Henry II
Thomas Becket
Geoffrey Chaucer
St Augustine
Augustine was prior of the Benedictine abbey of St Andrew in Rome when, in 596, Pope Gregory I instructed him to carry out a mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons and establish the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain.
When Augustine and his band of 40 monks landed on the island of Thanet in Kent the following year, they were received by Ethelbert, king of Kent, whose wife Bertha, daughter of the Frankish king, was already a Christian. The missionaries were given a residence at Canterbury, where they devoted themselves to prayer and preaching. Ethelbert allegedly would only meet the monks out in the open, for fear of their 'magic'.
Despite this, Augustine's conversion and baptism of the king eventually led to success among his subjects. It is said that, in one day, Augustine baptised 1,000 people in the River Swale. Ethelbert later consented to the conversion of his daughter, but, oddly, not of his son.
Augustine's efforts to extend his authority over the native British (Celtic) Church were less successful, although he held a conference with the Welsh bishops at Aust on the Severn in 603. Both the archbishop and the leadership in Rome demonstrated a considerable gap in understanding the British Church and its ritual.
Augustine established the priory of Christchurch and the abbey of Sts Peter and Paul in Canterbury, where he died in about 604. His feast day is 26 May.
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Henry II
The son of Matilda, Henry I's daughter, and her second husband Geoffrey Plantagenet, Henry was born in Le Mans in 1133. At 18, he received the duchy of Normandy from his mother, and on his father's death a year later, he became count of Anjou. In 1152, he added Poitou and Guienne to his dominions through his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the divorced wife of Louis VII. He was now the richest prince in Europe.
In January the following year, he landed in England and, by November, had agreed a treaty in which he was declared successor to King Stephen. He was duly crowned in 1154.
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Henry II at Becket's tomb
Henry compelled Becket and the other prelates to agree to the Constitutions of Clarendon, a written statement of what he thought were his traditional rights over the Church. In particular, he tried to alter the 'benefit of clergy', which allowed clerics to be tried for crimes only by ecclesiastical courts (which could not deliver the death penalty). The Church in general and Becket in particular regarded this as a gross infringement of their liberty. The struggle between them and Henry only ended with Becket's murder in 1170. Although Henry did penance at the archbishop's tomb four years later, he had, in many respects, succeeded in bringing the Church to heel in civil matters.
In 1155, the English pope Adrian IV had given Henry authority over the whole of Ireland, and since then, a number of Norman-Welsh knights had gained a footing in the country. Among them was 'Strongbow': Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke, who, in 1170, on his marriage to the heiress of Leinster, assumed rule as the earl of Leinster. Henry was jealous of the rise of such a powerful feudal baronage in Ireland and, in 1171, mounted an expedition across the Irish Sea. Within a year, he had broken the power of Strongbow and the other nobles.
Four of Henry's five sons grew to adulthood. The eldest, Henry the Younger, born in 1155, was crowned as his father's associate and successor when he was 15. Three years later, in 1173, the two youngest sons – John and Richard – rebelled against their father at the instigation of their mother (who was punishing Henry for his infidelities) and with the support of the kings of France and Scotland. However, when the latter, William the Lion, was taken prisoner by Henry, the rebellion quickly came to an end. For her pains, Eleanor was imprisoned for 15 years, until Henry's death set her free.
During a second rebellion in 1183, Henry the Younger died, and two years later, Geoffrey, the next eldest, was killed in a tournament at Paris. In 1186, John was given limited responsibility for Ireland, but within a year, he had been driven from the country.
In 1188, while Henry was engaged in a war with Philip II of France, Richard joined the French king. After losing Le Mans and the chief castles of Maine, Henry agreed to a treaty that granted an indemnity to Richard and his followers. Henry II died shortly afterwards, in 1189, and was succeeded by Richard.
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Thomas Becket
Born in London in 1118, the son of a wealthy Norman merchant, Becket was educated at Merton Priory, trained in knightly skills at Pevensey Castle, studied theology in Paris and became a notary. In about 1142, he entered the household of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him to study canon law at Bologna and Auxerre.
In 1152, at the papal court, Becket prevented the recognition of King Stephen's son Eustace as heir to the English throne, which went to Henry II instead. A year after Henry became king, he appointed Becket, 15 years his senior, as his chancellor – the first Englishman since the Conquest to fill a high office. He displayed such a zealous concern for the king's interests – even when they conflicted with those of the Church – that when Theobald died, Henry decided to make Becket his successor. On 2 June 1162, he was ordained priest and the next day was consecrated archbishop.
