Why Henry II Murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket | Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty | Timeline

Out of the chaos, darkness and violence of the Middle Ages, one family rose to seize control of England. Generation after generation, they ruled the country for more than 300 years, ruthlessly crushing all competition to become the greatest English dynasty of all time. The Plantagenets. What I love about the Plantagenet story is that it's more shocking, more brutal and more astonishing than anything you'll find in fiction. I want to show you the Plantagenets as I see them. Real, living, breathing people driven by ambition, jealousy, hatred and revenge. These kings murdered, betrayed and tyrannised their way to spectacular success. For better and for worse, the Plantagenets forged England as a nation. This time, the founder of the dynasty, Henry II, warrior and empire builder. He transformed England from a war zone into a European superpower. But murder and betrayal by his own family threatened to tear apart everything he had achieved. In 1153, Henry Plantagenet sails to England with an invasion force, aiming to seize back the throne. He's only 20, but he's already an experienced soldier. He's been fighting in France since he was a kid and his mother's drilled into him the idea that the crown of England is rightfully his. So as Henry approaches these shores, he's convinced he has a date with destiny. Henry's a powerhouse with a fiery temper, bursting with raw energy and ambition. Within a year, Stephen is dead and Henry is crowned Henry II, the first Plantagenet king. Of course, he doesn't speak a word of English. But after 90 years of Norman French rule in England, no one does except the peasants. And it's not them that Henry's here to pick a fight with. It's the barons. For a generation, the barons have been fighting vicious turf wars, burning, looting, raping, killing. If you lived here, you could come home any day to find your house on fire, your crops destroyed, your animals taken or your family murdered. And this has been going on for nearly 20 years, as long as the new king has been alive. Henry's future and the future of England depends on bringing the barons to heel. He could simply destroy them. His army's big enough. But instead, he does something totally unexpected. High on the Welsh borders is Wigmore Castle, once one of England's greatest fortresses. It's the power base of Hugh Mortimer, toughest of the barons, and the last to hold out against the new king. No one defies Henry and gets away with it, so he turns up here at Wigmore with an army and lays siege to the castle. Henry's got Hugh surrounded, but he's not here to destroy him. He just sits outside. Here I am. Here's my army. What are you going to do about it? Unsurprisingly, Hugh folds. But it's what Henry does next that marks him out as a king to watch, because he takes Hugh's castle away from him and gives it straight back. He's saying, you can have your power, but only because I say so. I'm the king, I'm in control, and you work for me. One reason Henry has the confidence to take on such powerful men is because he has a formidable ally. Henry's queen is Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine. Ten years his senior, she's such a famous beauty, students across Europe sing bawdy songs about bedding her. She shocked the continent by divorcing the king of France in 1152 and marrying Henry just two months later. They're a good match. By the time Henry takes the throne, she's already produced their first son. But this queen is far more than a baby machine. As Duchess of Aquitaine, she's a serious political player in her own right. Henry brings muscle, Eleanor brings prestige. Together, they're a match for anyone. And their union creates a plantagenet empire that stretches from the borders of Scotland to the Pyrenees. But to keep control of such vast territory, Henry has to do something radical. Control is everything to Henry. The question is, how does he maintain it? He could use his barons to rule the different regions, that's standard medieval practice. But as far as Henry can see, the barons will only do things his way as long as it suits them. To get what he wants, Henry's going to have to do things a little bit differently. Henry's genius is to create a new army, not of soldiers, but of clerks, educated commoners. Unlike the barons, they'll do exactly what he wants. What Henry invents is the basis of the civil service that still runs the country today. Here at the National Archives, 900-year-old documents reveal the full extent of Henry's control. So this is a writ from the second year of Henry's reign. It's an official instruction from the king. We can see the king, Rex, here. Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine. He's sending instructions to the sheriff of Dorset, ordering him to give back a farm in the village of Rampersham to its rightful owner. That might sound mundane, but hundreds of these survive, and what they show you is Henry's interest in every last field and pasture of his kingdom. And this isn't everything Henry's doing. He's also rebuilding royal finance through the Exchequer. He's sending his justices roving about the country to re-establish law and order. What it all adds up to is Henry's complete obsession with stamping his control over every area of his new kingdom. The mastermind pulling the administrative strings for Henry is commoner Thomas Beckett, the son of a merchant. He may be lowborn, but Beckett's such a brilliant operator that Henry makes him chancellor. It's Beckett who makes sure the king's grip on England is rock solid. And there's clearly some kind of spark between them. They quickly become drinking buddies, hunting partners, and best mates. But because of Beckett, everything Henry's achieved is about to come under threat. The trouble begins here at Canterbury. Seats of power are the one part of England that remains beyond Henry's control, the church. One Englishman in five is a cleric, and they're effectively above the law. Whatever crime they commit, even rape or murder, only church courts can try them. The worst punishment they can give out is a fine. The king can't touch them. So in 1161, when the archbishop of Canterbury dies here, Henry thinks, excellent, I'll appoint my mate Thomas as archbishop. He can knock some sense into the church. And even though Thomas has never been a priest, Henry bullies the monks at Canterbury until they agree to elect him. So you can see why Henry thinks he's got the church problem sewn up. After all, Beckett's his best mate. He owes his career to him. What could possibly go wrong? Henry's failed to spot a massive problem. In the medieval world, there is a higher power than the king. Beckett finds God. Pretty much the first thing he does is hang the king out to dry by resigning as chancellor. He's sending a very blunt message. I'm not going to do what you say anymore. I have a new boss now. With God in his corner, Beckett now defies every command the king makes to bring the church to heel. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't go down very well with Henry. This is a king famous across Europe for his uncontrollable temper. A man who once got so furious during an argument that he rolled around on the floor pulling the straw out of his mattress, stuffing it into his mouth. So it's fair to say that Henry wasn't just angry, he was apoplectic. And this rage, combined with Henry's intense desire for control, will lead to murder and betrayal that threatens to destroy everything he's achieved. Westminster, July 1170. Henry II is having his eldest son, young Henry, crowned king of England. Effectively, king in waiting. It should secure Henry's legacy. Instead, it's going to tear his world apart. Because there's one man who really should be there that Henry hasn't invited. Thomas Beckett. Crowning kings of England is the archbishop of Canterbury's gig, and it always has been. So when Beckett finds out about the young king's coronation, he explodes with fury, and he does something utterly reckless. Beckett excommunicates every single cleric involved. Amen. As far as he's concerned, they're quite literally going to hell. When the news reaches Henry, out comes his plantagenet rage again, and he says something he'll come to regret for the rest of his life. Henry's just venting, but that's not how it looks to his knights. What they hear is a direct order from their king. This simple misunderstanding sets up a disaster. And here in Canterbury, it all comes crashing down. Days later, four knights burst through these doors, and they march into the cathedral to confront Beckett here. He's unarmed in his archbishop's robes, and they're in armour with swords by their sides. Furious words are exchanged. They try and drag Beckett out of the cathedral, but he resists. And it's at this point one of the knights draws his sword and brings it down on Beckett's head, chopping off part of his skull. Beckett falls. One of the knights scoops his brains onto the floor with the tip of his sword. But they're not alone, because hiding in doorways and behind pillars are Beckett's friends and supporters, bearing witness to an event that'll shock Christendom. Every single good thing that Henry II has done in his career until now may as well be wiped out, because this is what he'll be remembered for. The fact that his words were taken out of context is neither here nor there. As far as everyone's concerned, Henry ordered Beckett's murder. Outrage at this sacrilege goes viral. Across Europe, people begin to question whether Henry is really fit to be a king. Henry realises straightaway how damaging this will be. This is the first time since his meteoric rise that he's been vulnerable. But I think it would have hurt him personally as well. He and Beckett may have been knocking lumps out of each other for years, but this is still a man who was once his closest friend, who understood him better than anyone else. The humiliated king makes himself scarce and goes to Ireland on campaign. In a crisis on this scale, the one group he should be able to count on are his own family. But now they turn on him too, and it's all Henry's fault. Henry's eldest son, Henry the Young King, is a chip off the old block, ambitious, power-hungry and impatient. As king-in-waiting, he should be taken to Ireland so Henry can teach him how to exert iron-fisted control, but he isn't. Instead, the young king is left behind, festering in the aftermath of his father's disgrace. And whilst he's away, the king leaves control in the hands of his slick bureaucrats. Powerless and isolated, resentment at his father starts to eat away at him. Another surviving document reveals just how humiliating life is for the young king. This is a record of royal accounts from 1172, when Henry was