0:00:09 > 0:00:15England, 1154. Nearly a century after the Battle of Hastings.
0:00:15 > 0:00:21The country has been torn apart by a savage civil war.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27William the Conqueror was long dead.
0:00:27 > 0:00:34For 30 years, his grandchildren had been locked in a life-or-death struggle for the crown of England.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40The realm was in ruins.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57And then there appeared a young king, brave and charismatic,
0:00:57 > 0:00:59who stopped the anarchy.
0:00:59 > 0:01:06His name was Henry and he would become the greatest of all our medieval kings.
0:01:06 > 0:01:12He should be as well known to us as Henry VIII or Elizabeth I.
0:01:12 > 0:01:18But if he is remembered at all today, it is as the king who ordered the murder in the cathedral,
0:01:18 > 0:01:23or as the father of the much more famous and impossibly bad King John,
0:01:23 > 0:01:27and the impossibly glamorous Richard the Lionheart.
0:01:30 > 0:01:34Henry II has no great monument to his reign.
0:01:34 > 0:01:39No horseback statue of him stands outside Westminster.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43Yet he made an indelible mark on our country -
0:01:43 > 0:01:48the father of the common law, the godfather of the English state.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53But Henry was cursed - brought down by the Church, his children,
0:01:53 > 0:02:01and most of all by his queen, the older, beautiful, all-powerful Eleanor of Aquitaine.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05This is the story of Henry II and his family.
0:02:05 > 0:02:10In all of British history, there has never been anything quite like it.
0:02:54 > 0:02:59Henry II, his wife Eleanor, and their children Richard and John,
0:02:59 > 0:03:06were the most astonishing of all the family firms to have run the enterprise of Britain.
0:03:06 > 0:03:13They did so with a furious energy that either entranced or appalled their subjects.
0:03:13 > 0:03:18They had a capacity for both creation and self-destruction.
0:03:18 > 0:03:23What their intelligence built, their passions destroyed.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26They were called the Angevins,
0:03:26 > 0:03:30named after the French-speaking province of Anjou.
0:03:30 > 0:03:36At the height of their power, they were the masters of everything that counted in Christendom.
0:03:36 > 0:03:44England was the linchpin of an empire that stretched from the Scottish Borders to the Pyrenees -
0:03:44 > 0:03:46much bigger than France itself.
0:03:46 > 0:03:52Not since the Romans and never again has England been quite so European.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56The dynasty had its roots in a civil war
0:03:56 > 0:04:00that was being fought by two cousins, Stephen and Matilda,
0:04:00 > 0:04:04the grandchildren of William the Conqueror.
0:04:04 > 0:04:11Stephen seized the crown, but if Matilda couldn't beat him with an army, she could do so with a wedding:
0:04:11 > 0:04:16one that would found a dynasty and reduce Stephen's ambitions to dust.
0:04:24 > 0:04:28In 1128, Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjou,
0:04:28 > 0:04:36nicknamed "Plantagenet" because he wore a sprig of yellow broom, or "planta genista", in his hat.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39His family emblem was three lions.
0:04:39 > 0:04:46Along with his money, power and territory, Geoffrey gave Matilda something even more important.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49A son, Henry.
0:04:59 > 0:05:06As the boy Henry grew up, it became apparent that from his mother he'd inherited steely single-mindedness,
0:05:06 > 0:05:11lots of physical courage and a phenomenally foul temper.
0:05:11 > 0:05:19From his father he'd got instinctive charm and knife-sharp political and military intelligence.
0:05:19 > 0:05:25But the quality that anyone who ever met Henry most vividly remembered -
0:05:25 > 0:05:27the overflowing tank of energy
0:05:27 > 0:05:31that made him the most hyperactive king in British history -
0:05:31 > 0:05:33this was all his own.
0:05:37 > 0:05:43This was the Age of Chivalry, when the myth of Arthur and Camelot was at its most popular.
0:05:44 > 0:05:51Right from the start, Henry was groomed by his ambitious parents to take England away from Stephen,
0:05:51 > 0:05:54to become a new King Arthur.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58And to do this, of course, he would need a Guinevere.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04As it happened, the perfect candidate had just become available.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07Eleanor of Aquitaine.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15But the match was a gamble. He was 19, she was pushing 30.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18He was relatively inexperienced,
0:06:18 > 0:06:25Eleanor had seen as much of the ways of the world as it could possibly offer.
0:06:25 > 0:06:33And yet something rather surprising happened between the teenage Arthur and the mercurial Guinevere.
0:06:33 > 0:06:37Something not supposed to happen in a marriage of political convenience.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40The parties actually fancied each other.
0:06:46 > 0:06:54Henry found himself at the altar in 1152 beside an older woman described as a graceful, dark-eyed beauty.
0:06:54 > 0:07:02Disconcertingly articulate, strong-minded and jocular, hardly the veiled damsel in the tower.
0:07:02 > 0:07:08One likes to think that for her part Eleanor saw not just the usual feudal spur-clanking bonehead,
0:07:08 > 0:07:15but beyond a stocky frame and barrel chest, someone who was an intriguing peculiarity -
0:07:15 > 0:07:20the rare prince who looked right with a falcon on one hand and a book in the other.
0:07:23 > 0:07:29But it was Eleanor's homeland, Aquitaine, that was the greatest prize.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33A vast stretch of land between Anjou and the Pyrenees.
0:07:33 > 0:07:39A place where wine-steeped Latin culture had been polished anew by Provencal sensuality.
0:07:41 > 0:07:47Its capital here in Poitiers, the home of troubadours and courtly love.
0:07:51 > 0:07:58No wonder then that Eleanor grew up, as her contemporaries put it, welcoming, vivacious,
0:07:58 > 0:08:07her handsome head perhaps turned by all those lovelorn lyrics of knights enslaved by beauties
0:08:07 > 0:08:09and bent on besieging their virtue.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14So this is what Eleanor brought to the match.
