Tombs on Becket

Something in honor of the martyrdom of the great saint, from Robert Tombs's superb The English and Their History 68-69 (2015):

Henry [II's] policy of asserting the legal rights of the Crown did not make him popular. Eyres were sudden, frightening descents that not only tried legal cases, but generally asserted royal power, including by aggressive imposition of higher taxes and feudal exactions. Mere suspicion brought ordeal by water or hot iron. Royal justice also led to a clash with the Church, when in the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) Henry legislated for political control over the Church, including royal jurisdiction over those clergy (and bogus clergy) who committed crimes. This caused an angry breach with his close friend and trusted chancellor, Thomas Becket, whom he had made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, and who had unexpectedly become an intransigent defender of ecclesiastical privilege. Their trial of strength culminated in Becket's murder on 29 December 1170 in Canterbury Cathedral.