because they are like, we did it, lad. We have got a saint on our hands.

The saint Claxton is going in Canterbury. People are collecting blood, so we have lots of descriptions of blood. And Thomas's blood, albeit in a watered down way, would be around for a long, long time. And they are, we can imagine again the scene of them fussing around this dead body in a pool of blood with white specks of brain on the stone floor. and they will gather this up and bury it and they will mourn the end of the life of Thomas Beckett whilst they're maybe immediately beginning to think about the afterlife. There are like comic dollar signs popping up in their eyes right now

because you have got a fresh saint, you've got fresh relics, they have to know that they have got a saint on their hands and that means more pilgrims. It means a huge elevation of how people think about Canterbury and that is why you need to get every speck of brain, every bone, every drop of blood because that can be sold on. And they build this really cool tomb, which another reason I hate Henry the 8th forever is he destroyed it, but they build this cool medieval tomb where you can go kind of lay in it on top of Thomas's body so that you can be close to his bones and you can

You can feel the magic of being in contact with the saint. And oh, mate, I would love to have been able to lay in that. So Thomas the man is dead. Thomas the legend is coming. Well, if you thought that was the end of Beckett, then think again. In the final episode of this special series, we complete the story with a look at Thomas's cult. What did it mean for Henry to have his former friend

an archbishop, a man in whose death he was implicated, made a saint so quickly. How did Thomas become an international superstar? And what did the Reformation mean for his cult and for his tomb? All will be revealed when we return to explore the afterlife of Thomas Beckett. There are new installments have gone medieval every Tuesday and Friday. So please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennial. in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. It really does help us

and you'll be doing us a big favour. You can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts, add free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. As a special gift, you can also get 50, of your first three months when you use the code medieval at checkout. Anyway, we better let you go. We've been Ellen E. Arniger and Matt Lewis, and we've just gone medieval with history hit.