Thomas Becket and Henry II - a very human story

The site of St Thomas Becket's martyrdom in Canterbury Cathedral

Here is an article by Renée D. Roden on St Thomas Becket that seeks to fill out the background of the characters involved in the saga that led to Becket's martyrdom through the eyes of  of Peter Glenville’s film "Becket" (1964). The article is from the website of the CHURCH LIFE JOURNAL, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. Glenville's film goes for nearly two and a half hours and can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube HERE. 

“I give my life

To the Law of God above the Law of Man”

—Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot[i]

Thomas Becket, whose feast of martyrdom is observed today, is a highly celebrated figure of English Christianity, commemorated in painting, verse, and drama since his 12th century assassination.

The story of Thomas Becket’s unlikely rise to Archbishop of Canterbury is chronicled in Peter Glenville’s film Becket (1964). Although it tells the story of Becket’s martyrdom, the heart of Glenville’s tale is Becket’s friendship with Henry; he frames the film with scenes of Henry II at Becket’s tomb, addressing his deceased friend. Becket sets up a medieval buddy movie, which is ruined by God.

There is, of course, more to Thomas Becket’s story than simply his friendship with King Henry II. But the particular sacrifice of friendship, love, and loyalty that the film paints is a striking hue of Becket’s portrait, and a touching testament to the singular witness that friendship plays in the life of faith.

The film starts with the puerile shenanigans of Becket and King Henry II, carousing throughout the night, making mincemeat of the clergy in the council chambers, and hunting (women) in every corner of merry old England.

Throughout these exploits, Henry barks out commands, shouting at peasants and courtiers alike, a petulant child and snarling lion. But this willful monarch acknowledges the quiet moral force that Becket exerts upon him. Reflecting on what Thomas has done to him, Henry muses that he was once, “a machine made for belching and whoring, and punching heads. What did you put in mine, Thomas, that stopped the machine?” Thomas’ witness has complicated Henry’s life, and transformed him.

Becket is content to pander to his king and protect the victimized citizens on the sly, until Henry appoints him Archbishop of Canterbury. “If the mitre is on his head, he will no longer be on your side,” says Becket, prophetically, of the role of bishop. In that mitre, the laconic, ironic Becket finds a deeper allegiance than to the crown, and a greater love. Becket declares in prayer, his new role is “like going on a holiday: I’ve never enjoyed so much in my whole life.” He has found a God who is not “a sad God after all,” but who has filled him with a joy lacking in his debaucherous escapades with Henry.

In serving God, Becket finds he can no longer be a slave to his friend’s every whim, but can only bend to the will of the earthly king when it aligns with that of the Heavenly King’s. When Henry opposes the Church, Becket must ever be a challenge to Henry. This is a surprise to Henry. He appointed Becket archbishop specifically to have a friend in the role of that crucial clerical ally. The sting of Becket’s betrayal is not just that of another clergymen opposing Henry’s agenda, it is the bitter betrayal of the friend who is always in your corner suddenly squaring off against you in the ring.

Becket’s conversion—turning away from Henry and towards God—is a bitter medicine for Henry to swallow. “No one on this earth have ever loved me, except Becket!” he roars, pacing about in his chambers like a caged lion. He feels the absence of Becket’s friendship and companionship keenly, and duly seeks to make Becket feel it as well. He cannot forgive Becket for “preferring God to him.” But, even in his rage, his love for his friend continues. “I’d give my life away, laughing, for you, Thomas,” cries Henry, pained, because he cannot see why Becket will not do the same (or, rather than giving his life away, simply giving Henry his way).

While not all of us respond like Henry, I think there are friends who are a Becket to us in our lives. There are friends who love us unconditionally, friends who understand us, who are so simpatico with us they know our thoughts better than we do. They are the friends with whom conversation is hours of congenial agreement, of repeating the same truth forward, backwards, inside out, tossing it back and forth, examining its mirrored shards in our differing experiences, exploring the delight of a shared vision of the world together. They are the friends that C.S. Lewis describes as greeting each other with: “You too? I thought I was the only one.” They are the friends who teach us no man is an island, and can even be a fellow, cherished, pilgrim. They are the friends who, in the words of Henry: “gave me, with open hands, everything that is at all good in me.”

Think, then, of the power that these friends have when they contradict us. Expecting to embark on another conversation of mutual agreement, I launch into a complaint about a co-worker (he’s so dramatic!! This thing she did was absolutely uncalled for; any reasonable person could see this!!) and am instead greeted with a defense of the offending person, and a reminder of the broader truth of their humanity. When a bosom friend takes the side of a perceived enemy, when they call us to charity in the midst of our self-absorption, their words have immense power. The supportive friend who denies you affirmation of your opinion, and instead offers a challenge is a Becket.

