Whether or not the king had meant to order it, the murder shocked the rest of Catholic Europe. Henry’s name went down in infamy, while Becket was canonised just three years later, his stand against state authority becoming a byword for righteous defiance. Becket’s life and legacy are now the subject of a major exhibition at the British Museum, which brings together more than 100 extraordinary objects, from jewellery and prayer books to relics and even stained glass windows – many featuring “startling death scenes”. This show “makes the art of the Middle Ages come alive”.
A baptismal font showing the murder of Thomas Becket