0:08:14 > 0:08:21Grandeur, territory, wealth - a lot of wealth - and the glamour of Aquitaine.
0:08:21 > 0:08:26No wonder Henry thought that with this marriage he'd got, well, pretty much everything.
0:08:26 > 0:08:30Everything, that is, except the crown of England.
0:08:33 > 0:08:41In 1153, Henry Plantagenet crossed the Channel. His father Geoffrey had already taken Normandy from Stephen,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45so now it was up to Henry to take England.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51Faced with an exhausted nation and defecting barons,
0:08:51 > 0:08:53Stephen caved in. A deal was struck.
0:08:53 > 0:08:59Stephen would be allowed to die on the throne on condition he named Henry as his heir.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04Within a year Stephen was dead
0:09:04 > 0:09:11and Eleanor and Henry were crowned together at Westminster Abbey, King and Queen of England.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16When they emerged they were the French-speaking sovereigns
0:09:16 > 0:09:22of an enormous realm which stretched from the Pyrenees, through the vineyards of Gascony,
0:09:22 > 0:09:27along the cod-fish-run coastal waters of Brittany, then over the Channel to England,
0:09:27 > 0:09:31along the length and breadth of the country to the Welsh borders
0:09:31 > 0:09:34and the windy moors of Cumbria and Northumbria.
0:09:36 > 0:09:40And it was a perfect time to come into this colossal inheritance.
0:09:40 > 0:09:44For the mid-12th century really was the springtime of the Middle Ages.
0:09:44 > 0:09:49Literacy and learning were spreading from the cathedral schools in Paris and Canterbury.
0:09:49 > 0:09:57Monasteries were being founded at a record pace and although they were supposed to be purged of worldliness,
0:09:57 > 0:10:04before long they were the engines of economic power, producers of wool, masters of the mills and rivers.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06So if this was indeed springtime,
0:10:06 > 0:10:12Henry and Eleanor had just got themselves the fattest and the ripest fruit.
0:10:15 > 0:10:21Still, it's unlikely they ever thought of it as a true empire in the Roman sense of a single realm.
0:10:21 > 0:10:25Its regions were treated separately, according to their customs.
0:10:25 > 0:10:30While Westminster was increasingly at the heart of administration,
0:10:30 > 0:10:37Rouen in Normandy, Chinon in Anjou and Poitiers in Aquitaine were just as important.
0:10:37 > 0:10:43It was, rather, the greatest and grandest family estate in all Christendom.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47That surely was enough to be going on with.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53It was one thing to stand around counting off one's possessions.
0:10:53 > 0:10:58It was quite another thing to know what one was supposed to do about being king.
0:10:58 > 0:11:05Especially king of a country so promising but so peculiar as England, with all its Anglo-Saxon names
0:11:05 > 0:11:10and institutions like shire courts, writs and sheriffs.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13What did Henry Plantagenet know of Huntingdonshire,
0:11:13 > 0:11:18or, for that matter, what did Huntingdonshire know of Henry Plantagenet?
0:11:19 > 0:11:23Henry, of course, spoke virtually no English at all.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27What he would have grasped, though, if only from his coronation oaths,
0:11:27 > 0:11:33was that Kings of England were supposed to be both judge and warlord.
0:11:33 > 0:11:38In fact, the Coronation Oath, preserved intact from Edward the Confessor,
0:11:38 > 0:11:42who was increasingly being held up as some sort of ideal monarch,
0:11:42 > 0:11:46pretty much spelled out the job description of the King of England.
0:11:46 > 0:11:53One was - protect the Church. Two was - preserve intact the lands of your ancestors.
0:11:53 > 0:12:00Three, do justice and four, and most sweeping of all, suppress evil laws and customs.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09Fulfilling one and two went without saying,
0:12:09 > 0:12:15but what was surprising about Henry was that he took vows three and four just as seriously.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19Before Henry, justice was "Do what I want. I'm the king."
0:12:19 > 0:12:26By the end of Henry's reign, getting the king's justice didn't depend on the king being there in person.
0:12:26 > 0:12:32Henry had established permanent, professional courts sitting at Westminster or touring the counties,
0:12:32 > 0:12:35acting reliably in his name.
0:12:36 > 0:12:41Now, law became "Listen to what my judges have to say."
0:12:43 > 0:12:48By 1180, those judges could consult England's first legal textbook
0:12:48 > 0:12:52for the precedence on which to base their decisions.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56The law now had its own kind of majesty.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06It was vow number one, though, the protection of the Church,
0:13:06 > 0:13:11which quite unpredictably would cause Henry II the greatest grief.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15It was to provoke a kind of spiritual civil war,
0:13:15 > 0:13:20in its way every bit as unsettling as the feudal civil war
0:13:20 > 0:13:27and which, in its most dreadful hour, would end with bloodshed in the cathedral.
0:13:30 > 0:13:32And this was especially ironic
0:13:32 > 0:13:37since at the outset the Church seemed to be the strongest pillar of Henry's administration.
0:13:37 > 0:13:43Its literate clerics initiated him into the mysteries of governing England.
0:13:43 > 0:13:50So when the Archbishop of Canterbury offered up one of its brightest proteges, Thomas Becket,
0:13:50 > 0:13:56for the office of Chancellor, Henry listened, looked and gave him the job.
0:13:59 > 0:14:02So who exactly was this Becket, then?
0:14:02 > 0:14:08Well, for a start he was the first commoner of any kind to make a mark on British history.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11And the possibility that someone like Becket,
0:14:11 > 0:14:17a merchant's son with an impoverished Norman knight clanking around in the family closet,
0:14:17 > 0:14:23could end up as the king's best friend, said something about the possibility
0:14:23 > 0:14:26of the great swarming city itself.
0:14:27 > 0:14:31At the heart of the emerging capital was the great church of St Paul
0:14:31 > 0:14:35and around it, upriver from the grim pile of the Conqueror's Tower,
0:14:35 > 0:14:41were wharves thick with ships loaded with wool going out, wine, furs or silks coming in.
