Did It Happen: "Will No One Rid Me of This Troublesome Priest"

In the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing occurring today, former FBI Director James Comey quoted a line supposedly uttered by King Henry II regarding Thomas Becket, "will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"  This line is often used in circumstances where a subordinate (knights/Comey) interprets a remark by a superior (Trump/Henry II) as a command or mandate to take some action (kill Becket/terminate an investigation).  So, did Henry II really say this, and was it intended as a mandate to kill his Archbishop of Canterbury?

First, the setting.  Henry II and Thomas Becket are often portrayed as friends, for example in the 1964 movie Becket, with Peter O'Toole (Henry) and Richard Burton (Becket).  In reality, their association was purely professional.  Becket began his career in the service of his predecessor, Theobald of Bec, who may have been a relative.  It was Theobald who introduced Becket to royal service, where he became Henry II's Lord Chancellor.  Although Becket was a cleric, he'd been a loyal and professional civil servant for years and Henry may have thought his loyalty would always run to the king.  Henry had fought long and hard to consolidate his power in England, and that included his rights vis-à-vis the church.  He would have believed that loyalty of any of his close servants should be to him and not to the Pope, God or anything else.  When Becket became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, his priorities suddenly changed.  He was loyal to the Church and to his prerogatives as Archbishop first, foremost and almost to the exclusion of the King.  Henry, both as a man with his own ego and as a ruler, would've found this change baffling, irritating and probably a little threatening.

The situation broiled between the two men for years as Henry sought more control over the English church, asserting that clergy who were guilty of crimes should be tried and punished through secular courts, and that bishops and other clergy should be appointed by him, and swear allegiance to him, and Becket digging in his heels all the way.  It didn't help that foreign powers became involved when Becket fled to France for asylum.  King Louis VII of France saw another opportunity to make trouble for his continuous rival, Henry by backing Becket.  Eventually, the Pope stepped in, Becket agreed to Henry's demands, codified in the Constitutions of Clarendon, and Henry agreed to modify his stance to allow priests to be tried in ecclesiastical courts and for bishops and others to be appointed through the Church but subject to approval of the Crown.

So far so good, except that Becket formally refused to swear to the Constitutions of Clarendon.  Henry tried to flex his muscle by having his young son, Henry, Jr., crowned King but pointedly did not ask Becket to do the honors or invite him to the ceremony.  Becket later excommunicated all the clergy who participated in the ceremony, declaring the crowning invalid.  Hearing of the excommunications, Henry's Plantagenet temper boiled over.  He mouthed off about Becket, but exactly what he said remains unclear.  The most simple version is the one Comey quoted, "will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"  However, there's another idea of what he said, one that would've smarted in the ears of any young knight looking to curry favor with his king.  "What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with contempt by a low-born clerk!" 

Whatever Henry said, four knights took him up on it.  Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton set out for Canterbury and confronted the Archbishop.  Arriving at Canterbury, they put their swords under a tree, concealed their mail coats under their cloaks and confronted Becket as he was on his way to celebrate Mass, demanding that he return with them to Winchester and explain his actions to the King.  Becket refused and continued on his way into the Cathedral to start the Mass.  The four men retrieved their weapons and surrounded Becket near the entrance to the Cathedral crypt as the monks began Vespers.  They proceeded to bludgeon and stab the Archbishop multiple times until he died, making sure that each knight got in a death blow to seal their mutual guilt.  They then fled to Knaresborough Castle, the ancestral home of Hugh de Morville and remained there for a year.  Henry did not arrest them, but did not reward them, either.

Pope Alexander excommunicated all four men, who were forced to serve years on Crusade in the Holy Land before being absolved.  Meanwhile, Henry II had the Pope, his fellow rulers and even the people of his various domains to answer to.  The Pope excommunicated Henry and placed his lands under an interdict.  This caused serious problems in Normandy, where Louis VII of France promptly invaded.  Nobody in the Medieval era took an interdict lightly, since it meant that no baptisms, weddings, funerals or any other church services could be held, putting everyone's soul in jeopardy. 

Henry argued that he'd never ordered anyone to kill Becket, and the four knights were just presumptuous men who thought they knew his will.  By not arresting them, however, many people then and now took that as tacit evidence of some guilt on his part.  Henry had to vow to go on Crusade and do public penance at Canterbury, where a shrine to Thomas Becket was rapidly in the works, before being reinstated to communion. 

Every since that time, the quote about being rid of a troublesome priest has been a handy label for situations where a word spoken in the height of a situation has caused others to act.