off beating up the Irish. On the face of it, it's pretty dry. It's a long list of payments made. But throughout, there are records of money paid out to the young king. What's interesting is they're all quite small. Let's have a look. There's one here from Birkenstead, and it says, for the works, Regis Fili Regis, of the king, the son of the king. XXX, that's 30 shillings. Well, today, that's a few thousand pounds, which might sound like a lot, but to the eldest son of a king, it's chicken feed. Now, the normal way that things would work is that a king would give his eldest son a block of lands from which to draw his revenue, but Henry hasn't done that. He's kept everything to himself to keep control. So the picture you get reading this is of the old king, one of the richest, most powerful men in Europe, while his eldest son is going around, cap in hand, begging money from royal officials. Wouldn't make you very happy, would it? Resentment is spreading through the rest of the family, too. The year before Beckett's murder, Henry's wife, Queen Eleanor, had returned to her homeland in Aquitaine, and she based herself here at Poitiers, where this hall is what remains of her magnificent ducal palace. After years living in a foreign country, Eleanor's come back with her favourite son, Richard, to train him to take over her lands there when she dies. Finally, she's back where she belongs. This is where she was born. This is where she was raised. Frankly, the food and the weather are better here, too. But Eleanor's about to find that her Aquitaine is now a very different place. A spanking new cathedral is being built in the town centre. This is more than just a church. It's a PR statement designed to sell the Plantagenet dynasty to the people. And the banner headline of this message is a spectacular window. Incredibly, it's survived intact for nearly nine centuries. If you look at this stained-glass window high up in the cathedral, you can see Henry, Eleanor and their four sons. It's like a snapshot of a united family ruling together over England and half of France. Except it isn't really like that, because in Aquitaine, Eleanor finds it's Henry's men collecting the taxes, Henry's men controlling the barons. Even when her husband's hundreds of miles away, it's obvious that he's the one who's in control. Now, Eleanor might have brought Aquitaine to Henry in marriage, but that doesn't mean it's his. Then Eleanor discovers something Henry's done that, to her, is unforgivable. Behind her back, Henry has mortgaged off part of her Aquitaine to secure a political alliance. This is like coming home one day to find your husband's changed the locks, sold all your stuff and invited a whole bunch of other people to live there. It's not just Eleanor who's fuming. Richard is spitting blood about his lost inheritance too. At one stroke, Henry has created two powerful new enemies. And he probably doesn't even realise it. Henry's blindness to his family's feelings is a ticking time bomb. Here in Chinon, 175 miles southwest of Paris, in the very heart of Henry's French lands, it finally explodes. Chinon Castle has enormous strategic importance. If you want to rule the Plantagenet Empire, controlling it is absolutely essential. And that's exactly why Henry the Young King expects that one day this castle will be his. Then, one night, Henry announces he's giving Chinon Castle, the jewel in the Plantagenet crown, to John, the Young King's six-year-old brother. Think what it would have been like here that night. This is one of the angriest families in history. Try and imagine all that Plantagenet rage just boiling up. I don't think there'd have been much pleasant chit-chat over dinner. The loss of the castle is more than the Young King can bear. True to form, Henry's completely dismissive. He's utterly incapable of seeing things from his son's point of view. But the Young King is adamant. For 18 years, he's had to suffer his father's obsessive control. Now, he's drawing a line in the sand. The Young King should have known better. Henry was never going to give up control without a fight. Chinon teaches the Young King a harsh lesson. His father is never going to give him real power, and he's sick of being strung along. But if Henry thinks he's got the Young King where he wants him, he's dead wrong. His eldest son is now hell-bent on taking the old man down. Spring 1173. The Young King steals out of his father's custody and flees to Paris. Straight into the arms of Louis VII, King of France. This is out-and-out betrayal. The Young King is planning to use King Louis to help seize his father's throne. But why does the King of France get involved in such a dangerous game? To Dr. Julie Barrault, an expert in the medieval French court, it makes perfect sense. Louis hates Henry. Well, they had many reasons not to like each other. Maybe the first one is that they embody completely opposite ideas of what it is to be a king. On the one hand, you have, you know, Henry, macho warrior, and on the other hand, you had Louis, who was anything but. And the other thing is that Henry was much, much wealthier than Louis, and never wasted an opportunity to show it very clearly. But it's more than just political, isn't it? Well, yes. What makes the story unusual is that you have a very deep personal aspect to it. A mere two months after Louis separated from his wife Eleanor, she married Henry. And she didn't just marry him, but