"Becket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man in Henry's kingdom—his Lord Chancellor (S145), Thomas Becket—who was always ready to serve him. At his own expense the Chancellor now equipped seven hundred knights, and, crossing the Channel, fought valiantly for the suppression of the rebellion in Toulouse (S161) in the south of France. (See map facing ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... exhibition of marionettes, which illustrated historical scenes. The puppets were dressed by Beth, our old nurse, and my sisters, and Hugh was the showman behind the scenes. The little curtains were drawn up for a tableau which was supposed to represent an episode in the life of Thomas a Becket. Hugh's voice enunciated, "Scene, an a-arid waste!" Then came a silence, and then Hugh was heard to say to his assistant in a loud, agitated whisper, "Where is the Archbishop?" But the puppet had been mislaid, and he had to go on to the next tableau. The most remarkable ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the table. Fortunately, Winifred and he were the only spectators; but unfortunately they blundered in at the very moment when the poor owner of the punt was on the rack. The central inquisitor was trying to extract from him information about a Becket, almost prompting him with the very words, but without penetrating through the duncical denseness. John Lefolle breathed more freely when the Crusades were broached; but, alas, it very soon became evident that the dunce had by no means "got hold of the thing." As the dunce passed out sadly, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... became the Pilgrims' Way in 1174, four years after Thomas a Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. His tomb in the Cathedral became the second shrine in Christendom, and pilgrims came to it along the old trackway through Surrey, from Farnham east of the Hog's Back along the hills to Canterbury in Kent. Henry the Second, one of the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... For instance, it was certainly odd that the modern world charged Christianity at once with bodily austerity and with artistic pomp. But then it was also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself combined extreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic pomp. The modern man thought Becket's robes too rich and his meals too poor. But then the modern man was really exceptional in history; no man before ever ate such elaborate dinners in such ugly clothes. The modern man found the church too simple exactly where modern ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... London Bridge, the first stone bridge, built in the end of the twelfth century, there stood in the very midst of it a chapel of marvellous beauty with a crypt, from which by a flight of steps one might reach the river, dedicated in honour of St Thomas Becket. This chapel was built in memory of St Thomas by one Peter, priest of St Mary Colechurch, where the martyr had been christened. It was this same Peter who began to build the great bridge of stone, and when he died he was buried in the chapel he had ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... seems to have been known in England at least as far back as the reign of Henry VI. There had been theatrical exhibitions in abundance, however, at a much earlier period. Stow, in his "Survey of London," in 1599, translates from the "Life of Thomas a Becket," by Fitzstephen, who wrote about 1182, mention of "the shews upon theatres and comical pastimes" of London, "its holy playes, representations of miracles which holy confessors have wrought, or representations of tormentes wherein the constancie of ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... a wooden log served as a pillow. Personal cleanliness was utterly unknown; great officers of state, even dignitaries so high as the Archbishop of Canterbury, swarmed with vermin; such, it is related, was the condition of Thomas a Becket, the antagonist of an English king. To conceal personal impurity, perfumes were necessarily and profusely used. The citizen clothed himself in leather, a garment which, with its ever-accumulating impurity, might last for many years. He ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... You may rely upon it he is most extremely unwell, and I take it to be a complete break up; he is low to a degree, and his expressions yesterday, while the Council were sitting in his bedroom, were most melancholy. The Council consisted of Lord Bathurst, Colchester, Conyngham, Becket, and Vice-Chancellor, who was here by accident. I suppose if they had wanted another they would have sent for me. There is no party at the Pavilion, and everything looks ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Yarrow; and perhaps the finest subject for a story of the same kind in any modern book, is that told in Turner's History of England, of a Mahometan woman, who having fallen in love with an English merchant, the father of Thomas a Becket, followed him all the way to England, knowing only the word London, and the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... rogue that I intrusted with the carrying of it on foot, whom I thought I had lost. Col. Dixwell's horse taken by a soldier and delivered to my Lord, and by him to me to carry to London. Came to Canterbury, dined there. I saw the minster and the remains of Becket's tomb. To Sittiligborne and Rochester. At Chatham and Rochester the ships and bridge. Mr. Hetly's mistake about dinner. Come to Gravesend. A good handsome wench I kissed, the first that I have seen a great ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... labours of the chosen servants of the church down to the last pamphlet written in opposition to the consecration of Dr Hampden; and raised above this were to be seen the busts of the greatest among the great: Chrysostom, St Augustine, Thomas a Becket, Cardinal Wolsey, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... infancy; it only rose upon the conversion of Constantine, and it was weak compared to what it became in after ages; but, when the Emperor of Germany did penance barefoot before Pope Hildebrand, and a king of England was whipped at Becket's tomb, we only witness the full-grown strength of the infant power that was being reared by the Bishop of Alexandria. His writings are numerous and wholly controversial, chiefly against the Arians. The Athanasian creed seems ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... help suggesting a comparison between the prayer of this primitive martyr bound to the stake, with the prayer of Thomas Becket, of Canterbury, as stated in the ancient services for his day, when he was murdered in his own cathedral, to which we shall hereafter refer at length. The comparison will impress us with the difference between religion and superstition, between ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... such rages that he would roll on the floor, and bite the rushes and sticks it was strewn with. He made many laws. One was that, if a priest or monk was thought to have committed any crime, he should be tried by the king's judge, instead of the bishop. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a Becket, did not think it right to consent to this law; and, though he and the king had once been great friends, Henry was so angry with him that he was forced to leave England, and take shelter with the King of France. Six years passed by, and the king ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... delightful company: Lady Lucre. says he is a 'refined duck,' a 'gentlemanly angel,' and a 'manly poppet:' to which I made answer, that I thought so too; and that she was a 'seraphine concert.' Sermon, by the Rev. Loyalla a Becket, 'in aid of funds for supplying the poor, during this inclement but festive season, with food for the mind.' Captain de Camp did borrow a sovereign of me, to put in the plate; and I was told by my fellow-churchwarden, Mr. Flyntflayer, that he did put in a bad shilling, wrapt in paper, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... thimble. This gives a quick and strong purchase and does away with cumbersome blocks of the old-fashioned jig. The jib-sheet leads aft to the steering cockpit. The main-sheet ends in a jig of a single block and a single block with becket. Be sure that your sail covers are large enough—the sail maker always makes them too tight. The cockpit covers must fit tightly around the cockpit rail. Many boats have sail and cockpit covers ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... gloves in England was not very general, we may infer, in the earlier ages of embroidery. There are certain evidences, however, showing that the glove was part of the priestly outfit, remains of gloves having been found on the bones of Thomas a Becket when they were transferred from the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral to the special shrine prepared for them; and a crimson leather pair, bearing the sacred monogram in embroidered gold, are preserved in the New College, Oxford, belonging to the founder, ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... then turn onward to the making of the Domesday Book, where he will find a few brief lines to cover the intervening space in England's history. From the struggles of Stephen and Matilda he is led to the quarrel of her son, King Henry, with Thomas Becket, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... to say that when close-hauled in a light wind under all sail she required little or no weather helm. As the wind increased I would go on deck, if below, and turn the wheel up a spoke more or less, relash it, or, as sailors say, put it in a becket, and ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... Christianity.' The historian of religion would indeed be faced by a strange task if he were compelled to trace the moral ideals of Simeon Stylites and of Howard the philanthropist, of Francis of Assisi and Oliver Cromwell, of Thomas Aquinas and Thomas a Becket, to a common source. The only ethical and social principles which can properly be called Christian are those which can be proved to have their root in the teaching and example of the Founder of Christianity. But the Gospel ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... April 24, 1538, that a writ of summons was sent forth in the name of Henry VIII., "To thee, Thomas Becket, some time Archbishop of Canterbury"—who had then been dead for 368 years—"to appear within thirty days to answer to a charge of treason, contumacy, and rebellion against his sovereign lord, King Henry ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... Peerage by Archdall, 1789, vol. iv. p. 5., it is said that the wife of Theobald, second Butler, was Joane, eldest sister and co-heir of John de Marisco, a great baron in Ireland; and thirdly, Sir Bernard Burke, in his Extinct Peerage, makes his wife to be Maud, sister of Thomas a Becket. Which of these three accounts am ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... lifetime, on June 14th, 1170. At the coronation banquet, when his father stood behind him, the Prince remarked, "The son of an earl may well wait on the son of a king." The event took place during the height of the quarrel between Henry II. and Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose right it was to put the crown on the royal head. Accordingly Becket excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the assistant bishops who had officiated on the occasion. This led to ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... rope with a knot at one end and an eye in the other; or formed like a circular wreath for handles; as with cutlass hilts, boarding pikes, tomahawks, &c.; or they are wooden brackets, and probably from a corruption and misapplication of this last term arose the word becket, which seems often to be confounded with bracket. Also, a grummet either of rope or iron, fixed to the bottom of a block, for making fast the standing ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the south, and afterwards to the west again; on the way, they met with a grand fall one hundred and fifty feet in height, which they named Becket's Cataract. At the head of the glen they found another fall which they estimated at two hundred and thirty feet in height; crossing above this cataract, which was called Bathurst's Fall, the eastern course was once more resumed, and tempests and storms ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... time, a worthy