0:14:41 > 0:14:49In this teeming world Becket's father strutted, owner of one of the grandest houses in Cheapside.
0:14:51 > 0:14:53Becket was a real Londoner,
0:14:53 > 0:14:59with a natural flair for doing what Londoners liked doing most - the getting and spending of money.
0:14:59 > 0:15:08Spectacle, costume and despite his notoriously delicate gut, Becket also enjoyed good food and drink.
0:15:08 > 0:15:15He was street smart and he was book smart. In short, from the get go Becket was a big league performer.
0:15:15 > 0:15:17He was a player.
0:15:19 > 0:15:25They were, in a way, a match of opposites. Becket was older by a decade and as Chancellor,
0:15:25 > 0:15:29willing to deal with administrative detail that bored the king.
0:15:29 > 0:15:35Becket was tall, self contained, his forehead creased with frown lines.
0:15:35 > 0:15:42The king was square shaped, packed with hectic passion, a real Plantagenet powerhouse.
0:15:48 > 0:15:53Above all, Becket was able to keep up with the relentless pace set by Henry himself.
0:15:53 > 0:16:01Medieval courts were itinerant affairs, travelling 20, 30 miles a day,
0:16:01 > 0:16:04eating in a royal forest or by the roadside.
0:16:04 > 0:16:11But Henry, who made a fetish of exercise out of a fear, some said, of growing fat, never slowed down,
0:16:11 > 0:16:15barely arriving at one of his palaces before chasing off again.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22Clarendon Palace was the most magnificent hunting lodge in England.
0:16:22 > 0:16:27All that's left of it now is this raw, ivy-covered stump of stone.
0:16:27 > 0:16:34But in Henry's time the place would have been full of courtiers and dogs and hawks and horses.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37That's the way the king liked it -
0:16:37 > 0:16:41a kind of scruffy power to his entertainment.
0:16:44 > 0:16:49In fact, Becket saw right through Henry's game of studied informality.
0:16:49 > 0:16:55The way he avoided wearing the crown, his preference for ordinary riding clothes.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58Becket knew that when Henry extended the hand of friendship,
0:16:58 > 0:17:02he was capable of following it by frosty withdrawals of affection,
0:17:03 > 0:17:07unpredictable explosions of carpet-biting, incendiary fury.
0:17:15 > 0:17:22It was this pseudo-sibling relationship that gave Becket the confidence, later on,
0:17:22 > 0:17:28to treat the king as a virtual equal, with catastrophic results for all concerned.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32Time and again he'd tell his dwindling band of followers,
0:17:32 > 0:17:38"Look, I know this looks bad but trust me. I know the way this man operates."
0:17:47 > 0:17:54Even in the early days, beneath the jesting, there was, if Thomas looked for it, a kind of ominous tension.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58When, for example, the king and the chancellor rode through London,
0:17:58 > 0:18:05Henry pointed to the countless destitute and eyeing Thomas' gorgeous scarlet and grey miniver-edged cloak,
0:18:05 > 0:18:11let it be known how charitable it would be to clothe the poor man's nakedness.
0:18:11 > 0:18:15"Well, yes," said Becket, "YOU should attend to it right away."
0:18:15 > 0:18:17"Oh, no, no, YOU should have the credit,"
0:18:17 > 0:18:20insisted the king, pulling at Becket's cape.
0:18:20 > 0:18:28An undignified tug of war then followed, with both men trying to pull the capes off each other.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32At last the chancellor had no alternative but to allow the king to overcome him
0:18:32 > 0:18:35and give his cape to the poor man.
0:18:48 > 0:18:55Yet if Henry suspected Thomas of getting above himself - and if he did, he wasn't alone -
0:18:55 > 0:19:00it didn't get in the way of Becket coming to mind for the top job in the country,
0:19:00 > 0:19:03the newly vacated post of Archbishop of Canterbury.
0:19:03 > 0:19:09In fact, Becket's worldliness must have made him seem precisely the right kind of man
0:19:09 > 0:19:14for the job Henry wanted to do, which was to put the Church in its place.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19Monarchs had long taken it for granted
0:19:19 > 0:19:25that they were directly anointed by God, safely above the Church.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28But the popes of this period begged to differ.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32Kings, they said, reported to popes, not the other way around.
0:19:32 > 0:19:37This wasn't just an academic quibble. This was a fight to the death.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43There were two flash points.
0:19:43 > 0:19:51The first was whether law-breaking clergymen could be judged in the King's courts like everyone else.
0:19:51 > 0:19:58The second was whether bishops had the power to excommunicate royal officials.
0:19:58 > 0:20:03By making Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry believed he could depend on someone
0:20:03 > 0:20:10who would share his view of the subordinate relationship of Church to State.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13The King was in for a shock.
0:20:17 > 0:20:23At the beginning, at least, there seemed to be a good deal of the old Becket about the new Becket.
0:20:23 > 0:20:29The array of fancy foods and company of young cosmopolitan scholars remained.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32But all was not how it appeared.
0:20:32 > 0:20:34Becket ate none of the feast.
0:20:34 > 0:20:39Beneath his grand garments, he may well have begun to wear the hair shirt
0:20:39 > 0:20:41found later on his murdered body.
0:20:44 > 0:20:51When the king began to realise that a mysterious transformation had taken place in Becket,
0:20:51 > 0:20:57when, for instance, the Archbishop stood up in public and opposed, in the most militant language,
0:20:57 > 0:21:03the King's demand for a new tax on the Church, Henry Plantagenet went altogether ballistic.
0:21:03 > 0:21:08Nothing made him more enraged than a friendship, as he saw it, betrayed.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17It all came to a head here at Clarendon, early in 1164,
0:21:17 > 0:21:25when Henry summoned a special council of the princes of the Church and the most important nobles of the realm.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29There he asked - well, actually, he demanded -
0:21:29 > 0:21:35that they assent unconditionally to what he chose to call the "customs of the realm".
