“Flee, or you are a dead man!” cried one, striking him with the back of his sword, and unwilling, apparently, to slay him in the church. They tried to push him away from the pillar against which he was standing, but in vain. Becket was a tall, powerful man, expert in the use of weapons. Had he snatched a sword from one of these, he might have saved his life; but temporal arms he had long since laid aside, and he only stood still, clasped his hands in prayer, and commended his soul to his God. Reginald Fitzurse began to fear the people might break in to his rescue, and struck a blow which wounded his head, as well as the arm of Edward Grim, who fled to the altar; but Becket did not move hand or foot—only, as the blood flowed from his face, he said, “In the name of Christ, and for the defence of the Church, I am ready to die.” Tracy struck him again twice on the head: he staggered, and, as he was falling, the fourth stroke, given by Brito, cleft off the top of his skull with such violence, that the sword broke against the pavement.
The murderers, after making sure of his death, left the church; the monks took up his corpse, unwounded, save the crown of his head, which was shattered to pieces above his tonsure, and laid it out on the high altar, deeming that he had indeed been a sacrifice, and weeping as they beheld the beauty of his peaceful expression, as if he had calmly fallen asleep. They folded outward the haircloth shirt he had always worn secretly; and as the blood still trickled from the wound, it was caught in a dish.
The threats of Randolf de Broc obliged them to bury him in haste the next morning; and they were strictly forbidden to place his coffin among those of the former archbishops—a command which they obeyed, from the dread that otherwise his remains might be insulted. They had not long to fear. Europe rang with horror at the crime, and admiration, rather than compassion, for the victim. No one was more shocked than the King himself, who was at Bure, in Normandy, when the news reached him. For three days he remained shut; up in his room, taking no food, and seeing no one, in an agony of grief and dismay at the consequence of his hasty words, and dwelling on those days of early friendship which he had passed with the murdered Becket. Not till these first paroxysms of grief were over was he even able to think of the danger he was in; and he then sent off an embassy to explain to the Pope how far he was from intending the bloody deed, and to entreat forgiveness.
He was at a loss how to treat the murderers. He could not punish what his own words had been supposed to authorize, and he dared not let them escape, lest he should be supposed to be their defender. He therefore let them reap the benefit of the liberties for which Becket had died: their crime was done on the person of a clerk; therefore it was left to the censures of the Church.
They had, in the meantime, fled to Morville’s Castle, in Cumberland, where they found themselves regarded with universal execration; their servants shrank from their presence, and, in the exaggerations of tradition, it was said that the very dogs would not approach them.
Overwhelmed with remorse, they set out for Italy, and dreaded and avoided, as if they bore a mark like the first “murderer and vagabond,” they threw themselves at the feet of the Pope, and entreated to know what they should do to obtain mercy. He ordered them to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and they all went except Tracy, who, lingering behind, was seized with a dreadful illness, and died at Cosenza. The others all died within three years, with deep marks of penitence, and were buried before the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Henry obtained pardon from the Pope on giving up all attempts at subjecting the Church to the law of the State, and on giving a large sum of money to maintain 200 knights for three years in the Holy Land. He also largely endowed Mary and Agnes Becket, the Archbishop’s sisters, with possessions in his newly-conquered domain in Ireland; and one of them became the ancestress of the noble family of Butler, Earls of Ormonde.
The cathedral at Canterbury had, in the meantime, been sprinkled with holy water, to purify it from the crime of sacrilege and murder there committed, and for which it had been a whole year left neglected, and without the celebration of Divine service. On its reopening, gifts poured in from all quarters, in honor of the Archbishop, and it was repaired and beautified to a great degree. The beautiful circular chapel at the east end was named Becket’s Crown, and the spot by the north transept, where he fell, was termed The Martyrdom. Reports of miracles having been performed at his intercession were carried to Rome, and Pope Alexander canonized him as St. Thomas of Canterbury. The next year, 1174, Henry II., who was broken down with grief at the rebellion of his sons, rode from Southampton to Canterbury without resting, taking no food but bread and water, entered the city, and walked through the streets barefoot to the cathedral, and into the crypt, where he threw himself prostrate on the ground, while Gilbert Folliot preached to the people.
In the chapter-house Henry caused each of the clergy present, to the number of eighty, to strike him over the shoulders with a knotted cord, and afterward spent the whole night beside the tomb. He heard mass the next morning, and returned to London.
A few years after, Louis VII. came to pray at the tomb of his friend for the recovery of his son Philippe Auguste, who was ill of a fever. He made splendid gifts to the cathedral, and in especial a very large diamond, and a golden cup. In Italy Thomas was equally honored. William the Good, of Sicily, who married Joan, daughter to Henry II., placed a colossal statue of St. Thomas of Canterbury in his new foundation, the Church of Monreale; and at Agnani there is still preserved a richly-embroidered cope, presented by Pope Innocent III., bearing thirty-six different scenes in delicate needlework, and among them the death of the English Archbishop. There are also many German and French representations of the subject; the murderers, in the more ancient ones, carefully distinguished by their shields: Morville, fretty fleur-de-lis; Tracy, two bars gules; Brito, three bears, heads muzzled; Fitzurse, three bears passant.