Episode Details

When monks prepared Thomas Becket's body after his murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, they found a hair shirt hidden beneath his archbishop's silks. This deep dive follows Becket from a London merchant's son who learned aristocratic hunting and hawking to the Lord Chancellor who aggressively served King Henry II.

We explore his overnight ordination and consecration as Archbishop of Canterbury, his sudden turn against the crown over criminal clerks and the Constitutions of Clarendon, his trial at Northampton and six years of exile, the excommunications that enraged Henry, and the knights who killed him. We also follow his rapid canonization, Henry's public penance, the pilgrimage cult, and the shrine's destruction by Henry VIII.

• How Becket rose from merchant's son to the king's right-hand man
• Whether his transformation was genuine faith or institutional loyalty
• Why the Pope hesitated to excommunicate Henry II
• What Henry actually said, according to eyewitness Edward Grim
• How Becket's martyrdom fueled a pilgrimage cult and later royal backlash