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 traitor to the King, but a priest of God. What do you want?’ After an exchange of insults, the knights attempted to drag him away. He responded by clinging to a pillar and, when one of them tried to detach him, the Archbishop mocked him as a ‘pimp’. Enraged and fearful that the growing crowd might intervene, one knight swung his sword and sliced off the top of Becket’s head. All but one of the Archbishop’s followers had already scattered. This remaining figure, Edward Grim, tried to shield his patron from the blow and almost lost his arm.
Esta historia es de la edición December 30, 2020 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición December 30, 2020 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