The friends who challenge our pre-conceived notions, who push us to examine the world more deeply, who pose an obstacle to our comfortable clinging to our habits of being are Beckets. These are the friends who offer us an opportunity to encounter the great Other-ness of God, who are proof positive Truth is broader than our own experiences. Conversation with God is not always a conversation of congenial agreement, but often an encountering of contradictions. A friend like Becket forces us to confront the fact that God is not simply a convenient buttress to our pet opinions, or a pillar to support our own worldview. A friend can mirror the action of God, as a stone thrown at our edifice of self, crumbling our carefully constructed ramparts with the inconvenient force of Truth.

“The martyr,” writes a successor of Becket’s, Rowan Williams, “dies in the affirmation of God’s lordship—the affirmation that God is the ultimate value to be loved and served.” [ii]

And who can remind us better of this truth, whose witness sings the loudest, than the holy rebellion of those we consider most intimate to us? When those most loyal to us show their true allegiance lies elsewhere, it causes us to question who we ultimately serve. Am I God’s good servant above all else, or am I affirming no one’s lordship but my own?

A friend who is a fellow pilgrim on the road to God is dear, and a friend who is a sometimes-stumbling block on the easy, blind road of self-absorption is doubly dear. The witness of friends like Becket prompts us to examine whose law we live by, and whose love impels us to die to self.

[i] T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral. Faber and Faber: London., p. 276.

[ii] Rowan Williams. Resurrection. The Pilgrim Press: New York. 1984., p. 57.

Murder in the Cathedral

It was July 1998, and I was one of two Australians on the international Forward in Faith team working on the edge of the 1998 Lambeth Conference. One of the highlights of the month for me was being able to experience a wonderful production of T.S. Eliot's play, MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL, by "Group 81" (a Canterbury based theatre company). In the context of the emotional and spiritual highs and lows of the Lambeth Conference itself, against the backdrop of the greatly troubled Anglican world, it is difficult to overstate the impact of "Murder in the Cathedral" on many of us, especially given the venue - the Crypt of the Cathedral itself!

Thomas Becket was born in London, studied in Paris, and became Chancellor to the King. When he was chosen to be Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162 he underwent a conversion experience and from being "a patron of play-actors and a follower of hounds" became a true "shepherd of souls." He absorbed himself in the duties of his new office, even defending the Church's rights against Henry II. For this he was exiled to France for six years. Upon his return he endured many trials and was murdered by command of the King.

The following is from T.S. Eliot's play. It is the Christmas Day sermon preached by Becket before his martyrdom. Eliot at his best:

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." The fourteenth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Dear children of God, my sermon this morning will be a very short one. I wish only that you should ponder and meditate on the deep meaning and mystery of our masses of Christmas Day. For whenever Mass is said, we re-enact the Passion and Death of Our Lord; and on this Christmas Day we do this in celebration of His Birth. So that at the same moment we rejoice in His coming for the salvation of men, and offer again to God His Body and Blood in sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. It was in this same night that has just passed, that a multitude of the heavenly host appeared before the shepherds at Bethlehem, saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men"; at this same time of all the year that we celebrate at once the Birth of Our Lord and His Passion and Death upon the Cross. Beloved, as the World sees, this is to behave in a strange fashion. For who in the World will both mourn and rejoice at once and for the same reason? For either joy will be overcome by mourning or mourning will be cast out by joy; so that it is only in these our Christian mysteries that we can rejoice and mourn at once for the same reason. But think for a while on the meaning of this word "peace." Does it seem strange to you that the angels should have announced Peace, when ceaselessly the world has been stricken with War and the fear of War? Does it seem to you that the angelic voices were mistaken, and that the promise was a disappointment and a cheat?

Reflect now, how Our Lord Himself spoke of Peace. He said to His disciples: "My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." Did He mean peace as we think of it: the kingdom of England at peace with its neighbors, the barons at peace with the King, the householder counting over his peaceful gains, the swept hearth, his best wine for a friend at the table, his wife singing to the children? Those men His disciples knew no such things: they went forth to journey afar, to suffer by land and sea, to know torture, imprisonment, disappointment, to suffer death by martyrdom. What then did He mean? If you ask that, remember that He said also, "Not as the world giveth, give I unto you." So then, He gave to his disciples peace, but not peace as the world gives.

