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.