Canterbury Cathedral is one of the oddest churches I have set foot in.  It is split almost neatly in half by an inside wall and a tiny door, with the main tower presiding over the split.  On one side is the nave, a rather conventional early Gothic three-aisle hall for the faithful.  Ordinarily, the nave would be crossed by a transept (to make the sign of a cross), with a choir to follow, all in a relatively open space, so that the faithful could observe the Church rituals, the priest nibbling on the flesh of Christ and lustily quaffing his blood, the choir singing, etc.  The oddness of Canterbury is that the nave stops at an imposing set of stairs and a door, beyond which, behind massive stone walls, the Illuminati and the singers and the church leaders would sit and perform the rituals, removed from the riff-raff, it would seem.  Even with the door open, the altar cannot be seen from the floor of the main church, thus imposing a barrier between the priest and the commons that is far more formidable than the much grander and much more imposing St. Peter's in Rome.
 
My fascination – voire obsession – with churches Gothic and things English was not, however, the main reason that took me to Canterbury; discovering the odd architecture was a side-benefit.  I'd gone there on a non-believer's pilgrimage of sorts: to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, to get a better sense of this most towering of the Archbishops of Canterbury and a fascinating figure in English history, a man who is responsible (directly and indirectly) for some of the most interesting rituals of modern politics. 
 
Becket was chancellor to Henry II Plantagenet, about whom I have written elsewhere.  In their youth, they had been drinking and whoring buddies; as Chancellor, Becket continued to have a close relationship with Henry.  So close, in fact, that when the post of Archbishop became open, Henry, hoping for a compliant church, nominated his buddy for the position of its leader. (You can see that Bush's appointment of his cronies to high posts has a long provenance; although, of course, none could be compared to Becket in depth of character or of faith.) Becket, a dissolute rich chancellor, suffers an overnight transformation on elevation to the post of Archbishop.  This is not quite a Damascene conversion, but certainly a startling one.  The good friends – the King and Becket – have a falling out; Becket runs away to Europe, hiding in some Abbey in France; the Pope excommunicates Henry; the first real Church-State crisis in England begins in earnest.
 
None of which is remotely relevant to why I was interested in Becket, or why you should be.  Rather, the story involves a “problem to communicate“*, a Murder in the Cathedral** and public flagellation.  With a mix like that, how could you go wrong?
 
So where were we?  Oh yeah.  Becket in France; Henry excommunicated. 

Henry caves and Becket returns to England as head of the English church.  It was a difficult pill for Henry to swallow – what, with his wife (the formidable Eleanor of Aquitaine) raising an army in civil war, his ego bruised and Becket back in England scheming, Henry was boxed in on all sides.  One night, after a hearty mill and a little more alcohol than prudent, Henry blurts out, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”  His drinking buddies take him at his word – four of them get up, ride to Canterbury and kill Becket on the steps leading to the altar.  It is not known whether they were above the drinking limit for riding.
 
Well, you can see the cinematic possibilities immediately.  Or an episode of “Law and Order”.  The knights claimed they were following orders – anticipating the Nuremberg trials by about eight hundred years; Henry's defence was, “I didn't mean murder!”  Twinkies not having been invented, no one thought of the Twinkie defence.***  Bad business, all around.  Eventually, the King and the Church arrived at a compromise, the effects of which you can see to this day: the public apology and the shaming of the leader.  For Henry not only apologised, but actually walked barefoot to the Cathedral, stripped to his waist and got flagellated by the monks as penance for his intemperate outburst that led to the death of his former best friend.  Every time you see a politician come on TV to apologise for a moral blunder, you can thank Henry for having set the pattern.  And the effects were electrifying: with the church now on his side, Henry defeated Eleanor and imprisoned her for the next ten years; he managed to rule for another fifteen after the death of Becket and built the foundations of the English common law and the judiciary.   
 
There is, of course, one other point to this story. 

Becket's inflexibility in defence of the Church is, in our age, open to two divergent interpretations.  This, after all, was the Church that had, by 1170, launched two Crusades and was hardly a model of moral probity.  And Becket, a former English Chancellor, was giving precedence to what was in effect a foreign Church over the interests of his King and Country.  This same blind faith we see today, not only in the throngs of Muslim agitators and protesters, but in Hindu attacks on Muslims and in Fundamentalist Christian demonstrations in the US.  It is at once terrifying and comforting that Henry was as perplexed by all of this nine hundred years ago as we are now.  But that is only a negative way of looking at what was, for Becket at any rate, a positive and life-affirming force.  Becket's philosophical stance was in favour not just of the Church as a political organisation, and not of faith against reason, but of faith as foundation for hope – in an age marked by wretchedness for the masses and excess for the rulers.  His act of faith on the steps of the Canterbury Cathedral was, within that framework, a courageous stand against tyranny: the tyranny of a king who could get, by an ambiguous utterance, four knights in armour riding hard all night to kill an aged and defenceless priest at the altar of his own church.  I mean, if he could do that and get away with it, what else would he be able to get away with?
 
Some three-hundred and fifty years later, another inflexible Thomas, Sir Thomas More, also lost his life to the tyranny of an English king.  He too was defending a church that, by the middle of the XVI c., had lost all claim to moral or political leadership.  And yet, More stood up and, asked to make a oath that he could not sustain in his conscience, said, “No”.  The king, Henry VIII, removed More's head and leveled Becket's shrine – the latter act filled with symbolism – and proceeded to die of syphilis, his body bursting with pus upon his deathbed.
 
The Catholic Church sainted both men.  I prefer to think of Becket and More, however, as secular saints, the progenitors of the protections we enjoy today against the power of the State to whose overwhelming might we are subject no less than the serfs were five hundred or a thousand years ago.  This is why I made my pilgrimage to Canterbury.  For every time a citizen raises his or her voice against Power, against injustice, and forces a political leader to march barefoot to a public flagellation – even if metaphorically – we can thank the intemperate outburst of a drunken king and the inflexibility of a frail churchman, Thomas à Becket.  
 
* The line is from “Cool Hand Luke”; couldn't find my note book with my original thoughts ….
** This one is a play; see above.
*** Thirty years ago, Dan White, a San Francisco city councilman, killed the mayor of San Francisco.  He argued that he went insane eating too many Twinkies, hot dogs and other junk food.  The defence was successful.