"And forthwith four knights took their counsel together and thought they would do to the King a pleasure and emprised to slay St Thomas and suddenly departed and took their shipping toward England. And when the King knew of their departing he was sorry and sent after them, but they were in the sea and departed ere the messenger came, wherefore the King was heavy and sorry.
"These be the names of the four knights: Sir Reginald Fitzurse, Sir Hugh de Morville, Sir William de Tracy and Sir Richard le Breton.
"On Christmas Day St Thomas made a sermon at Canterbury in his own church and, weeping, prayed the people to pray for him, for he knew well his time was nigh, and there executed the sentence on them that were against the right of Holy Church. And that same day as the King sat at meat all the bread that he handled waxed anon mouldy and hoar that no man might eat of it, and the bread that they touched not was fair and good for to eat.
"And these four knights aforesaid came to Canterbury on the Tuesday in Christmas week, about evensong time and came to St Thomas and said that the King commanded him to make amends for the wrongs he had done and also that he should assoil all them that he had accursed anon or else they should slay him. Then said Thomas: All that I ought to do by right, that will I with a good will do, but as to the sentence that is executed I may not undo, but that they will submit them to the correction of Holy Church, for it was done by our holy father the Pope and not by me. Then said Sir Reginald: But if thou assoil not the King and all other standing in the curse it shall cost thee thy life. And St Thomas said: Thou knowest well enough that the King and I were accorded on Mary Magdalene day and that this curse should go forth on them that had offended the Church.
"Then one of the knights smote him as he kneeled before the altar, on the head. And one Sir Edward Grim, that was his crossier, put forth his arm with the cross to bear off the stroke, and the stroke smote the cross asunder and his arm almost off, wherefore he fled for fear and so did all the monks that were that time at Compline. And then each smote at him, that they smote off a great piece of the skull of his head, that his brain fell on the pavement. And so they slew and martyred him, and were so cruel that one of them brake the point of his sword against the pavement. And thus this holy and blessed archbishop St Thomas suffered death in his own church for the right of all Holy Church. And when he was dead they stirred his brain, and after went in to his chamber and took away his goods and his horse out of his stable, and took away his Bulls and writings and delivered them to Sir Robert Broke to bear into France to the King. And as they searched his chambers they found in a chest two shirts of hair made full of great knots, and then they said: Certainly he was a good man; and coming down into the churchyard they began to dread and fear that the ground would not have borne them, and were marvellously aghast, but they supposed that the earth would have swallowed them all quick. And then they knew that they had done amiss. And soon it was known all about, how that he was martyred, and anon after they took his holy body and unclothed him and found bishop's clothing above and the habit of a monk under. And next his flesh he wore hard hair, full of knots, which was his shirt, and his breech was of the same, and the knots sticked fast within his skin, and all his body full of worms; he suffered great pain. And he was thus martyred the year of Our Lord one thousand one hundred and seventy-one, and was fifty-three years old. And soon after tidings came to the King how he was slain, wherefore the King took great sorrow, and sent to Rome for his absolution...."
Of the King's penance Voragine says nothing, but indeed it must have reverberated through Europe, though not perhaps with so enormous a rumour as the humiliation of the Emperor Henry IV. before Pope Gregory VII. at Canossa scarce a hundred years before had done. The first and the most famous of Canterbury pilgrims came to St Dunstan's church upon the Watling Street, outside the great West Gate of Canterbury, as we may believe in July 1174. There he stripped him of his robes and, barefoot in a woollen shirt, entered the city and walked barefoot through the streets to the door of the Cathedral. There he knelt, and being received into the great church, was led to the place of Martyrdom where he knelt again and kissed the stones where St Thomas had fallen. In the crypt where the body of the martyr was preserved, the King laid aside his cloak and received five strokes with a rod from every Bishop and Abbot there present, and three from every one of the eighty monks. In that place he remained through the whole night fasting and weeping to be absolved on the following day.
The martyrdom of St Thomas, the penance of the King, these world- shaking and amazing events might in themselves, we may think, have been enough to transform the church in which they took place, if as was thought at the time, heaven itself had not intervened and destroyed Conrad's glorious choir by fire. This disaster fell upon the city and the country like a final judgment, less than two months after the penance of the King in 1174, and within four years of St Thomas's murder.
Something of the great masterpiece that then perished is left to us especially without, and it is perhaps the most charming work remaining in the city, the tower of St Anselm, for instance, and much of the transept beside it.