Thomas Becket

A NINE-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD STORY, RETOLD

John Guy's thrilling new biography of ThomasBecket reintroduces readers to one of the most subversive figures in Englishhistory-the man who sought to reform a nation, dared to defy his king, and laiddown his life to defend his sacred honor.

Becket's life story has been often told butnever so vividly rendered. The son of middle-class Norman parents, he roseagainst all odds to become the second most powerful man in England. As KingHenry II's chancellor, Becket charmed potentates and popes, tamed overmightybarons, and even personally led knights into battle. After his royal patronelevated him to archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, however, Becket clashed withthe King. Forced to choose between fealty to the crown and the values of hisfaith, he repeatedly challenged Henry's authority to bring the church to heel.Drawing on the full panoply of medieval sources, Guy sheds new light on therelationship between the two men, separates truth from centuries of mythmaking,and casts doubt on the long-held assumption that the headstrong rivals wereonce close friends. He also provides the fullest accounting yet for Becket'sseemingly radical transformation from worldly bureaucrat to devout man of God.

Here is a Becket seldom glimpsed in anyprevious biography, a man of many facets and faces: the skilled warrior ascomfortable unhorsing an opponent in single combat as he was negotiating termsof surrender; the canny diplomat "with the appetite of a wolf" who unexpectedlybecame the spiritual paragon of the English church; and the ascetic rebel whowaged a high-stakes contest of wills with one of the most volcanic monarchs ofthe Middle Ages. Driven into exile, derided by his enemies as an ungratefulupstart, Becket returned to Canterbury in the unlikeliest guise of all: as anavenging angel of God, wielding his power of excommunication like a sword. Itis this last apparition, the one for which history remembers him best, thatwill lead to his martyrdom at the hands of the king's minions-a grisly episodethat Guy recounts in chilling and dramatic detail.

An uncommonly intimate portrait of one of themedieval world's most magnetic figures, Thomas Becket breathes new lifeinto its subject-cementing for all time his place as an enduring icon ofresistance to the abuse of power.

John Guy studied history at ClareCollege, Cambridge, and became a lecturer on early modern British history andRenaissance political thought. He has held academic positions in Britain andthe United States throughout his career and is still a Fellow in history atClare College, Cambridge, and teaches on the Yale in London program at the PaulMellon Centre for Studies in British Art. He appears regularly on BBC Radio andhas presented five documentaries for BBC2 television. He also writes reviewsfor various newspapers and magazines, including The Sunday Times, TheGuardian, and The Economist.