Another Henry in Trouble over Becket
'Who shall rid me of this meddlesome priest?'
Whether Henry II truly uttered these words in 1170 or not, by 1538, the trouble with Thomas Becket had not been concluded. Lacking patience with his subjects looking to anyone but himself as a higher power, Henry VIII, a distant grandson of Becket's antagonist, destroyed the shrine of Saint Becket to put an end to prayers directed toward the king-defying martyr.
