Image: Russian President Vladmir Putin, 2017. Wikimedia, Creative Commons license.
“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” This pithy rhetorical question led to one of history’s most notorious murders - made all the more infamous for being the subject of TS Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral. The date – 1170; the victim - Archbishop Thomas Becket; the complainant - King Henry II; the location - Canterbury Cathedral; the assassins - four knights for whom murder constitutes their sole reason for a place in the public record.
Few if any historical events have more compelling resonance in our own time - from the source of the monarch’s exasperation, to the spine-chilling consequences of his words. The words themselves may be a summary, or a gloss on what the king really said. Historian Simon Schama has offered a different, more prolix version. But over the quarrel to which they gave rise there is no dispute. It was about Europe - or more accurately about Rome, the dominance of the Holy See and the freedom of English kings to decide their own affairs. Henry had drawn up what became known as the Constitutions of Clarendon, a first attempt at loosening papal authority over “Christian” England. Most of the clergy conceded, but Becket baulked, claiming that the document flew in the face of God’s will - the eternal deity having appointed the Pope as sole arbiter of earthly matters.