Consider also one thing of which you have probably never thought. Not only do we at the feast of Christmas celebrate at once Our Lord's Birth and His Death: but on the next day we celebrate the martyrdom of his first martyr, the blessed Stephen. Is it an accident, do you think, that the day of the first martyr follows immediately the day of the Birth of Christ? By no means. Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and Passion of Our Lord; so also, in a smaller figure, we both rejoice and mourn in the death of martyrs. We mourn, for the sins of the world that has martyred them; we rejoice, that another soul is numbered among the Saints in Heaven, for the glory of God and for the salvation of men.

Beloved, we do not think of a martyr simply as a good Christian who has been killed because he is a Christian: for that would be solely to mourn. We do not think of him simply as a good Christian who has been elevated to the company of the Saints: for that would be simply to rejoice: and neither our mourning nor our rejoicing is as the world's is. A Christian martyrdom is no accident. Saints are not made by accident. Still less is a Christian martyrdom the effect of a man's will to become a Saint, as a man by willing and contriving may become a ruler of men. Ambition fortifies the will of man to become ruler over other men: it operates with deception, cajolery, and violence, it is the action of impurity upon impurity. Not so in Heaven. A martyr, a saint, is always made by the design of God, for His love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. A martyrdom is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in submission to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom. So thus as on earth the Church mourns and rejoices at once, in a fashion that the world cannot understand; so in Heaven the Saints are most high, having made themselves most low, seeing themselves not as we see them, but in the light of the Godhead from which they draw their being.

I have spoken to you today, dear children of God, of the martyrs of the past, asking you to remember especially our martyr of Canterbury, the blessed Archbishop Elphege; because it is fitting, on Christ's birthday, to remember what is that peace which he brought; and because, dear children, I do not think that I shall ever preach to you again; and because it is possible that in a short time you may have yet another martyr, and that one perhaps not the last. I would have you keep in your hearts these words that I say, and think of them at another time. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (1117-1170)

The martyrdom of St Thomas from the St Thomas Altarpiece by Meister Francke,

commissioned in 1424 by the Guild of English Merchants in Hamburg

Born in London of a wealthy Norman family in 1117, Thomas was educated at Merton Abbey and in Paris. For a while he was a financial clerk; then he joined the staff of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was also a close personal friend of King Henry II of England, and from 1155 served as his chancellor.

When Theobald died in 1162, Henry saw an opportunity to exercise control over the Church and detemined to have his chancellor elected to the Diocese. Thomas saw the dangers of the king’s plan and warned Henry that, if he became archbishop, his first loyalty would be to God and not the king. He told Henry, “Several things you do in prejudice of the rights of the Church make me fear that you would require of me what I could not agree to.” What Thomas feared soon came to pass.

In fact, following his consecration, Thomas, who had a real conversion to Christ, became a champion of the Church. To the surprise of all who knew him, he adopted a spiritual and austere way of life in near-monastic simplicity. He celebrated or attended Mass daily, studied Scripture, distributed alms to the needy, and visited the sick. He lived by Gospel values and rejected Henry’s claim of authority over the Church of England. Eventually he was sent into exile and spent six years in France. He decided that he had to return when the Archbishop of York and six other bishops crowned the heir to the throne, Prince Henry, in contravention of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s rights and authority.

Returning to England with letters of support from the Pope, Thomas immediately excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the six other bishops. On Christmas Day 1170 he publicly denounced them from the pulpit of Canterbury Cathedral. These were the actions that prompted Henry’s infamous angry words, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”

Four knights took the king at his word and travelled to Canterbury where they slew Thomas. According to eyewitness accounts, Thomas processed calmly into the cathedral and refused to bar the doors against his attackers. When the four rushed in yelling, “Where is Thomas the traitor?”, he replied, “Here I am. No traitor, but a priest of God.” As the first blow was struck, he said, “For the name of Jesus and in defence of the Church, I am willing to die.” He was hacked to death between the altar of Our Lady and the altar of St Benedict.

All Europe was outraged by the murder of Thomas in his own cathedral at the behest of the king. Henry was universally condemned and forced to do public penance.

Thomas Becket was canonised by Pope Alexander III in 1173.

PRAYER

O Lord God,

who gavest to thy servant Thomas Becket

grace to put aside all earthly fear

and be faithful even unto death:

grant that we, caring not for worldly esteem,

may fight against evil,

uphold thy rule,

and serve thee to our life’s end;

through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,

who liveth and reigneth with thee,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

Amen.