merchant of London, named GILBERT A BECKET, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was taken prisoner by a Saracen lord. This lord, who treated him kindly and not like a slave, had one fair daughter, who fell in love with the merchant; and who told him that ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... unto that nation," which occurs in the Acts of the Apostles (c. XXIV. v. 10), was what actually misled Bracciolini; the more so, as when he was in this country, he discharged what Dean Hook called "the heavenly occupations of a parish priest" (Life of Becket, p. 359), and for the very reason that he was a consecrated man he must have taken a much greater interest and placed far more trust in St. Paul, than Tacitus or any other heathen among the ancient Romans was likely ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... erected here, and bricks manufactured by a convict of the name of Becket, who came out in the last fleet, and has fifty-two people to work under him. He makes 25,000 bricks weekly. He says that they are very good, and would sell at Birmingham, where he worked about eighteen months ago, at more than ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... uncomfortable in her Court, and always preferred to get as near to the door as he could. The choir at Chartres, on the contrary, was aristocratic; every window there had a court quality, even down to the contemporary Thomas a'Becket, the fashionable martyr of good society. Theology was put into the transepts or still further away in the nave where the window of the New Alliance elbows the Prodigal Son. Even to Blanche of Castile, Mary was neither a philanthropist nor theologist nor merely a mother,—she was an absolute ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... is that of Thomas a Becket. The sudden transformation of this man of the world into an ascetic priest (it is true, on the occasion of his nomination as archbishop), from this devoted friend and servitor of the king of England into his most violent adversary, and into ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... the modern comforts of an English coach. Alas! for the fickleness of a world which changes its idols almost as often and as easily as its fashions. Time was when we should have found this great highway strewn with devotees hurrying to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket. But now, though we might detect, no doubt, in the throng around us, the counterpart of each individual whom Chaucer committed to his living canvass; of the knight who 'loved chevalrie' and the Frankelein 'who loved wine;' of the young squire 'with ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... age of the Crusades, of Anselm and Abelard, of Bernard of Clairvaux, and Arnold of Brescia. It saw the settlement of the question of investitures, and in England the struggle between Henry II. and Becket, in which the murder of the archbishop gave him the victory. It saw a new enthusiasm of monasticism, not originated by, but centring in, the person of Bernard, a more conspicuous and a more authoritative ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... here is that of an inn whose fame is as widespread as the love of English poetry, for it is at the Tabard Inn that Chaucer more than five hundred years ago assembled his nine and twenty pilgrims who were preparing to visit the tomb of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. The witchery of the springtime had stirred the blood of these Londoners who, perhaps, were enticed from home more by the soft April showers and the melody of the birds than by their need of spiritual consolation. This, at least, is the impression we receive ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... assistant in the management of public affairs was Thomas Becket, whom he made chancellor of the kingdom. Becket was fond of pomp and luxury, and lived in a more magnificent manner than even the ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... at some loss to recognise now the truth of old Leland's description of that once stout and gallant bulwark of the north, when "he numbrid 11 or 12 toures in the walles of the Castel, and one very fayre beside in the second area." In that castle, the four knightly murderers of the haughty Becket (the Wolsey of his age) remained for a whole year, defying the weak justice of the times. There, too, the unfortunate Richard the Second,—the Stuart of the Plantagenets—passed some portion of his bitter imprisonment. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... a year later, June 13, 1766, this same journal, under the caption "London," reviews the Becket and de Hondt four-volume edition of the "Sermons of Mr. Yorick." The critic thinks a warning necessary: "One should not be deceived by the title: the author's name is not Yorick," and then he adds the information of the real authorship. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... in elaborate symbolism. A set of beggars and cripples, gathered for the occasion, was exhibited, and kings and cardinals went solemnly through the motions of serving them. As the English schoolboy phrased it, "Thomas Becket ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Chippenham and Chipping Norton derive their names. Some crosses are "pilgrim" crosses, and were erected along the roads leading to shrines where pilgrimages were wont to be made, such as the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, Glastonbury, Our Lady of Walsingham. Sometimes they were erected at the places where the corpse rested on its way to burial, as the Eleanor crosses at Waltham and Charing, in order that people might pray for the soul of the deceased. ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... alone, no one can read the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, or Abbot Samson's Miracles of St. Edmund, or the accounts given by Eadmer and Osbern of the miracles of St. Dunstan, or the long lists of those wrought by Thomas a Becket, or by any other in the army of English saints, without seeing the perfect naturalness of this growth. This evolution of miracle in all parts of Europe came out of a vast preceding series of beliefs, extending not merely through the early Church but far back into paganism. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... friend, when hunting for sport. Then Henry his brother takes quiet possession, As Henry the first, of the great English nation. Next Stephen, a kinsman gets the crown by his might, But no one pretends to say he had a right. Then comes Hal the second, who cuts a great figure With Becket, fair Rosamond and Queen Eliner. The Lion-hearted Richard, first of that name, Succeeded his father in power and in fame; He joined the Crusade to a far distant land But his life was cut short by a murderous hand. Next comes the cruel and cowardly John, From ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... party of the most celebrated actors enjoying a dinner to commemorate the successful completion of a new piece which had enjoyed a great run. I amused myself trying to select the Montagu, Gilbert, Becket, and Booth of the party, and succeeded well, as I afterward heard. Actors are held in estimation in Tokio, and these attracted great attention as they dined. Matters are much as with us, I fancy. Our interpreter, in his broken English, told us in regard to the two young lovers, "Very high ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... yeoman to the stall. Whistling they came, and free of heart, But soon their mood was changed; Complaint was heard on every part, Of something disarranged. Some clamoured loud for armour lost; Some brawled and wrangled with the host; "By Becket's bones," cried one, "I fear That some false Scot has stol'n my spear!" Young Blount, Lord Marmion's second squire, Found his steed wet with sweat and mire; Although the rated horse-boy sware, Last night ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... III. ordered four silver basins, fitted with cakes of wax with wicks in them, to be placed as lights before the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. The great gold shrine of Becket appears to have been chiefly the work of a goldsmith, Master Adam. He also designed the Coronation Chair of England, which ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... present times, we can easily form a notion of Westminster-hall was the dining-room of William Rufus, and might frequently, perhaps, not be too large for his company. It was reckoned a piece of magnificence in Thomas Becket, that he strewed the floor of his hall with clean hay or rushes in the season, in order that the knights and squires, who could not get seats, might not spoil their fine clothes when they sat down on the floor to eat their dinner. The great Earl ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... perhaps neither popular nor in an Aristotelian sense tragic, of Mary Tudor. This play was published, and put on the stage by Sir Henry Irving in 1875. Harold followed in 1876, The Cup in 1881 (at the Lyceum), The Promise of May (at the Globe) in 1882, Becket in 1884, with The Foresters in 1892. It seems best to consider all the dramatic period of Tennyson's work, a period reached so strangely late in his career, in the sequence of the Plays. The task is one from which I shrink, as conscious of entire ignorance of the stage ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... of S. Thomas of Canterbury, whose murder had taken place only seven years before Benedict came to Peterborough. He gave many ornaments and vestments to the church, and brought several relics; and in particular some of Thomas a Becket (and those we can certainly believe were more authentic than most relics), among which are mentioned his shirt and surplice, a great quantity of his blood in two crystal vessels, and two altars of the stone on which he fell when he was ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... these important documents. The English monarch had contrived to impress the Holy See with wonderful ideas of his sanctity, by his penitential expiations of his share in the murder of St. Thomas a Becket. It was therefore easy for him to procure a confirmation of Adrian's Bull from the then reigning Pontiff, Alexander III. The Pope also wrote to Christian, the Legate, to the Irish archbishops, and to the King. Our historians ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... to the following story. I was staying at the house of an old friend, a wealthy Hebrew, while another of the guests was Arthur A'Becket. As will sometimes happen when you are in good spirits, the conversation took a religious turn. We drifted into it unconsciously, and our worthy host was telling us that he was in the habit of ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... among them the present law requiring that no one may be elected pope without the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals. This synod marks the summit of Alexander's power. Besides checkmating Barbarossa, he had humbled Henry II. of England in the affair of Thomas Becket, he had confirmed the right of Alphonso I. of Portugal to the crown, and even as a fugitive had enjoyed the favour and protection of Louis VII. of France. Nevertheless, soon after the close of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and flung out my hands to save myself naterally, and by that means I managed to get hold of the becket of the life-buoy, which in course broke adrift from the boom, and came ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... m. E. of Sparkford), is a village on the N.E. side of Cadbury Camp, with a church dedicated to St Thomas a Becket, who is perhaps intended by the fresco of a bishop which is on the splay of a window in the N. aisle. The responds of the aisle arches are curiously banded. There is a good reredos, a piscina, and ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... him in the diocese of another: and the standing quarrel between the two archbishops on that point was acute and long lasting. The clerical procession was closed by the Dean of Saint Mary's—John de Oxineford—a warm opponent of Becket, the exiled and absent Primate. After the clergy came a number of the chief officers of state, and lastly, King Henry the Second, who took his seat in the highest of the curule chairs, midmost among ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... their language was incredible. No sooner had Bonner issued his injunctions than Bale denounced