0:21:39 > 0:21:46Becket was no idiot. He knew exactly what this meant. Royal control over the clergy.
0:21:46 > 0:21:52He'd seen it coming for months and had been urging his bishops to resist it at all costs.
0:21:52 > 0:22:00After endless prevarication, in the end Becket refused the king's demands, ordering total resistance,
0:22:00 > 0:22:03a position from which he'd never budge.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11The king now moved the way he liked best - through the law.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15In October 1164, Becket was brought to trial at Northampton,
0:22:15 > 0:22:22accused - and this was the killer - of improper use of funds when he'd been chancellor.
0:22:22 > 0:22:29The half-joking comments about fancy clothes that Henry had thrown Becket's way stopped being funny.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32They'd become a deadly criminal accusation.
0:22:37 > 0:22:43When Thomas decided to dress up for the trial in full archbishop's rig
0:22:43 > 0:22:46and carry a huge silver cross, Jesus-like,
0:22:46 > 0:22:53his greatest rival, the Bishop of London, tried to seize it from him, but Becket's grip was like iron.
0:22:53 > 0:22:59"A fool he was, a fool he'll always be," was the Bishop's comment on this performance.
0:23:07 > 0:23:14The trial broke up with Becket storming out. "Perjurer, traitor!" yelled Henry's barons.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18"Whoremongers, bastards!" replied the archbishop.
0:23:18 > 0:23:24Convicted on the charges, Becket knew he was in dire peril and fled on the nearest horse.
0:23:24 > 0:23:28He must have thought he was running for his life.
0:23:39 > 0:23:44Becket and a small group of die-hard followers landed on the Flemish coast.
0:23:44 > 0:23:49They were broke, demoralised, prostrate with exhaustion
0:23:49 > 0:23:52and flooded with the grim realisation of what they'd done.
0:23:52 > 0:23:57They'd made themselves outlaws for Christ.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03This is where Becket's little family of God ended up.
0:24:03 > 0:24:09The Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, about 100 miles south-east of Paris.
0:24:09 > 0:24:15Built in sparkling white limestone, it seemed a stunning advertisement for purity.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18A perfect match for Thomas' temperament.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32But this was no monkish retreat.
0:24:32 > 0:24:39It pretty soon became apparent that what Becket had established here was a real government in exile.
0:24:39 > 0:24:43He had his own pan-European intelligence network.
0:24:43 > 0:24:50He had his letter smugglers with the know-how to get through the blockade Henry had imposed on communication.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55And he had his own versatile propaganda department.
0:24:55 > 0:25:01But most of all, Becket had his own unwavering sense of self-righteousness.
0:25:09 > 0:25:16Pretty soon, though, Henry used his own formidable power to turn the screws on Becket's supporters.
0:25:16 > 0:25:19There were arraignments and arrests,
0:25:19 > 0:25:26terrifyingly sudden summary evictions, the seizure of land and property.
0:25:26 > 0:25:32Anyone - anyone - who so much as thought about saying a good word for the traitor archbishop
0:25:32 > 0:25:35risked, at the very least, deportation.
0:25:35 > 0:25:39Messengers caught carrying his mail were thrown into prison.
0:25:39 > 0:25:46Innocent relatives, incriminated by family association, were turned into exiles themselves.
0:25:54 > 0:26:00It took two painful years of back- and-forth diplomacy and increasingly impatient signals from the Pope,
0:26:00 > 0:26:03to arrange even talks about talks.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10After a series of abortive reconciliations in 1170,
0:26:10 > 0:26:15it looked as though peace might finally break out.
0:26:15 > 0:26:20The location was to be a meadow surrounded by woods near the village of Freteval.
0:26:20 > 0:26:24"A beautiful place", remarked one observer.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28Only later did he find out that the locals called it "traitor's meadow".
0:26:34 > 0:26:41Henry and Thomas rode out to each other and the King took off his hat in salutation.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45The two of them then embraced and sat for hours talking,
0:26:45 > 0:26:51the archbishop's posterior mortified by the chafing of his secret goat-hair underwear.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54For once the King was in no mood to quarrel
0:26:54 > 0:27:00and agreed not only to restore Thomas to all his powers and authority,
0:27:00 > 0:27:05but also to treat those who were Becket's enemies as his own.
0:27:07 > 0:27:12When it was all over and Becket had got everything he wanted,
0:27:12 > 0:27:17a dam broke and a tearful wave of emotions swept through him.
0:27:17 > 0:27:21Becket dismounted and flung himself in front of the king's horse.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24The king got off his own mount
0:27:24 > 0:27:32and walked over to his old friend, who'd become his bitterest enemy, and bodily lifted him up,
0:27:32 > 0:27:36put one foot in the stirrup and hoisted Becket back into the saddle.
0:27:36 > 0:27:41They then rode over together to the end of the field to the royal tent
0:27:41 > 0:27:47where the king announced that henceforth they were, finally, reconciled
0:27:47 > 0:27:51and that he would now be a most kind and most generous lord.
0:27:54 > 0:28:00After the peace was publicly announced, Henry asked Thomas to ride with the court awhile,
0:28:00 > 0:28:05but Becket declined. This turned out to be mistake number one.
0:28:05 > 0:28:10The king had wanted to catch the moment, hold it a little longer.
0:28:10 > 0:28:15His good mood could vanish as quickly as his bad temper could reappear.
0:28:20 > 0:28:22Mistake number two was much worse.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26As the king had pardoned Becket's closest followers,
0:28:26 > 0:28:33someone suggested that likewise, Thomas might like to forgive those who had stayed loyal to the king.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36"It's not the same," said Becket.
0:28:37 > 0:28:42And it was this fanatical inability to meet halfway, to let bygones be bygones,
0:28:42 > 0:28:45that proved to be Becket's fatal error.