In his previous life, Becket had been a skilled diplomat and perfect host and, in the Toulouse campaign in 1159, he had demonstrated his knightly prowess. Thus the change in him on becoming archbishop was extreme – and remains mysterious. He resigned the chancellorship, became a rigid ascetic, showed his liberality only in charities and became a champion of the Church in all things – even when this led to conflict with the king.
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For this offence, Henry confiscated his goods and sequestered the revenues of his see. A claim was also made on him for 40,000 marks, as the balance due by him to the crown when he had ceased to be chancellor. Becket appealed to Pope Alexander III and escaped, in disguise, to France.
He spent the next two years at the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny in Burgundy where he again studied canon law, led an ascetic life and claimed to be defending not only the rights of the archbishop of Canterbury but also those of the Church. Both Louis VII of France and the pope urged a reconciliation, but by then, Henry and Becket had lost all trust in each other.
Becket went to Rome and personally pleaded before the pope, who reinstated him to the see of Canterbury. On his return to France, Becket wrote angry letters to the English bishops, threatening them with excommunication. But it was the coronation of Henry the Younger (see above) by the archbishop of York in 1170 that brought matters to a head. In Becket's eyes, crowning the king was one of the privileges of Canterbury. He swiftly agreed terms with Henry and returned to England, entering Canterbury amid the rejoicing of the people, who regarded him as a shield against the oppression of the nobility.
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However, Becket was intent on punishing those who had infringed his privilege. By November, he had excommunicated the archbishop of York and the bishops of London and Salisbury. When they complained to the king, who was then in Normandy, he angrily uttered the fatal words: 'Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?'
Four knights – Hugh de Merville, William de Tracy, Reginald Fitzurse and Richard le Breton – decided to help their king. They crossed the Channel and, on 29 December 1170, murdered Becket within Canterbury cathedral – a crime that shocked Christendom. When Becket's body was prepared for burial, it was discovered that he was wearing a hair shirt.
In February 1173, the pope formally canonised Becket, and the following year, Henry paid penance at St Thomas's tomb. In 1220, his bones were moved to a fabulous shrine in the cathedral's Trinity chapel, where they remained until the shrine was destroyed during the Dissolution in 1538.
Perhaps the one true beneficiary of Thomas Becket was Canterbury itself, which prospered greatly from the pilgrims who poured into the city for centuries to pray at the great man's shrine.
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Geoffrey Chaucer: if you're really interested he's the one in white behind the man in brown on the donkey (Shipman) and in front of the Wife of Bath (in red). The Canterbury Pilgrims by Thomas Stothard 1817
Geoffrey Chaucer
Born in c 1345, he was the son of a John Chaucer who was either a vintner or tavern keeper in London or deputy to the king's butler. Between the ages of 12 and 13, he was a page in the service of the wife of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and then transferred to Edward III's household. In 1359, he was taken prisoner during a campaign in France but was soon ransomed, the king contributing £16 to the required amount. In 1367, Edward granted Chaucer a pension, describing him as 'our beloved yeoman', and the following year he was one of the king's esquires.
In 1369, he first showed his talent as a poet by producing the Book of the Duchess on the death of John of Gaunt's wife. In 1370, 1372-3, 1376, 1377 and 1378 he went abroad on the king's service, to Italy, Flanders and France. Meanwhile, in 1374, he was appointed comptroller of the Customs and Subsidy of Wools, Skins and Tanned Hides in the port of London. In that year, he was also awarded a daily pitcher of wine by the king and, from John of Gaunt, an annual pension of £10 for life. In 1386, he was elected a knight of the shire (i. MP) for Kent.
By now Chaucer had already written what were to become the Clerk's, Man of Law's, Prioress's, Second Nun's and Knight's tales in his masterpiece, Canterbury Tales. He was the first great poet in English and his work established the southern English dialect as the literary language of England.
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By the end of 1386, Chaucer had fallen on hard times. He lost all his offices, possibly because of the absence abroad of his patron John of Gaunt. Three years later, he was appointed clerk of the King's Work but this did not last and he fell into debt. Although Richard II granted him a pension of £20 a year for life in 1394, the fact that he was continually applying for advances on this payment and for letters of protection from arrest for debt point to his sorry state. In 1399, on the accession of Henry IV, he was granted another pension of 40 marks (about £27), which allowed him to live in some comfort in the few months remaining before his death in 1400. Because he was a royal servant who had leased a house in the abbey precincts, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the area that would eventually become Poets' Corner.
Chaucer's writings, including Canterbury Tales, were some of the earliest works printed by William Caxton in the 1470s. This ensured his continued popularity as a story teller in the Tudor age and beyond.
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