He stood his ground as the sword-wielding thugs rushed at him and tried to manhandle him outside
As monks were singing vespers amid the twilight glow of candles in Canterbury Cathedral one winter afternoon, the peace was violently shattered by a shout for “Thomas Becket, traitor to the king and the kingdom.” Four armed knights fortified by liquor burst through the cloister door.
Having already faced down his assailants in a fiery altercation in the adjacent archbishop’s palace, Becket defiantly replied: “Here I am, not a traitor to the king, but a priest of God.”
Horrified clergy urged the archbishop to flee but he stood his ground as the sword-wielding thugs rushed at him and tried to manhandle him outside. Becket resisted by clinging to a pillar;
