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ST. THOMAS BECKET (c.1118-1170). Called Thomas of London by his contemporaries, Becket was born in that city about 1118. his father, Gilbert, came from the knightly class in Normandy and had become a prosperous London merchant. His mother, a native of Caen, was also of Norman stock. As a boy of 10, Thomas was sent off to school at Merton Priory in Surrey and afterwards he was educated in schools in London and Paris.
Returning from Paris at the age of 21, Becket became a notary for a wealthy kinsman in London. He continued in trade until 1142, when he joined the household of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury. After accompanying the archbishop to Rome in 1143, Thomas was sent to study canon law at Bologna and Auxerre. A tall, lean, handsome youth with dark hair and a pale complexion, young Becket was even then noted for his vigorous temperament, remarkably keen sight and hearing, and an extraordinary memory. His strong piety and generosity to the poor are often traced to his mother, while childhood conflicts with his father have been seen as the cause of his stammer. Becket's early associates thought him generous, exceedingly charming, vain, anxious to please and very ambitious.
Becket advanced steadily in influence in Theobald's entourage. In 1148 he accompanied the archbishop to the Council of Reims. Soon he began to be entrusted with important diplomatic missions of his own and in 1152 distinguished himself by acting as the English primate's agent at the papal curia. In this venture he secured papal letters prohibiting the coronation of King Stephen's son, Eustace, as successor to the English crown. He thereby earned the gratitude of Henry of Anjou, who opposed Eustace. In 1154, when Henry ascended the throne as Henry II, Becket was ordained deacon and made archdeacon of Canterbury. The following year, King Henry appointed Becket Chancellor of England, a post he held for seven years. Becket was also tutor to Crown Prince Henry, and he exerted his personal influence and magnetism in both roles to increase the importance of the chancellorship. Finally he came to exert enormous personal and political influence on the Angevin royal family. He controlled royal writs and patronage, kept a notoriously lavish household, and gave rein to his fascination with hunting and hawking.
In 1162, upon the death of Archbishop Theobald, Becket was raised to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Still only a deacon, he had to be ordained priest before being elevated to the see. The appointment caused controversy and conflicting expectations in both religious and lay circles. Some churchmen may have seen Becket's elevation as the one hope of stemming increasing royal encroachment on clerical privileges. It has been supposed that Theobald himself had believed this and wanted Becket to succeed him. Henry II, on the other hand, apparently envisioned his chancellor as an instrument of royal control over the primary episcopate in England. The new archbishop quickly disappointed this expectation. Becket rejected the papal dispensation procured by the king that would have allowed him to retain the chancery and become as avid a servant of the Church as he had been of the crown.
Before a year had passed, Becket had opposed royal taxes at the Council of Woodstock in July 1163 and had attacked lay intervention in clerical affairs at a general council held by Pope Alexander III at Tours. Under intense pressure from both the king and his ecclesiastical colleagues, the archbishop agreed to accept the Constitutions of Clarendon (January 1164), which further restricted the clergy. The constitutions provided that appeals to Rome be limited, that royal officers be present at ecclesiastical court hearings, and that clerics, once convicted, pass immediately under civil jurisdiction. After the pope refused to approve the constitutions, Becket had a change of heart and would not sign them.
Becket's confrontation with Henry at Clarendon capped his opposition to the king, and the archbishop made two unsuccessful attempts to flee England. The king then began systematically to persecute him with a series of indictments in the royal courts and nearly had him proclaimed a traitor. With these various threats hanging over him, Becket finally made good his escape to France in the winter of 1164. Meeting the pope at Sens, he secured commendations for his resistance to Henry, although papal difficulties prevented more concrete assistance to Becket in regaining his see.
For two years he resided at the Cistercian Abbey of Pontigny in Burgundy, then, under pressure from Henry, the monks expelled the archbishop. Becket spent the last four years of his exile at the Abbey of St. Colombe at Sens.
In 1166, Becket used papal commissions to excommunicate Henry's royal councillors. He also began a series of denunciations of those English bishops who had supported the king. On June 4th, 1170, Henry violated the traditional rights of the see of Canterbury by having Prince Henry crowned by the Archbishop of York.
Pope Alexander III threatened England with an interdict and forced Henry to a formal reconciliation with Becket at Freteval on July 22nd. The truce was soon broken by the archbishop's insistence on publishing papal letters voiding the Constitutions of Clarendon and suspending the royalist bishops of London, Salisbury and York. Returning to England, Becket was greeted by a tumultuous popular reception. He entered triumphantly into Canterbury in early December.
When Henry, then in Normandy, heard that the archbishop had returned to Canterbury unrepentant, he is supposed to have asked angrily if no one would rid him of the traitor Becket. Four knights of his entourage - Reginald Fitzurse, William de Tracy, Hugh de Moreville and Richard le Bret - responded to this outburst and set off to England, arriving at Canterbury on December 29th 1170.
Confronting Becket with charges of treason, they found him still adamant in defense of clerical privileges and his suspension of the royalist bishops. They pursued the archbishop into his cathedral and killed him.
The murder raised a storm of protest throughout the Christian world, and together with the threat of excommunication, it halted Henry's attempts to control clerical privileges. It also led to his doing penance and humbling himself publicly at Becket's tomb in 1174. Becket's grave quickly became a shrine, the goal of pilgrimages, and the scene of many reported miracles.