Will No One Rid Me of This Turbulent Priest?

A christian martyrdom is never an accident, for Saints are not made by accident.
― T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

The murderers followed him; ‘Absolve’, they cried, ‘and restore to communion those whom you have excommunicated, and restore their powers to those whom you have suspended.’

He answered, ‘There has been no satisfaction, and I will not absolve them.’

‘Then you shall die,’ they cried, ‘and receive what you deserve.’

‘I am ready,’ he replied, ‘to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace. But in the name of Almighty God, I forbid you to hurt my people whether clerk or lay.’

Then they lay sacrilegious hands on him, pulling and dragging him that they may kill him outside the church, or carry him away a prisoner, as they afterwards confessed. But when he could not be forced away from the pillar, one of them pressed on him and clung to him more closely. Him he pushed off calling him ‘pander’, and saying, ‘Touch me not, Reginald; you owe me fealty and subjection; you and your accomplices act like madmen.’

The knight, fired with a terrible rage at this severe repulse, waved his sword over the sacred head. ‘No faith’, he cried, ‘nor subjection do I owe you against my fealty to my lord the King.’

Then the unconquered martyr seeing the hour at hand which should put an end to this miserable life and give him straightway the crown of immortality promised by the Lord, inclined his neck as one who prays and joining his hands he lifted them up, and commended his cause and that of the Church to God, to St. Mary, and to the blessed martry Denys. Scarce had he said the words than the wicked knight, fearing lest he should be rescued by the people and escape alive, leapt upon him suddenly and wounded this lamb who was sacrificed to God on the head, cutting off the top of the crown which the sacred unction of the chrism had dedicated to God; and by the same blow he wounded the arm of him who tells this. For he, when the others, both monks and clerks, fled, stuck close to the sainted Archbishop and held him in his arms till the one he interposed was almost severed.

Then he received a second blow on the head but still stood firm. At the third blow he fell on his knees and elbows, offering himself a living victim, and saying in a low voice, ‘For the Name of Jesus and the protection of the Church I am ready to embrace death.’

Then the third knight inflicted a terrible wound as he lay, by which the sword was broken against the pavement, and the crown which was large was separated from the head. The fourth knight prevented any from interfering so that the others might freely perpetrate the murder.

As to the fifth, no knight but that clerk who had entered with the knights, that a fifth blow might not be wanting to the martyr who was in other things like to Christ, he put his foot on the neck of the holy priest and precious martyr, and, horrible to say, scattered his brain and blood over the pavement, calling out to the others, ‘Let us away, knights; he will rise no more.’

Eyewitness account of the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket by Monk Edward Grimm who was wounded attempting to defend Becket.

Eight hundred and fifty years since the murder in Canterbury Cathedral that produced the most famous of English saints Thomas Becket.  A political appointee of King Henry II, an attempt by that cunning and violent man to subdue the Church in England to his autocratic will by installing his Chancellor as Primate of England, God had, as He always does, the last laugh.  Becket had a complete religious conversion and became a champion of the freedom and liberty of the Catholic Church, and was constantly at loggerheads with the King, so much so that he spent six of his eight years as Archbishop of Canterbury in exile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCN38rwQk7s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p9CiBJfbik

After he returned from exile in a deal brokered by the Papacy, Henry and his Archbishop quickly came into conflict again, and eventually Henry uttered something like the words that are the title of his post, and four knights, Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy and Richard le Breton, acted upon this command.

Becket was canonized by the Pope just over two years after his death, and King Henry did public penance, which included being whipped by the monks of Canterbury.  In his death Becket had his victory, his status as the most venerated saint in England, next to the Virgin Mary, helped to secure the liberty of the Church for over the next three centuries, only ending with the reign of Henry VIII, who plundered and destroyed the shrine to Becket, recognizing a deadly foe to his policies.

I took Thomas Becket as my confirmation name, no doubt heavily influenced by the biopic on him, a masterpiece albeit filled with historical howlers.  Becket is a good reminder that the Kingdom of God is not of this Earth, but it must be defended in this Vale of Tears and that this defense is often quite costly, but never as costly as not defending it.