Murder in the cathedral

AT sunset on December 29, 1170, four knights dressed in armour and with drawn swords burst into Canterbury Cathedral. They came as self-appointed agents of Henry II’s rage towards the Archbishop of Canterbury—once the King’s friend—Thomas Becket. ‘Where is the traitor?’ they shouted. With the noise of their arrival, all activity in the great church, where vespers had been in progress, came to an end. It was with a large crowd of onlookers, therefore, that they confronted the Archbishop near the Lady Chapel. No fewer than five contemporary eye-witness accounts of the ensuing drama, which must have taken place in lamp-lit darkness at about 4.30pm, survive.

‘Here I am,’ returned the defiant Archbishop. ‘No