him in a fierce reply as "a beastly belly-god and damnable dung-hill." With a spirit worthy of the "bloody bitesheeps" whom he attacked, the ex-Bishop of Ossory regretted that when Henry plucked down Becket's shrine he had not burned the idolatrous priests upon it. It probably mattered little to Bale that at the moment when he wrote not a single Protestant had as yet been sent to the stake; but language ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... biographer of Thomas a Becket, in his Description of London, supposed to be written about the middle of the reign of Henry II, says of this city, "ennobled by her men, graced by her arms, and peopled by a multitude of inhabitants," that "in the wars under King Stephen there went ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... quam vivos amans, largus in publico, parcus in privato. Constant in love and hatred, false to his word, morose, a lover of ease. Oppressor of nobles, sullen, and a delayer of justice; verbo varius et versutus—Used churchmen well after Becket's death; charitable to the poor, levied few taxes, hated slaughter and cruelty.[51] A great memory, and always knew those he ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... Sinbad's story, to those pieces of meat to which diamonds adhered. The chief offence, besides his political obnoxiousness, by which he provoked this satirical warfare, (whose plan of attack was all arranged at a club held at Becket's,) was the lead which he took in a sort of conspiracy, formed on the ministerial benches, to interrupt, by coughing, hawking, and other unseemly noises, the speeches of Mr. Burke. The chief writers of these lively productions were Tickell, General Fitzpatrick, [Footnote: To General Fitzpatrick ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... legend, such as belongs to every robber's nest on that famous river. No hawk-eyed baron ready to pounce on the traveler, is recorded as having lived here; all that seems to be remembered of it is, that the murderers of Thomas A Becket lay secreted here for a time after that deed of blood, ere they ventured forth on their pilgrimage, haunted by the accursed memory of it all their lives. This is something, to be sure, in the way of historic incident, but the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... 1859. Started from Mr. Glen's for St. A'Becket's Pool, where we camped. This water hole is a large one, and likely to last a long time. The country around is good—a large salt bush and grassy plain, with upwards of 300 cattle feeding upon it. Found the native ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... we were informed, was built by the murderers of Thomas a Becket in expiation of their sin, but only a few fragments of the buildings now remained. We halted for rest and refreshments at the "Fox House Inn," which stood at a junction of roads and was formerly the hunting-box ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... prelates; when they are proud and great, there is also danger from them; as it was in the times of Anselmus, and Thomas Becket, Archbishops of Canterbury; who, with their croziers, did almost try it with the king's sword; and yet they had to deal with stout and haughty kings, William Rufus, Henry the First, and Henry the Second. The danger is not from that state, but where it hath a dependence of foreign authority; ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... Swithin before him, and like Chancellor Wolsey in a later time, Chancellor Becket was a royal tutor;[35] and like Swithin, who still remains the pluvious saint of humid England, and unlike Wolsey, who just missed the glory of canonization, Becket became a widely venerated saint. But less kind to St. Thomas of Canterbury than to St. Swithin, the Reformation degraded Becket ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... often have thought of, would have been pleased. Come to think of it, I shall put this book upon the Hazlitt shelf. You have acquired a manner that I can only call august; otherwise, I should have to call it such amazing impudence. The BAUBLE SHOP and BECKET are examples of what I mean. But ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... facing another English winter, and meditated a southward flight so soon as he should have finished his fifth and sixth volumes, and seen them safe in the printer's hands. His publisher he had changed, for what reason is not known, and the firm of Becket & De Hondt had taken the place of Dodsley. Sterne hoped by the end of the year to be free to depart from England, and already he had made all arrangements with his ecclesiastical superiors for the necessary leave of absence. He seems to have been treated with all consideration ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... who have brought Humanity thus far. I don't deny that there are great souls among them; Beckets, and Hugh Grostetes, and Elizabeths of Hungary. But you are the last people to praise them, for you don't understand them. Thierry honours Thomas a Becket more than all Canonisations and worshippers do, because he does see where the man's true greatness lay, and you don't. Why, you may hunt all Surius for such a biography of a mediaeval worthy as Carlyle has given of your Abbot Samson. I have read, or tried to read your Surius, and Alban Butler, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... pitched battle first entered England; but it was probably brought hither by the Romans. The bird was here before Caesar's arrival; but no notice of his fighting has occurred to me earlier than the time of William Fitz-Stephen, who wrote the Life of Archbishop Becket, some time in the reign of Henry II. William describes the cocking as the sport of school-boys on Shrove Tuesday. "Every year, on the day which is called Carnelevaria (Carnival)—to begin with the sports of the London boys,—for we have ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... nothing, and yet could not be objected to on the face of it; inserting the words "so far as the laws of Christ permit": the precise degree to which the said laws did permit being susceptible of unlimited argument, as the royal claims or the clerical conscience might respectively demand. Even so had Becket in the past shielded himself with