0:28:53 > 0:28:59The last meeting between the king and Becket took place on the banks of the River Loire,
0:28:59 > 0:29:03and in a mood of sad friendliness the king says to Becket,
0:29:03 > 0:29:11"You know, if only you could do what I tell you to do, I'd entrust you with everything."
0:29:11 > 0:29:18No reply and one imagines a long pause, a sigh, a shrug of the shoulders and the king goes on,
0:29:18 > 0:29:24"Well, go in peace and we shall meet either in Rouen or in England."
0:29:24 > 0:29:30And then another pause and Becket comes out with something absolutely amazing.
0:29:31 > 0:29:38He says, "My Lord, if we part on these terms, we shall not meet again in this life."
0:29:38 > 0:29:44And the royal temper flares up and Henry says, "Why, do you take me for a traitor?"
0:29:44 > 0:29:49Meaning "Do you suppose that I will abandon you when I've given you my protection?"
0:29:49 > 0:29:53And Becket looks at the king and says, "Heaven forbid."
0:29:58 > 0:30:05And I think as he allowed that parting shot, so full of pained sincerity and wise-guy irony,
0:30:05 > 0:30:08Becket must have made the sign of the cross.
0:30:16 > 0:30:23Thomas Becket's ship came into the harbour at Sandwich, probably on the morning of December 1st, 1170
0:30:23 > 0:30:31and was greeted not only by a throng of poor people, but by three royal officials armed to the teeth.
0:30:35 > 0:30:41As the stones of Canterbury came into sight, he got off his horse, took off his boots
0:30:41 > 0:30:46and walked barefoot the rest of the way through anthem-singing crowds of devotees.
0:30:49 > 0:30:54And when he arrived home Thomas Becket did what he said he would do to all those who had opposed him
0:30:54 > 0:30:57during his six years of exile.
0:30:58 > 0:31:02Shouting the dreaded curse, "May they be damned by Jesus Christ,"
0:31:02 > 0:31:05he excommunicated them.
0:31:08 > 0:31:15But the bishops were not in hell. They were at Henry's court near Bayeux, pouring venomous reports
0:31:15 > 0:31:21in the king's ear about Becket's impossible, virtually treasonous arrogance.
0:31:21 > 0:31:26And Henry, who typically seemed to have forgotten about the promises at Freteval,
0:31:26 > 0:31:32raised his head from his pillow and let out a roar of Plantagenet anathema.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42And it was not, "Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?"
0:31:42 > 0:31:45but a much more alarming outcry.
0:31:46 > 0:31:51"What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household
0:31:51 > 0:31:59"who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?"
0:32:04 > 0:32:11To anyone who'd witnessed Henry's terrible melt-down or had even heard about it,
0:32:11 > 0:32:13his words could only mean one thing.
0:32:13 > 0:32:20That he wanted the interminable, insufferable Becket problem to go away.
0:32:20 > 0:32:27Not go away as in six feet under, perhaps, but then if that's what it took, so be it.
0:32:27 > 0:32:33He was, after all, a traitor and well, what happens to traitors?
0:32:42 > 0:32:47The four knights who would kill Becket had no doubt about what Henry had in mind
0:32:47 > 0:32:50and rushed to Normandy to take a ship to Kent.
0:32:55 > 0:33:00Dawn the next day, December 29th, 1170, Becket's last.
0:33:00 > 0:33:06Reginald FitzUrse, William de Tracy, Robert Le Bray and Hugh de Morville
0:33:06 > 0:33:09arrived in England and set off for Canterbury.
0:33:15 > 0:33:21At around three, they burst into the archbishop's palace where they found Thomas with his advisers.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24When the knights came in, he studiously ignored them.
0:33:24 > 0:33:29Reginald FitzUrse broke the silence by saying he had an important message from the king -
0:33:29 > 0:33:34Becket should go to Winchester and give an account of his conduct.
0:33:34 > 0:33:41Becket said he had no intention of being treated like a criminal. Things rapidly got ugly.
0:33:41 > 0:33:47FitzUrse ominously declared that Becket was no longer under the king's peace.
0:33:49 > 0:33:56Ought Becket to have temporised, to have made an escape while there was still time?
0:33:56 > 0:34:04"My mind is made up," he told his follower John of Salisbury, "I know exactly what I have to do."
0:34:04 > 0:34:09"Please God you have chosen well," replied John.
0:34:09 > 0:34:15And instead of bolting, Thomas proceeded to the cathedral for vespers.
0:34:17 > 0:34:22He made sure the door was open to receive the congregation. He had chosen his place.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26He had written in his mind his last and greatest performance.
0:34:36 > 0:34:40They caught up with him here, in the north transept of the cathedral,
0:34:40 > 0:34:44and Becket must have seen right away that they meant business
0:34:44 > 0:34:48because they were got up in the standard kit of terrorist thugs.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52Face and head covered. Chain mail of course.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57They were carrying naked swords and shouting, "Where is the traitor?"
0:34:57 > 0:35:03Becket replied, "Here I am, no traitor to the king, but a priest of God."
0:35:06 > 0:35:09The archbishop seemed calm, but no-one else was.
0:35:09 > 0:35:14His attendants, all except two, disappeared into the shadows of the church.
0:35:16 > 0:35:22But the 52-year-old Becket was, remember, a Cockney. A street fighter.
0:35:22 > 0:35:28Tough as old boots under the cowl. And when he stood rooted to the spot he became physically,
0:35:28 > 0:35:31as well as theologically, the immovable object.
0:35:31 > 0:35:39At such times the kind of talk he'd picked up in his Cheapside childhood came back to him. Ripe and abusive.
0:35:41 > 0:35:44"Whoremonger!" he yelled at FitzUrse,
0:35:44 > 0:35:49who must suddenly have felt ridiculous clanking around in all that armour.
0:35:49 > 0:35:53What do you do when you can't stand feeling ridiculous any longer?
