Thomas becket : warrior, priest, rebel

447 Pages·2013·5.23 MB·English

by  Guy

ALSO BY JOHN GUY
A Daughter’s Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg
Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart
The Tudors: A Very Short Introduction
The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade
The Tudor Monarchy
Tudor England
Contributor to The Oxford History of Britain, The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, The Short
Oxford History of the British Isles: The Sixteenth Century, The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor
and Stuart Britain

Copyright © 2012 by John Guy All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing
Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This work was originally published in the United Kingdom by Viking, a division of Penguin
Books Ltd.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Guy, John
Thomas Becket: warrior, priest, rebel / John Guy.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60341-2
1. Thomas, ? Becket, Saint, 1118?–1170. 2. Great Britain—History—Henry II, 1154–1189—
Biography. 3. Christian martyrs—England—Biography. 4. Christian saints—England—Biography.
5. Statesmen—Great Britain—Biography. I. Title.
DA209.T4G89 2011 942.03’1092—dc23 2011042794
[B]
www.atrandom.com
Jacket design: Victoria Allen
v3.1
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Note on Units of Currency
Genealogical Table
The Normans and Angevins
Maps
Angevin and Capetian Territories, c. 1160
Thomas Becket in Exile, 1164–1170
Prologue
1 | ANCESTRY
2 | UPBRINGING
3 | POLITICS
4 | PARIS
5 | A FRESH START
6 | APPRENTICE
7 | INTO THE LIMELIGHT
8 | ARRIVAL AT COURT
9 | ROYAL MINISTER
10 | BUREAUCRAT AND JUDGE
Illustration Insert 1
11 | WARRIOR
12 | A SOLITARY MAN
13 | RENDER UNTO CAESAR
14 | ARCHBISHOP
15 | A BROKEN RELATIONSHIP
16 | CONVERSION
17 | THE CLASH
18 | CLARENDON
19 | NORTHAMPTON
20 | EXILE
21 | ATTACK AND COUNTERATTACK
Illustration Insert 2
22 | SEARCH FOR A SETTLEMENT
23 | THE CASE AGAINST BECKET
24 | CAT AND MOUSE
25 | A TRIAL OF STRENGTH
26 | RETURN TO CANTERBURY
27 | MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL
28 | AFTERMATH
29 | MARTYR
Acknowledgments
Appendix A: An Early Becket Biographers’ Who’s Who
Appendix B: Note on Primary Sources
Notes and References
Illustration Credits
About the Author
NOTE ON
UNITS OF CURRENCY
I
N CITING UNITS OF CURRENCY, THE OLD STERLING DENOMINATIONS of pounds,
shillings, and pence have been retained. There are 12 pence (12d.) in a
shilling (1s.), twenty shillings in a pound (£1), and so on. A mark is
roughly 13s. 4d., although the precise correlation would depend entirely
on the silver content of the coins tendered in payment, so conversions
are not feasible. The sum of £100, the equivalent of around £60,000 (US
$96,000) today, is the amount needed to pay the household expenses of
an average baron for a year. One thousand silver marks would be worth
around £400,000 (US $640,000) today. Some rough estimates of the
contemporary purchasing equivalents for Anglo-Norman and Angevin
units of currency, where applicable, are given in the text.