Leaders of the People: Studies in Democratic History

by Joseph Clayton

“It is easy to keep me,” said Thomas, “for I shall not go away. I will not fly for the king or for any living man.”

“Why did you not take counsel with us and give milder answer to your enemies?” said John of Salisbury. “You are ready to die, but we are not. Think of our peril!”

“We must all die,” the archbishop answered, “and the fear of death must not turn us from doing justice.”

Word was quickly brought in that the knights were putting on their armour in the courtyard, and the monks, frightened at the sight of these men with drawn swords entering the orchard to the west of the cathedral, rushed to the archbishop and implored him to fly to the cathedral. Thomas smiled at their terror, saying, “All you monks are too cowardly, it seems to me.” And not till vespers had begun would he leave for the minster. The knights broke into the cloisters after him, and reaching St. Benet’s chapel began to hammer at the door, which for safety the monks had barred behind them.

Thomas at once ordered the door to be unbolted, saying, “God’s house shall not be made a fortress on my account.” He slipped back the iron bar himself, and the angry knights rushed in with cries of “Where is the traitor? Where is the archbishop?”

It was five o’clock and a dark winter’s night. Had Thomas chosen, he could easily have escaped death by concealing himself in the crypt or in one of the many hiding places in the cathedral. But he felt his hour had come and met it without faltering. John of Salisbury and the rest of the monks and clerks vanished away and hid themselves, leaving only Edward Grim, Robert of Merton and William FitzStephen with the archbishop. Soon only Grim was left, when the archbishop came out boldly, and standing by a great pillar near the altar of St. Benedict, answered his accusers. “Here I am: no traitor, Reginald, but your archbishop.”

They tried to drag him from the church, but he clung to the great pillar, with Edward Grim by his side. For the last time Reginald called on him to come out of the church. “I am ready to die, but let my people go, and do not hurt them,” was the archbishop’s answer. William Tracy seized hold of him, but Thomas hurled him back. Upon that FitzUrse shouted, “Strike! strike!” And Tracy cut savagely at the head of the archbishop. Grim sprang forward and the blow fell on his arm, and he fell back badly wounded.

Then Thomas commended his cause and that of the Church to St. Denis and the patron saints of the cathedral, and his soul to God, and without flinching bowed his head to his murderers. FitzUrse, Tracy and Richard the Breton struck the archbishop down, and Hugh the Evil Deacon mangled in brutal fashion the head of St. Thomas before calling out to the others: “Let us go now; he will never rise again!”

Then they all rushed from the church, and shouting, “King’s knights! King’s knights!” proceeded to plunder the palace. They fled north that night to the castle of Hugh of Morville at Knaresborough, where for a time they lived in close retirement. Tracy subsequently went on a pilgrimage to Rome and Palestine, but all four “within two years of the murder were living at court on familiar terms with the king.”[19]

Henry and all his court were horrified when the news was brought of the archbishop’s martyrdom, for all the people proclaimed the murdered prelate a saint and a martyr, and “a martyr he clearly was, not merely to the privileges of the Church or to the rights of the see of Canterbury, but to the general cause of law and order as opposed to violence.”[20] Had St. Thomas yielded in the matter of the excommunicated bishops, and sought favour with the king at the expense of the liberties and discipline of the Church, and had he given way to the savage, lawless turbulence of the king’s knights, he would not only have escaped a violent death, but might have lived long in the sunshine of the royal pleasure. He chose the rougher, steeper road, daring all to save the Church and the mass of the English people from being brought under the iron heel of a king’s absolute rule, and he paid the penalty, pouring out his blood on the stones of the minster at Canterbury to seal the vows he had taken when he first entered the city as archbishop.