0:35:53 > 0:35:58Whoosh, goes the adrenaline, bang goes the gun, or in this case, the sword,
0:35:58 > 0:36:03through Becket's attendant's arm then slicing through the top of the archbishop's head.
0:36:03 > 0:36:08The crown hung by a thread of flesh as Becket sank to the floor murmuring,
0:36:08 > 0:36:10according to his chroniclers,
0:36:10 > 0:36:16"For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I'm ready to embrace death."
0:36:18 > 0:36:21Then, thank God, came the coup de grace.
0:36:21 > 0:36:25Another mailed arm, another downward slash to the head,
0:36:25 > 0:36:29so hard that the sword blade broke in two on the stones.
0:36:32 > 0:36:38To finish the job, a third warrior stood on the archbishop's neck, stuck the end of his sword
0:36:38 > 0:36:43into the open cavity of his skull, scooped out the brains
0:36:43 > 0:36:45and spread them on the floor.
0:36:45 > 0:36:50"Let's be off," he said. "This fellow won't be getting up again."
0:37:29 > 0:37:34BELL TOLLS
0:37:37 > 0:37:39It was around 4.30 in the afternoon.
0:37:39 > 0:37:45The door was open. Frightened people who had come for the service gathered round the body.
0:37:45 > 0:37:52But it was by no means a flock who thought Becket was a saint. "He wanted to be a king", said one.
0:37:52 > 0:37:54"Now let him be one."
0:37:57 > 0:37:59But then it all changed.
0:37:59 > 0:38:03Becket's chamberlain reattached the bleeding scalp to his head
0:38:03 > 0:38:06with a strip of material torn from his own shirt
0:38:06 > 0:38:11and the monks began to prepare Becket's body for burial.
0:38:12 > 0:38:17And then they discovered what no-one, until that moment, had known.
0:38:17 > 0:38:21The hair shirt with lice crawling busily in it.
0:38:22 > 0:38:28Thomas the immovable had been Thomas the self-mortifier. Thomas the humble.
0:38:33 > 0:38:37They let him lie washed in his own blood
0:38:37 > 0:38:42and over the clotting body laid the archiepiscopal garments.
0:38:42 > 0:38:48By chance there was a marble sarcophagus, ready for someone else's burial here in the crypt
0:38:48 > 0:38:51and a space to lower it into.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56So down went Becket, arrayed in the full rig,
0:38:56 > 0:39:02the dalmatic, the pallium, the cope, the chasuble, the orb and the ring.
0:39:02 > 0:39:06He'd always thought kit mattered, had Thomas Becket.
0:39:12 > 0:39:18And for just what exactly had Becket laid down, some would say thrown away, his life?
0:39:18 > 0:39:25Some fantastic notion, already out of date, that the Church could lay down the law to the State?
0:39:29 > 0:39:36All our modern instincts seem to say, "Oh come on, look at Henry and you find reality.
0:39:36 > 0:39:43"The guardian of the common law, the engineer of government. The smasher of anarchy."
0:39:43 > 0:39:45And you'd be quite wrong.
0:39:45 > 0:39:53Becket - headstrong, infuriating, over the top, theatrical Becket, made a huge difference.
0:39:53 > 0:40:00His view of the Church lasted. The Angevin empire did not.
0:40:06 > 0:40:10The actual murderers got off pretty lightly -
0:40:10 > 0:40:15hiding out in Yorkshire, excommunicated, told to go on Crusade.
0:40:15 > 0:40:22But the real judgement Henry reserved for himself and the verdict was guilty as charged.
0:40:22 > 0:40:28In 1174, he made a pilgrimage to Canterbury where Becket's blood was said to work miracles.
0:40:28 > 0:40:34Over the last miles, Henry walked barefoot in a hair shirt, as Becket had done four years earlier.
0:40:34 > 0:40:40At the tomb he confessed his sins and was whipped by the monks.
0:40:40 > 0:40:47However tough his punishment, though, the blood would never wash away. Henry, the hero of the common law,
0:40:47 > 0:40:53will always be remembered as the biggest of England's crowned criminals -
0:40:53 > 0:40:55the murderer in the Cathedral.
0:41:05 > 0:41:10Henry II would rule for another 20 years, long enough to see his embryonic legal system
0:41:10 > 0:41:13grow into a thriving network of courts.
0:41:13 > 0:41:20Up and down the land, these new courts were to settle not just the usual disputes of blood and mayhem,
0:41:20 > 0:41:25but all manner of painful rows over inheritances, estates and properties.
0:41:25 > 0:41:32How ironic, then, that the only family that would not accept the king's justice was his own.
0:41:32 > 0:41:39Because if there was one person who was likely to think of the king not as judge but as transgressor,
0:41:39 > 0:41:42it was his wife.
0:41:46 > 0:41:52It had been 20 years since Henry and Eleanor had been partners, in bed and in government.
0:41:52 > 0:41:58Since then, Eleanor had had to suffer the humiliation of a string of mistresses.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01What tormented her was not Becket's shrine,
0:42:01 > 0:42:05but the shrine Henry had built to his favourite mistress, Rosamund Clifford.
0:42:05 > 0:42:11Betrayed and alienated, Eleanor turned her formidable energy and intellect
0:42:11 > 0:42:16to the business of getting her just desserts through her children.
0:42:16 > 0:42:19She did everything she could
0:42:19 > 0:42:25to make them feel their father was robbing them of their rightful power and dignity.
0:42:25 > 0:42:32The sons rose to the bait and what a bunch they were, Henry and Eleanor's four sons.
0:42:32 > 0:42:37There was young Henry, officially the next King of England,
0:42:37 > 0:42:41but in reality still having to apply to his father for pocket money.
0:42:41 > 0:42:45He rebelled, only to end up dying of dysentery.
0:42:45 > 0:42:50And then there was Geoffrey, as bright and devious as his namesake grandfather,
0:42:50 > 0:42:54given Brittany but then trampled to death by a horse.