Henry II and Thomas Becket

The story of Henry II and his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, has been made out to be a failed bromance.  As told in the 1964 movie Becket, with Richard Burton as the Archbishop and Peter O'Toole as Henry, the tale goes like this.  A hardscrabble young man and secret Saxon by the name of Thomas Becket comes to the court of Henry II, gradually working his way up the ladder through his own talents.  He and Henry become friends because Henry realizes that Becket will do the heavy lifting for him in government business.  The two become friends, with Henry as Becket's guide to the good life.  Henry appoints Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury despite Becket's pleas, and doesn't count on his old friend to really get religion and decide to be true to his calling and not to his king.  The relationship spirals downhill from there as Henry unwittingly sets four knights to assassinate the Archbishop and regrets it in a memorable scene of penance that leads to strife with his own sons.  Roll credits.

Now for the real story.

Thomas Becket (1119-1170) was not a Saxon.  His family was Norman on both sides and his father may have been a knight or at least minor gentry. The family was cash poor but had the means for a time to send Thomas to school.  He was a few years older than Henry, born in 1133.  Becket came to the attention of a series of patrons, one of them Theobald of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, who may even have been a distant relative.  It was these patrons, not the king, who showed Becket the life of power and luxury that a loyal servant of the king could enjoy.  It was Theobald who brought Becket to Henry's attention.  Henry made Becket his Chancellor in 1155, one year after Henry was acclaimed King of England and Becket had been made Deacon of Canterbury.  As Chancellor, Becket was in charge of collecting the royal revenues and he was good at it.  Though he would've worked in close proximity to the king, and even brought up Henry's son, Henry, Jr., the Young King in his own household, there's no record that the two men were buddies. 

Henry had a lot on his plate.  Not only was he still consolidating his power in England and the Continent he was also dealing with an intractable problem that would plague English kings until Henry VIII took drastic action centuries later.  It was the question of the primacy of the central Church (i.e. the Pope and his representatives in England, specifically the Archbishop of Canterbury), over the King and secular royal officials, and vice versa.  Perhaps because he thought Becket would be loyal to him, Henry nominated Becket to serve as Archbishop of Canterbury on Theobald's death in 1162.  Then, according to all the novels, books and plays, Becket, the worldly courtier, suddenly found God and became the ascetic churchman loyal to Christ's Vicar on Earth.  True, Becket did undergo a spiritual experience on being named Archbishop, but he also made an ideological and political choice.  Just as he'd been loyal to Henry as Chancellor, he would now be loyal to the Pope and the Church as Archbishop of Canterbury and he would jealously guard the rights of the clergy. 

Being told no was the worst thing a Plantagenet king could bear and anyone who picked a fight with the lion's brood risked their own destruction.  Henry called a meeting of the higher English clergy at Clarendon Palace and instituted a series of reforms known as the Constitutions of Clarendon.  In a nutshell, these ordinances were designed to weaken Rome's influence in England and make the English clergy subordinate to the King.  Henry called on Becket to sign the Constitutions.  While he agreed in principal to some of Henry's demands, Becket refused to sign.  Henry formally ordered Becket to appear on allegations of contempt of royal authority and brought up allegations of malfeasance during his tenure as Chancellor.  Becket walked out of the trial and fled into exile.

Louis VII of France, ever ready to exploit any drama with the Plantagenets, gave Becket asylum in England.  Becket sought shelter with the Cistercians until Henry threatened the properties of the Order in England.  Becket wanted to excommunicate Henry and place England under an Interdict.  Pope Alexander III sent legates to mediate between the angry King and equally stubborn Archbishop.  Henry agreed to a compromise that would allow Becket to return to England but the situation continued to stew.  In 1170, three high ranking clergymen agreed to crown Young Henry as junior king.  This was Becket's province, as Archbishop of Canterbury.  He excommunicated the clerics and again threatened interdict.  Henry, in Normandy, blew his top and began mouthing off.  There are various versions of what he might have said.  "Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" is the most common version.  Another one was "What miserable traitors have I nourished in my household, who let their lord be treated with such contempt by a low-born cleric!" 

Whatever he said, four knights took it seriously and headed back to England in an impromptu strike on Becket.  On December 29, 1170, they arrived at Canterbury just as the Archbishop was heading to vespers.  They accosted Becket and demanded that he submit to the King and present himself to Henry to explain his actions.  Becket refused and continued into the cathedral for prayer.  The four men followed him and each struck at least one blow, shattering Becket's skull and profaning the sanctuary of the church by spilling blood, brains and gore.  The knights fled.  Later, they would be sentenced to spend their lives in the Holy Land fighting Saracens.  The monks of Canterbury gathered their leader's body for burial.  Two years later, in 1173, Thomas Becket was canonized as a saint, and his shrine became one of the most popular in Europe, rivaling that of St. James of Campostella in Spain.  It was while on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury that Chaucer's pilgrims to tell their tales.  Henry, now facing rebellion from his own grown sons, had made a martyr, wittingly or not.