He was married to the forceful Eleanor of Aquitaine, and in their squabbling she turned his sons Richard, John, and Geoffrey against him. Henry is presented as coarse and unrefined, uneducated and in need of assistance, but historically this is unlikely. Most serious to modern minds is his failure to visit the disapproving and dying Theobald when summoned. Henry persisted and Thomas was elected. The two hit it off immediately, their similar personal chemistries forming a strong bond between them.
MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL! KING HENRY II AND THOMAS BECKET
In fact, this was rarely a problem as both kings and popes tended to act together as both wanted to remain powerful. These worsening situations led to the murder of Becket in 1170. For he, when the others, both monks and clerks, fled, stuck close to the sainted Archbishop and held him in his arms till the one he interposed was almost severed. He dropped his luxurious lifestyle; he ate bread and drank water, he had a luxury bed but preferred to sleep on the floor; he wore the rich clothes of an archbishop, but underneath the fine tunics he wore a horse hair shirt — very itchy and unpleasant to wear. He wore a penitential hair shirt under his vestments, and had his underlings flog him frequently. Roger disagreed and refused to give up this land.
His career was marked by a long quarrel with Henry that ended with in Canterbury Cathedral. May 2016 Most of the historical inaccuracies in the film are from the play, as Anouilh was writing drama rather than a history, and he took dramatic licence. The Sheriff of Bedford attempted to re-open the case in the Royal court, and was furiously abused by Philip. It was a neat compromise, but though innocuous on the face of it, it contained the central implication that a man handed over to criminal law was no longer a clerk, undermining the whole basis of clerical immunity. He promptly excommunicated the three bishops who had participated in the coronation, who fled to join the king in Normandy whilst Beckett continued the banishment from the Church of all persons who had actively collaborated in the crowning of the new King.
Shortly thereafter, Becket sides with the Church, throwing Henry into a fury. It is likely that the first version was the one released in the theaters in 1964. He had become Archdeacon of Canterbury in 1154, and easily managed to combine being a prince of the Church with the more worldly position as Chancellor. He tried to keep his temper under control by working very hard as it distracted him from things that might sparked off his temper. Thomas, followed by the pope, excommunicated all responsible. Becket argued that some of the manors in Kent should come under the control of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
His family was well off, his father a former Sheriff of London. Thomas returned to Canterbury December 2 and was received with enthusiasm, but further excommunications of the hostile royal servants, refusal to lift the excommunication of Roger of York and Foliot, and his ready acceptance of acclaim by the crowds infuriated Henry in Normandy. Reigning for nearly twenty years after Becket's death, he left a very powerful Western European coalition of lands that soon fell apart, and embroiled England and France in war for centuries later. His soldiers took it upon themselves to act in the king's interests and murdered him. Theobald put forward his archdeacon, Thomas Becket, the son of a London merchant, who had demonstrated the brilliance of his mind in Theobald's service. Pontigny Abbey, France Henry finally got to Becket through his pride. First, Henry had to deal vigorously with the mess, meyhem and ruin left by the disastrous previous reign and civil wars.
Archbishop Theobald died in 1162, and Beckett succeeded him several months later. At the Council of Northampton October 6—13, 1164 , it was clear that Henry intended to ruin and imprison or to force the resignation of the archbishop. They were received with respect as the servants of the King. This inspired four knights to set off from the king's court in Normandy to Canterbury, where on 29 December 1170, they murdered Becket. His colleagues were a distinguished company that included the political philosopher. Here I am, stripped, kneeling at your tomb, while those treacherous Saxon monks of yours are getting ready to thrash me.
But in the name of Almighty God, I forbid you to hurt my people whether clerk or lay. For three days, the bishops refused to sign as Henry ranted and railed at them. The Pope reminds Becket that he has an obligation as a matter of principle to return to England and take a stand against civil interference in Church matters. Henry wanted to make himself more powerful. He dispatched four of his knights- Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy and Richard le Breton- to go and 'consult' with Beckett. Aswell as these changes in beliefs towards more monastic views, another issue at the heart of the disputes between Henry and Becket were the continued development of canon law. This was done, but in the middle of the recitation of the customs, Becket asked for a postponement in order for him to consult with others about the customs.
Becket did not want the job. His letter was indeed to become prophetic. They broke into the archbishop's house and charged him with treason. The knights found him at the altar, drew their swords and began hacking at their victim finally splitting his skull. People left valuables at the spot of his death. Foliot then returned to , where he was absolved on 5 April and reinstated in his see on 1 May.
When Henry first heard of this unbelievable change in Becket, he sent letter after letter to him just to make sure that his best friend had not sided with his enemy. One possible reason for the excommunications was that the three ecclesiastics had electors from the various vacant bishoprics with them, and were escorting those electors to the king on the continent in order to reward a number of royal clerks with the long vacant bishoprics. The most important position in the church in Medieval England was the Archbishop of Canterbury and both he and the king usually worked together. At the same time he forced Wales to at least nominally acknowledge the sovereignty of the English crown. Becket's protest halted this attempt but the action spurred King Henry to change the laws to extend his courts' jurisdiction over the clergy.
At the bottom line, he was forced to give in on the problem of criminous clerks, and this fundamental concession would create problems between Church and state right down to the Reformation. It was a cold day and when the king noticed an old man coming towards them, poor and clad in a thin and ragged coat. Henry also claimed that Becket had stolen £300 from government funds when he had been Chancellor. The excommunication was absolved for Foliot on 1 August 1171, but he remained suspended from office. Wounded in his self-esteem Becket set out to prove, to an astonished world, that he was the best of all possible archbishops. On the contrary, it looks much more like Becket liked Henry.