0:42:54 > 0:42:58This left Richard, Coeur de Lion, the Lionheart.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02Physically brave, chivalrous and brutally ambitious.
0:43:02 > 0:43:08And the youngest, John. Vindictive, self-serving but undoubtedly clever.
0:43:08 > 0:43:14Henry saw in him perhaps the only prince who could properly inherit the government.
0:43:16 > 0:43:21Between them, Richard and John managed to undo in their own spectacular ways,
0:43:21 > 0:43:24not only the prospects of the kingdom,
0:43:24 > 0:43:30but, in the space of 15 years, the entire empire their father had so skilfully constructed.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38It was on Richard that Eleanor pinned her hopes.
0:43:38 > 0:43:44She was even prepared to go as far as to encourage an alliance
0:43:44 > 0:43:48between Richard and her husband's bitterest enemy, the King of France.
0:43:51 > 0:43:55So in 1189 Richard declared war on his father.
0:44:01 > 0:44:06This time, Henry faced defeat, forced to watch as his barons defected to Richard.
0:44:06 > 0:44:13The beleaguered Henry had no choice but to negotiate and agree terms which humbled him before his own son.
0:44:19 > 0:44:23To onlookers, he appeared to embrace Richard in a kiss of peace.
0:44:23 > 0:44:30What he really said was, "God spare me long enough to take revenge on you".
0:44:32 > 0:44:36When the king asked to see the names of those who had joined Richard,
0:44:36 > 0:44:40to his horror the first on the list was his beloved son, John.
0:44:42 > 0:44:46Faced with this ultimate treachery, Henry read no more.
0:44:50 > 0:44:56He died two days later in his castle at Chinon, some chroniclers say of a broken heart.
0:44:56 > 0:45:01The only child at his deathbed was one of his illegitimate sons.
0:45:01 > 0:45:06"The others" he said with Lear-like bitterness, "are the REAL bastards".
0:45:10 > 0:45:16A barge took his body down river to Fontevrault Abbey.
0:45:16 > 0:45:23When Richard finally viewed the tomb, it is said that blood poured from the nostrils of the corpse.
0:45:35 > 0:45:41In fact, when Henry II died here at Chinon in 1189, hardly anyone mourned.
0:45:41 > 0:45:45It seems that most people were off breaking open bottles
0:45:45 > 0:45:51to celebrate the accession of his son, Richard, the darling of popular folklore and legend.
0:45:51 > 0:45:58From the very beginning, then, Coeur de Lion had won the public relations battle with his father.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01He was already the superstar of the dynasty.
0:46:05 > 0:46:11To prove it, to show that the old regime had passed, that a new glamour had arrived,
0:46:11 > 0:46:14Richard put on a show-stopping coronation.
0:46:14 > 0:46:18As if in reverie of Camelot, he had himself dripping in gold.
0:46:18 > 0:46:23Golden sword, golden spurs, a golden canopy over his head.
0:46:23 > 0:46:29To celebrate the new reign, the Jews of London presented Richard with a special gift,
0:46:29 > 0:46:35a gesture that was immediately interpreted by the populace as a sinister plot,
0:46:35 > 0:46:38and which triggered a general massacre.
0:46:40 > 0:46:46Richard of Devizes in his Chronicle, was the first to use the word "holocaustum",
0:46:46 > 0:46:49to describe the mass murder of England's Jews.
0:46:53 > 0:46:58To his credit, King Richard made strong efforts to forbid this first waves of pogroms.
0:46:58 > 0:47:03The problem was that he was never around to enforce things.
0:47:03 > 0:47:06It's an irony - the king whose statue stands outside parliament
0:47:06 > 0:47:11and so is supposed to personify some sort of elemental Englishness,
0:47:11 > 0:47:14spent less time in this country that any other monarch.
0:47:14 > 0:47:18The three lions on his coat of arms were Plantaganet lions.
0:47:18 > 0:47:23The Cross of St George stood for Aquitaine, not England.
0:47:30 > 0:47:35Eager to do God's work, Richard vanished to the Holy Land.
0:47:35 > 0:47:38John immediately set himself up as a rival,
0:47:38 > 0:47:44creating a virtual state within a state, complete with his own court and mercenary army.
0:47:44 > 0:47:51In 1192, when news arrived of Richard's capture on his way back from the Crusade,
0:47:51 > 0:47:55John quickly declared his brother dead and himself king.
0:47:57 > 0:48:04Eleanor was torn to pieces by this fratricidal struggle. She'd been bred to do what Angevins do best,
0:48:04 > 0:48:08to preside over government, to manipulate politics.
0:48:08 > 0:48:13But now she was paralysed by the tragedy of her own family.
0:48:13 > 0:48:20In desperation she turned to the Holy Father, to whom she wrote an extraordinary letter.
0:48:22 > 0:48:27"I, Eleanor, Queen of England, unhappy mother, pitied by no-one,
0:48:27 > 0:48:31"have arrived at this miserable old age.
0:48:33 > 0:48:39"Two sons lie in dust and their unhappy mother is tortured by their memory.
0:48:41 > 0:48:48"King Richard is in irons. His brother John ravages the kingdom with fire and sword.
0:48:49 > 0:48:52"I know not which side to take.
0:48:52 > 0:48:57"If I leave England, I abandon the kingdom of my son John, torn by civil war.
0:48:59 > 0:49:04"If I stay, I may never see the dearly beloved face of my son Richard again."
0:49:07 > 0:49:13There was nothing the Pope could do about her plight.
0:49:14 > 0:49:16Money, however, could do the trick.
0:49:16 > 0:49:22Two years and 34 tons of gold later, Richard was ransomed into freedom,
0:49:22 > 0:49:26but his kingdom was bankrupt.
0:49:28 > 0:49:34The cost of acting out heroic war games was measured in blood as well as money.