she started having one baby boy after the other, when Louis and Eleanor had really tried for a son four years before that. So that must have been really, really painful for poor Louis. So all those aspects together explain why you have such a deep and long animosity between those two men. The young king rocking up in Paris is no surprise to Louis. This is more than just a spur-of-the-moment betrayal by a petulant son. Because Henry, the young king, isn't acting alone. His brothers are in on this too. And so is the one person who's vital to making the whole betrayal possible. Eleanor. The queen's been plotting with her ex-husband to replace Henry II for the young king. She immediately sends Richard to join his older brother in Paris. A few days later, Eleanor follows. She makes a mad dash across France on horseback, disguised in men's clothing. But she doesn't make it. She's caught on her way to Paris by Henry II's men. And brought to Chinon Castle, not as a queen, but as a prisoner. Your own son's rebelling against you is pretty much as bad as it gets. Your queen masterminding the whole plot with her ex? That's off the chart. The scandal rocks medieval Europe. But there's no stopping the betrayal Eleanor has set in motion. In Paris, Louis, Richard and the young king are mobilising to attack Henry from all sides. And not just in France. They're going to hit him where it hurts the most. England. Plenty of the English barons are still pretty sore about having their wings clipped by Henry II. The young king promises to give them everything back. The last time the English barons had that sort of power, they basically destroyed the country. So this is a pretty reckless promise. It's not careful strategy. But that's the young king for you. He's good at betrayal, but he lacks his father's political savvy. He just wants to win, whatever the cost. He even cuts a deal with Henry's other mortal enemy, the King of Scotland. The young king promises him big chunks of England if he attacks Henry from the north. For a king of England in waiting, this is a dangerous game. But it works. By the spring of 1174, Henry faces a perfect storm. Full-on revolt is spreading across his empire, all sparked by his family's betrayal. And whilst Henry's fighting in France, England is turning into a disaster zone. The King of Scotland has invaded the north, and foreign mercenaries are flooding across the Channel to support the barons' revolt. If Henry doesn't do something drastic, England will be lost. Most kings crossing the Channel to face a rebellion would be thinking the same thing. Raise an army, crush them by force. But Henry's got something else up his sleeve, because he realises it isn't his barons or even his sons who are threatening his empire. It's the dead hand of Thomas Becket, rising up from beyond the grave. It's more than three years since Becket was killed in Canterbury Cathedral. In that time, Henry's troubles have gone from bad to worse. On the 12th of July 1174, Henry II heads to Canterbury. What he does in the next 24 hours will shock the world and decide the future of the entire Plantagenet dynasty. Just outside the city walls, he stops, removes his boots, and begins to walk barefoot along the road. People watching must be wondering if the desperate king has lost his mind. The streets here in Canterbury are full of people all nudging each other, pointing, maybe even trying to grab him. They know it's the king because behind him the royal standards fluttering. He's dressed as an ordinary pilgrim, rough woolen clothes, and he's barefoot. And the roads aren't nice and clean and smooth. They're muddy, they're filthy, they're full of broken pots and sharp stones that cut his feet to shreds. This isn't just physically painful, it's humiliating. The king of England is dragging himself through the mud, leaving bloody footprints behind him. Henry's performing the most public act of penance imaginable. Begging God and Becket to forgive him. This can only end in one place, Canterbury Cathedral. This wretched three-mile walk is actually propaganda dynamite. Every person who sees it will spread the news of the scale of the king's penance. Henry isn't finished yet. He knows he has one chance to win back the hearts and minds of his kingdom, and he's planning something spectacular. The stage for his grand finale is the shrine of the once best friend he accidentally murdered, Thomas Becket. When Henry enters the cathedral, dirty, bloody and drained, Thomas's shrine isn't up there, it's down these stairs in the crypt. It's down here in the dark among the columns that Henry does something absolutely extraordinary. In front of Becket's tomb, Henry kneels down and commands the monks to whip him. One hundred of them take turns to beat his back up to five times each with a birching rod. Henry is spilling his own blood to atone for the spilling of Becket's in the cathedral above. These are the same monks who cowered behind the pillars in horror back then. Now they are striking the blows, beating the sin out of the king. In all, Henry receives more than 300 flesh lacerating latches. There may be far fewer people down here than up there, but these are the men who will write about what they've seen, who will tell the world. They may be Henry's punishers, but they're also his propagandists. It's a masterstroke of charismatic kingship. This is Henry's best shot at quashing the whispering campaign against