[Illustration: DOORWAY IN CANTERBURY CLOISTERS THROUGH WHICH BECKET PASSED ON HIS WAY TO VESPERS.]
The murder of Becket took place on the 29th of December, 1170. At five o'clock on that winter evening, as the Archbishop was on his way to vespers, the King's men, Reginald Fitz Urse and three knights who had accompanied him from Saltwood Castle, rushed upon him with their swords and murdered him in the north transept of his own Cathedral. The tragic circumstance of Becket's end made a profound impression on the people of England, and universal horror was excited by this act of sacrilege. Whatever his faults may have been, the murdered Archbishop had dared to stand up against the Crown for the rights of the Church, and had died rather than yield to the Kings demands. "For the name of Jesus and the defence of the Church I am ready to die," were his last words, as he fell under the assassins' blows. When he landed at Sandwich, on his return from France, the country folk crowded to meet him and hailed him as the father of orphans and deliverer of the oppressed, crying, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." His journey to Canterbury was one long triumphal procession.[1] The poor looked to him as their champion and defender, who had laid down his life in the cause of freedom and righteousness. Henceforth Thomas became a national hero, and was everywhere honoured as the Martyr of the English.
The popular belief in his holiness was confirmed by the miracles that were wrought in his name from the moment of his death. A violent storm broke over the Cathedral when the fatal deed was done, and was followed by a red glow, which illuminated the choir where the dead man's body was laid before the altar. The next day the monks buried the corpse in a marble tomb behind Our Lady's altar in the under-croft. For nearly a year no mass was said in the Cathedral, no music was heard, no bells were rung; the altars were stripped of their ornaments, and the crucifixes and images were covered over. Meanwhile, reports reached Canterbury of the wonderful cures performed by the martyred Archbishop. On the third day after the murder, the wife of a Sussex knight, who suffered from blindness, invoked the blessed martyr's help, and was restored to sight. And on the very night of the burial the paralytic wife of a citizen of Canterbury was cured by a garment which her husband had dipped in the murdered saint's blood.