the words "Saving the rights of my Order". For the time being, this diplomatic evasion or pitiful subterfuge, as the advocates and contemners of the clergy respectively ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... into the river again. All was thenceforth wonderment and devotion. Masses were sung, tapers were kindled, bells were tolled; the monks of St. Romuald had a solemn procession, the abbot at their head, the sacristan at their tail, and the holy breeches of St. Thomas a Becket in the centre; —Father Fothergill brewed a XXX puncheon of holy water. The Rood of Gillingham was deserted; the chapel of Rainham forsaken; every one who had a soul to be saved, flocked with his offering to St. Bridget's shrine, and Emmanual Saddleton gathered more fees from the promiscuous piety ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... Caedwalla in 688 and therefore one of the first Christian churches erected in Sussex. The Archbishops of Canterbury had a residence near, and in the Memorials of Canterbury Dean Stanley tells how Becket's murderers entered the house and threw their arms on the dining-table, which immediately threw them off; replaced, they were again thrown farther off with a louder crash. One of the knights then suggested that the table refused to bear its sacrilegious burden. This ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... feudalism. What we note is that three Archbishops of Canterbury were strong enough and brave enough to stand up against the unchecked rule of kings, and the names of these great Archbishops—Anselm, Thomas a Becket, and Stephen Langton—are to be honoured for all time for the services they rendered in the making of English liberties. Not one of the three was in any sense a democrat. It is not till the latter part of the fourteenth century that we find ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... days of the year 1180; near Rochester City, his mule threw him, dislocated his poor kneepan, raised incurable inflammatory fever; and the poor old man got his dismissal from the whole coil at once. St. Thomas a Becket, though in a circuitous way, had brought deliverance! Neither Jew usurers, nor grumbling monks, nor other importunate despicability of men or mud-elements afflicted Abbot Hugo any more; but he dropt his rosaries, closed his account-books, closed his ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... hospital for the sick in Spitalfield; built St. Martin's church and St. Michael's nunnery, at Stamford—besides settling a yearly sum upon the church of St. John Baptist,[7] Peterburgh—covering the monastery with lead, and founding the chapel of Thomas a Becket. ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... writer, b. in London, the s. of a lawyer, and belonged to a family claiming descent from Thomas a Becket. Destined for the legal profession, he was called to the Bar. In addition to contributions to various periodicals and newspapers, including Punch, The Illustrated London News, The Times, and Morning Herald, he produced over fifty plays, many of which attained great ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... these nails, which is believed to possess miraculous powers, and exhibited only once a year with great solemnity. There is another in a private oratory of the Escurial; and I was surprised in observing in the same case a relic of Sir Thomas a Becket. All the nails, from the time of Constantine, are rejected as spurious by Cardinal Baronius;[21] yet a former Pope had expressed his belief in their authenticity;[22] and the ingenious idea of miraculous vegetation might have been easily applied to them. But to trace ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... which once were a great forest, stretching in a ring round the north of London, full of deer and boar, and of wild bulls too, even as late as the twelfth century, according to the old legend of Thomas a Becket's father and the fair Saracen, which you have ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... King, on hearing of it, ordered the fallen structure to be more securely rebuilt. A year later the same thing happened again, which the chronicler states was due to the supernatural interference of St. Thomas a Becket, and that the citizens of London were nothing sorry, for they had been told that a great number of separate cells had been constructed in the fallen towers, to the end that many might be confined in divers prisons, and yet have no communication ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... on wool, which gave rise to the old saying that "London Bridge was built upon woolpacks." Peter's bridge was a curious structure, with nineteen pointed arches and a drawbridge. There was a fortified gatehouse at each end, and a gothic chapel towards the centre, dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, the spurious martyr of Canterbury. In Queen Elizabeth's reign there were shops on either side, with flat roofs, arbours, and gardens, and at the south end rose a great four-storey wooden house, brought ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... king's rescue and temporary success; the murder of Elgiva, and Edwin's own death in the essay to avenge her. It is around Dunstan, the representative of spiritual despotism, that the interest centres. The character of this 'Saint,' like that of Hildebrand and a Becket, has been made one of the problems of history. Mr Taylor's reading of the part is masterly, and we think correct. His Dunstan is not wholly sane; he believes himself inspired to read the alphabet of Heaven's stars, and to behold visions beyond the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... of Canterbury.] Anselm's unflinching advocacy of Papal claims cost him years of exile from his diocese, and much suffering; but, in the following century, similar conduct involved still more serious consequences to St. Thomas a Becket, the then Archbishop of Canterbury. The new question in dispute was the right of clerical offenders to be tried in the spiritual courts, instead of coming under the jurisdiction of the civil power; but, in reality, it was only another form of the constant ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... is remembered less for his wise laws and far-sighted government than for the murder of Thomas a Becket, which clouded his latter years and brought his enemies—his wife and his son among them—swarming about his ears. This northern coast of Devon is linked with that dark crypt in Canterbury where Becket fell in the sacerdotal robes of High Mass; for it was a Tracy who was one of the four ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... miles N.W. from Hertford Station, G.N.R.) is a parish and village. The church is E.E., standing on the site of an earlier edifice; the present tower and spire were built in 1840, and the church itself restored in 1870. We learn from Matthew of Westminster that Thomas Becket held the living here as his first charge; a pond near the church is called "Becket's Pond". Queen Hoo Hall, N.W. from the village, is now a farmhouse, but was formerly an Elizabethan residence, and gave the title to a romance partly written by Sir Walter Scott. ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... Bordeaux. Remembering such triumphs, the French, who have in all ages been vain and boastful, were continually vaunting about their prowess, and repeating the story of some Englishman having cut off the tail of Thomas a Becket's horse, and of Englishmen having ever after that outrage been born with ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... Pax and Priam, all winners of field trials. There have been several very good black and whites. Mr. Francis's, afterwards Mr. Salter's, Chang was a field trial winner of this colour. A still better one was Mr. S. Becket's Rector, a somewhat mean little dog to look at, but quite extraordinary in his work, as he won the Pointer Puppy Stake at Shrewsbury and the All-Aged Stake three years in succession. Mr. Salter's Romp family were quite remarkable in colour—a white ground, heavily shot with black in patches and ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... facts, the determination to set up the dominion of truth and justice which they held to be identical with that of the Church, as that was identical with the kingdom of God, supplies the key to the lives and characters of such men as Ambrose, Cyril, Dunstan, and Becket. They each came in collision with the civil power; but Ambrose against Justina or even Theodosius, Cyril against Orestes, Dunstan against Edwy, Becket against Henry Plantagenet—each represented, in a greater or less degree, the cause of religion, nay of humanity, against its worst foes, ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... according to Speed, at 446l. 14s. 4d. That its wealth should have been immensely great is not surprising, when the fame of the image of the Lady of Walsingham is taken into the account; for it was as much frequented, if not more than the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, at Canterbury. Foreigners of all nations came hither on pilgrimage; many kings and queens of England also paid devoirs to it: so that the number and quality of her devotees appeared to equal those of the Lady Loretto, in Italy. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... north side of Cheapside, (between Ironmonger Lane and Old Jewry,) stood the Hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, founded by Thomas Fitz-Theobald de Helles, and his wife Agnes, sister to the turbulent Thomas Becket, who was born in the house of his father, Gilbert, situated on this spot. The mother of our meek saint was a fair Saracen, whom his father had married in the Holy Land. On the site of this house rose the hospital, built within twenty ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... at once," said the knight of Malta, flourishing Excalibur. "By St. Thomas a Becket, we'll have as fine a scene as I myself ever ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... fellow-creatures, while his day's work lasted,—fifty years or so, for it began early. He died in his Castle of Ballenstadt, peaceably among the Hartz Mountains at last, in the year 1170, age about sixty-five. It was in the time while Thomas a Becket was roving about the world, coming home excommunicative, and finally getting killed in Canterbury Cathedral;—while Abbot Samson, still a poor little brown Boy, came over from Norfolk, holding by his mother's hand, to St. Edmundsbury; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... names of Hilliard, Hooper, and Jones. By his wife Bridget, he had but one child,—a daughter, Christian, born May 8, 1667. She married Thomas Mason, and died in 1693; leaving an only child, Susannah, born August 23, 1687. Edward Bishop was her guardian. She married John Becket in 1711, and by him had a son, John, and six daughters, as follows: Susannah, married to David Felt, Elizabeth to William Peele, Sarah to Nathaniel Silsbee, Rebecca to William Fairfield, Eunice to Thorndike Deland, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Tennyson, who was not a man among men—being shy as a whip-poor-will, seclusive as flowers which haunt the woodland shadows—yet those reading him must know how accurately he reads the human heart; and his characterization of Guinevere, Pelleas, Bedivere, Enid, the lover in Maud, a Becket, the Princess, Philip, Enoch Arden, and Dora, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... consciences were oppressed by a crime more than usually weighty, talked of making an effort before they died to wrest Jerusalem and the sepulchre of Christ from the grasp of the infidel. England had at this time several holy shrines, the most famous being that of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, which attracted crowds of pilgrims. The devout travelled in large companies: and, in the May mornings, a merry sight it was as, with infinite clatter and merriment, with bells, minstrels, and buffoons, they passed through thorp ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... that the earliest religious drama known to have been performed in this country was one on St. Catherine. William Fitzstephen, in his "Life of St. Thomas a Becket," written in 1182, brings into contrast with the pagan shows of old Rome the "holier plays" of London, which he terms "representations of the miracles wrought by the holy confessors or of the sufferings whereby the constancy of the martyrs became ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... second the recommendations of my friends. After a last revisal I consulted with Mr. Mallet and Dr. Maty, who approved the design and promoted the execution. Mr. Mallet, after hearing me read my manuscript, received it from my hands, and delivered it into those of Becket, with whom he made an agreement in my name; an easy agreement: I required only a certain number of copies; and, without transferring my property, I devolved on the bookseller the charges and profits ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... Henry the Second claims our rhyme 1154-1189 'The hardest worker of his time'; A wiser King we never had Nor father with his sons so bad. Becket This the first 'Plantagenet' King With Becket strove like anything; Church v. Which should be Master, Church or Crown Crown Pull-King Pull-Bishop; both went down. Thomas was murdered by four Knights On steps of Altar—Sorry wights: With bleeding feet the King atones By pilgrimage to ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... him a clergyman was a priest who belonged to a sacerdotal caste, and who ought not "to merge himself in the body of the nation." To him the Reformation was an infamous crime, and Henry VIII. was worse than the Bluebeard of the nursery. His hero was Thomas a Becket. He wrote a sketch of his life and career, which he did not live to finish. His friends ill-advisedly published it after his death. His ideal ecclesiastical statesman of modern times was Archbishop Laud. Charles I. was a martyr, and the Revolution of 1688 an inglorious blunder. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... scholar Daniel Huet; and its cathedral, destroyed as insecure in the time of the first French Revolution, was the finest in Normandy. Its site is now occupied by an open square, one stone remaining to mark the spot where Henry II. of England received absolution for the murder of Thomas Becket. The churches of Notre-Dame des Champs and St Saturnin are modern buildings in the Gothic style. The ancient episcopal palace is now used as a court of justice; a public library is kept in the hotel de ville. In the public gardens there is a statue of General Jean Marie ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... attention to the ecclesiastic power. He chose Thomas a Becket to the vacant portfolio as Archbishop of Canterbury, hoping thus to secure him as an ally; but a Becket, though accustomed to ride after a four-in-hand and assume a style equal to the king himself, suddenly became extremely ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... knocking was heard from the terrified band without, who having vainly endeavoured to prevent the entrance of the knights into the cloister, now rushed before them to take refuge in the church. Becket, who had stepped some paces into the cathedral, but was resisting the solicitations of those immediately about him to move up into the choir for safety, darted back, calling aloud as he went, "Away, you cowards! By virtue of your obedience I command you ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... races were supposed to reside in almost every country. There was at one time an ancient belief that all Cornishmen had tails, and certain men of Kent were said to have been afflicted with tails in retribution for their insults to Thomas a Becket. Struys, a Dutch traveler in Formosa in the seventeenth century, describes a wild man caught and tied for execution who had a tail more than a foot long, which was covered with red hair like that ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... living, and poetry and tradition have lent to their royal frames such colossal proportions that we hardly dare to criticise the legendary history of their chivalrous achievements. It was a time of heroes, of saints, of martyrs, of miracles! Thomas a Becket was murdered at Canterbury, but for more than three hundred years his name lived on, and his bones were working miracles, and his soul seemed as it were embodied and petrified in the lofty pillars that surround the spot ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... kingdom. Haddon is old English feudalism edificed. It represents the rough grandeur, hospitality, wassail and rude romance of the English nobility five hundred years ago. It was all in its glory about the time when Thomas-a-Becket the Magnificent used to entertain great companies of belted knights of the realm in a manner that exceeded regal munificence in those days,—even directing fresh straw to be laid for them on his ample mansion floor, that they might not soil the bravery of their dresses ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... particularly which relate to restrictions on worship and on trade, are adored by squires and rectors in Pitt Clubs, under the name of a minister who was as bad a representative of the system which has been christened after him as Becket of the spirit of the Gospel. On the other hand, the cause for which Hampden bled on the field and Sidney on the scaffold is enthusiastically toasted by many an honest radical who would be puzzled to explain the difference between Ship-money and the Habeas ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... think I am the sort of man to think I hear things where there isn't anything to hear, or to think I see things when there is nothing to see? No, you don't. Thank you. Well now, I had passed the last becket, and I sang out to the men to sway away, and I was standing on the jaws of the spanker-gaff, with my left hand on the bolt-rope of the trysail, so that I could feel when it was board-taut, and I wasn't thinking of anything except being ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... main avenue of the Crystal Palace, and the effect produced is superb. A Catholic bookseller from Belgium makes quite a display of his editions of devotional works for every country under heaven; and there, too, are the effigies of Cardinal Boromeo, Thomas a Becket, and the late Archbishop of Paris, all arrayed in full pontificals. Their crosiers are very richly jewelled. If the apostles of Christ could revisit the earth, they would never fancy that these were their successors in the work and patience of ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various |