him. But there's no guarantee it will save him. Then something extraordinary happens. The next morning, a messenger arrives. He bears explosive news. The king of Scotland has been captured. The invasion of the north is over. It must have seemed like some kind of miracle, but the timing's just too perfect, and it feeds directly into Henry's own propaganda. Ever since the time of Becket's death, he's been describing himself in documents as king by the grace of God, and now he has unarguable proof that God is on his side. Henry's miracle rips the heart out of the rebellion in England. The barons fold without a fight. Henry's back in control. In less than a month, he's free to head back to France and take the fight to his traitorous sons. Henry's on a roll. When he gets back to France, the rebellion melts away before him. First, he persuades the flaky young king to switch sides, and that leads Richard to fold as well. The rebellion is snuffed out. For Henry's family, it's a catastrophe. They gambled everything and lost. The king has crushed them. But he now faces a dilemma. What to do with his treacherous family? The one family member Henry can't forgive is Eleanor, because as a wife rebelling against her husband, she's committed one of the worst forms of treachery, and she can never be trusted again. And here in this chapel near Chinon Castle, her fate is recorded in this incredible fresco. So at the front, you can see her husband Henry, Eleanor's in the middle, and behind her are two of her sons. This might look like a nice, touching, plantagenet family portrait, but it actually shows Eleanor being led off into captivity. Henry may not need Eleanor anymore. But he does need his sons to carry on the plantagenet dynasty after him. So in a public ceremony of reconciliation, he forgives them. He even gives them money and castles. They may have been forgiven, but both boys must know that the one thing he'll never give them after this is any real power. Henry simply can't see that his obsession with control might be the root cause of all his family's betrayals. And this blindness to his own faults will ultimately destroy him. In the summer of 1183, an unexpected event throws Henry II's world into turmoil. His eldest son, the young king, dies. Not by the sword, but of dysentery. An inglorious death for an inglorious son. Henry's grief isn't just a father's, although it's clear he's personally devastated. The death of the young king has destroyed all his plans for his legacy. As his remaining sons begin to jockey for position, Henry is losing control again. Just two of Henry's sons remain alive. Only one can become his heir. Richard, the eldest surviving son, is expecting to be named. But Henry's favourite has always been his youngest son, John. He, at least, has never betrayed his father. Even so, Henry doesn't dare name either of them. Henry drags his heels. Last time he named a successor, it was a disaster. This time he thinks by stalling, he can keep Richard obedient and under control. What he doesn't know is someone's been stoking up resentment in Richard, whispering ideas of betrayal in his ear yet again. The man doing the whispering is the new king of France, Philip II. He plays on Richard's fears, persuading him that his father intends to name John as heir. Richard demands that Henry formally names him as his successor. And, of course, Henry refuses. That would mean giving up control. So, with Philip by his side, Richard once again goes to war against his father. In less than a month, they tear through the heart of Henry's French lands, winning every battle. It's not long before a defeated Henry finds himself holed up again, back here at Chinon Castle, with his son and the king of France at the gates. They're young, ambitious and aggressive. Henry's old and tired. The one thing he could never control has finally caught up with him. Time. Outside, his plantagenet heartland is collapsing. The empire he built and has ruled over for more than 30 years is being ripped from him by his own son. It's a final, total defeat. On the 3rd of July, 1189, Henry rides out from Chinon to meet Richard. A man who spent so much of his life on horseback that his legs are physically bowed, now has to be strapped into the saddle to stop him from falling off. Richard's demands are read out. He wants land. He wants money. More than anything else, he wants to be the next king. It's all Henry can do to nod his head weakly. At the end, he leans in for one last embrace and he whispers to Richard, God grant that I may not die. Somewhere in this broken old man is still Henry II, king of England. But this act of defiance is Henry's last hurrah. God doesn't grant his wish. Henry II, the first plantagenet king of England, dies. Here, less than 20 miles from Chinon, in a family shrine at Fontevaux Abbey, Henry II lies buried. Beside him were buried the bodies of his wife, Eleanor, and his successor, Richard. But not his favourite son, John. For his whole reign, Henry kept a close grip on his kingdom. He never allowed his sons real control because fundamentally he didn't think they could do as good a job as he could. And when Richard and then John become king, they prove him right. Within 15 years, the plantagenet empire is collapsed, torn apart by rebellion and war. And that's why John's not buried here at Fontevaux with his mother and his father. Because by the time John dies, this place is ruled by France.