Henry II of England is said to have said this about his friend and ex-chancellor, Thomas Becket, who he had made Archbishop of Canterbury in an effort to curb the powers of the church. Unfortunately, the promotion did not have the desired effect and Becket’s support for the king diminished as his church powers increased.

The king’s frustration was overheard by four of his knights who promptly rode off to Canterbury and killed Becket in front of the altar. Although Henry did not actually order his death, everyone presumed that he had. Becket (friend of the pope) became a saint three years later and, the year after that, Henry went barefoot to his shrine to do penance. Very unusually for the twelfth century, there were five literate eyewitnesses who were able to write down what they had seen.

To London again to the Becket exhibition at the British Museum. There seem to be increasing numbers of people on the trains and we had to change the ones we were travelling on because there were cancellations – overrunning engineering works. Pandemic or no pandemic, some things never change.

‘