On This Day in History - 29th December

On This Day In History - 29th December

 

On This Day, 29th December, 1170, Thomas Becket had a knight problem on a cold winter's night. That is to say, he was stabbed to death by four knights.

 

Long story short, in 1161 King Henry II made Thomas Becket the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church's highest ranking bloke in England.

 

After nine short years, Henry got really miffed with him, because of reasons. Henry is said to have remarked, "Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" Which the four knights took as an order to travel back to England and kill Thomas Becket. And then kill him a lot more, slicing and dicing away, hacking and whacking, dipping and skipping.

 

When King Henry II heard about the death of Thomas Becket, he was heard to say, "What the frigging frack did you do that for? It was a sodding rhetorical question. Bunch of twaddling dingbats. Now, go look rhetorical up in the dictionary. Write it a thousand times on a piece of paper. And, whilst you're at it, someone write me a really long apology letter to the Pope. He is so going to make me pay for killing one of his stupid troublesome priests."

 

Which is why, a mere six Henrys later, the King separated from the Pope and formed his own Church of Never-Going-To-Be-Rhetorical-Again, Off-With-His-And-Her-Troublesome-Heads.