The Council of Clarendon
King Henry II attacked the Catholic Church through the Council of Clarendon in 1164. The Constitutions of Clarendon, composed of 16 articles, represent an attempt to destroy the Church’s liberty by restricting ecclesiastical privileges, curbing the power of the Church courts, and limit papal authority in England.
The bishops were required to perform military services; ecclesiastics were subjected to civil tribunals, appeals to the Pope were forbidden, and the king was given undue authority in episcopal elections and in Church revenues.
Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was coerced into signing these articles and appealed to Pope Alexander III, who released him from his promise to observe them. After his return from Rome to England, the Archbishop excommunicated several bishops who had aided Henry in his attacks on the liberty of the Church.
Enraged at the primate’s conduct Henry uttered a rash oath which indicated a wish to get rid of a troubling priest. Four knights immediately hastened to Canterbury and murdered the holy Archbishop, December 29, 1170. Henry soon repented of his rashness, made public penance, and solemnly repealed the Constitutions of Clarendon.
Saint Thomas a Becket was canonized on 21 February 1173 by Pope Alexander III.
On 7 July 1220, the 50th jubilee year of his death, Becket’s remains were moved from his first tomb to a shrine in the recently built Trinity Chapel. This translation was “one of the great symbolic events in the life of the medieval English Church”, attended by King Henry III, the papal legate, the Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton and many dignitaries, both secular and ecclesiastical.
The shrine was destroyed in 1538 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries on orders from King Henry VIII. He also destroyed Becket’s bones and ordered all mention of his name obliterated.