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BBC News
By Stephen Mulvey
image copyrightCorpus Christi College, Cambridge
More has been written about Thomas Becket, the archbishop hacked to death in Canterbury Cathedral exactly 850 years ago, than any other non-royal English person of the Middle Ages. And yet it seems it s still possible to discover new things about his remarkable life.
Before dawn on 14 October 1164, Thomas Becket found an open gate in the city walls and rode out of Northampton with a servant and two guides, the sound of their horses hooves masked by high wind and driving rain.
The archbishop was making a run for it after a week on trial in Northampton Castle. The initial charge had been a minor one, but King Henry II had added new and increasingly serious accusations, and a verdict of treason was looking likely.