Why did old friends fall out?

On Friday, July 12, 1174, King Henry II came to Canterbury to do penance to the bishops and monks of the Cathedral at the tomb of Thomas Becket, for the murder of the Archbishop. After praying at the Leper Hospital in Harbledown, the King walked to St Dunstan’s Church, where he stripped down to his shirt before walking barefoot through the city. On arrival at the Cathedral, he kissed the flagstones in the martyrdom transept where Thomas Becket’s body had lain, before the King proceeded to the Archbishop’s temporary tomb in the crypt, where he was whipped.

But what had caused the King to have so disastrously fallen out with his old friend, which subsequently led to the murder of the Archbishop in the Cathedral on December 29 1170? Catholic clerics had a longstanding right of appeal to the Pope, who took precedence over the sovereign head of state in their allegiance.

Read my article on the Constitutions of Clarendon, which led to the King uttering those immortal words: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest” 850 years ago, under Latest Articles on the chaucer. university website. Thomas Becket had three sisters: Agnes, Roheise, and Mary. Both Agnes and Roheise Becket subsequently married and had children. Mary became abbess of Barking in 1173, having been appointed by charter granted by King Henry II as restitution for Thomas Becket’s murder.

How King Henry III came to grant privileges to Canterbury City Council in return for city rate payers taking over responsibiity for paying the King’s Leper Hospital annual penance payment is another story for a later time!

Tudor Road, Canterbury