Page:A School History of England (1911).djvu/77

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Murder of Becket
67

and the Pope against him. After a long and weary quarrel Henry, in a fit of passion, used some rash words which some wicked courtiers interpreted to mean that they were to kill Thomas.Murder of Becket, 1170. They slipped away secretly from the King’s court and murdered the Archbishop in his own cathedral.



‘Saint Thomas the Martyr.’Such a deed of horror was unknown since the days of the heathen Danes. Thomas at once became both martyr and saint, even in the eyes of those who had hated his pride while he lived. Men believed that miracles were worked at his tomb, that a touch of his bones would restore the dead to life. A pilgrimage