0:49:34 > 0:49:40Showing contempt for the defenders of the besieged castle by standing in front of them without armour,
0:49:40 > 0:49:46a lone archer's bolt found the join between Richard's neck and his shoulder.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48The wound turned gangrenous.
0:49:48 > 0:49:56Within ten days the Lionheart was dead. A triumph of daredevil romance over common sense.
0:50:00 > 0:50:04His body was laid in a tomb at the foot of his father's in Anjou.
0:50:04 > 0:50:09The heart of the Lionheart was taken to the great cathedral at Rouen in Normandy,
0:50:09 > 0:50:15which seems fitting since this city was always more of a capital to Richard than London.
0:50:17 > 0:50:24His brother John, who succeeded him, was buried in England, mostly in Worcester Cathedral,
0:50:24 > 0:50:28because the monks of Craxton Abbey had taken care to steal away his entrails,
0:50:28 > 0:50:33making John in death, as he'd been in life, one is tempted to say, gutless.
0:50:37 > 0:50:42It was as a politician that John was most obviously a wretched failure.
0:50:43 > 0:50:50Under his father the empire had been sustained by a shrewd combination of charisma and feudal loyalty.
0:50:51 > 0:50:57John's problem was his difficulty in believing that anyone would ever be more than a fair-weather friend.
0:50:57 > 0:51:01So he relied on blackmail and extortion,
0:51:01 > 0:51:04threats to the barons rather than promises.
0:51:04 > 0:51:08Assuming disloyalty, he ended up guaranteeing it.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16So when John needed the barons most, when Normandy was threatened by the French king,
0:51:16 > 0:51:20they weren't there for him.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23The result was a catastrophic defeat.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27The loss of Normandy ripped the heart out of Angevin power.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36Whether or not there was a secret meeting at Bury St Edmunds
0:51:36 > 0:51:40with all the major nobles in England sworn to force John to accept reform,
0:51:40 > 0:51:45it's certainly true that from defeat sprang rebellion.
0:51:50 > 0:51:54At some point the barons drafted a document
0:51:54 > 0:51:58that went well beyond forcing John to stop being vindictive,
0:51:58 > 0:52:04proposing instead a catalogue of things the king would not be allowed to do.
0:52:04 > 0:52:06It was called Magna Carta.
0:52:11 > 0:52:15Anyone expecting to find in it some sort of primitive constitution
0:52:15 > 0:52:20is going to be in for a bit of a shock when they read the details.
0:52:20 > 0:52:27The liberties enumerated here boil down largely to tax relief for the armoured and landed classes.
0:52:30 > 0:52:35But even if the Magna Carta is filled with the moans and belly-aching of the barons,
0:52:35 > 0:52:42that belly-aching turned out to have profound consequences for the future of England.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46For by putting so much weight on the authority of common law,
0:52:46 > 0:52:52the Angevins had stirred in the nobility a dawning realisation that this was their law too.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56A generation before, the barons couldn't have cared less
0:52:56 > 0:53:00about the rights of men held in prison for unstated causes.
0:53:00 > 0:53:06That was what happened to commoners. But under John, bad things had happened to THEM.
0:53:06 > 0:53:10Land stolen, widows hounded, heirs made to disappear.
0:53:14 > 0:53:19So now was the time to use the weapons Henry II's revolution in justice had put into their hands,
0:53:19 > 0:53:26and by an amazing irony, the Angevins became the schoolmasters of their own correction.
0:53:28 > 0:53:34Henry II's transformation of royal justice had come back to bite his own dynasty.
0:53:36 > 0:53:44So if it isn't exactly the birth certificate of democracy, it is the death certificate of despotism.
0:53:44 > 0:53:49It spells out, for the first time, the fundamental principle
0:53:49 > 0:53:54that the law is not simply the will or the whim of the king.
0:53:54 > 0:54:02The law is an independent power unto itself and the king could be brought to book for violating it.
0:54:07 > 0:54:14None of this was apparent right away. Ten weeks after Magna Carta had been signed, it was annulled by the Pope
0:54:14 > 0:54:18and John went back to fighting his battles by the sword,
0:54:18 > 0:54:23against the rebel barons and against the first successful invasion by a king of France.
0:54:23 > 0:54:28For a few months in 1216, much of England was ruled by the Dauphin.
0:54:35 > 0:54:40John died on campaign in Norfolk, facing the windswept waters of the Wash.
0:54:40 > 0:54:45Fighting had quickened his appetite and he ate a meal so hearty
0:54:45 > 0:54:48it paid him back with a fatal spasm of dysentery.
0:54:48 > 0:54:55As for the barons of England, they had no appetite for civil war, much less rule from France.
0:54:55 > 0:55:02So when John's 9-year-old son was proclaimed Henry III at Gloucester Cathedral, they rallied to him.
0:55:05 > 0:55:10But what they were rallying to was not so much a person now as a contract -
0:55:10 > 0:55:14the understanding guaranteed by the reissue of the Charter
0:55:14 > 0:55:20that from now on the government of England had to be accountable to the sovereignty of the law.
0:55:25 > 0:55:31The ramshackle conglomerate of the Angevin empire had fallen apart almost as quickly as it had risen,
0:55:31 > 0:55:36but in the England to which it was reduced something solid was left.
0:55:36 > 0:55:40Something that's best measured not in masonry or mileage,
0:55:40 > 0:55:43but in magistrates.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46So the best thing that can be said for the Angevins
0:55:46 > 0:55:50was that they left behind a country that didn't need them any more.
0:55:50 > 0:55:57Why hunt for Excalibur when you had something much more potent - Magna Carta?
0:56:12 > 0:56:17There's much more to discover and debate on the BBC History website.
0:56:17 > 0:56:22We've organised special activities round the country.
0:56:22 > 0:56:29To find out more, call the History Events line on 08700 10 60 60.
0:56:33 > 0:56:39Subtitles by Veronica Wells BBC Scotland - 2000
0:56:39 > 0:56:43E-mail us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk