Thomas More and Thomas Becket

December 29 is the feast day of St. Thomas Becket.  The saint was born in 1118 or 1120 in Cheapside, London.  The day was December 21, the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle. Becket served as Lord Chancellor of England from 1155-1162 and as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162-1170. On December 29, 1170, Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by henchmen of Henry II, as a result of differences between the king and Becket regarding church-state relations.

In his biography of Thomas More, who was martyred under Henry VIII, Peter Ackroyd explains that Thomas More's maternal grandfather was named Thomas (which was likely the proximate explanation for More's baptismal name) but that Thomas Becket was "still the great saint of the city, the martyr and subsequent worker of miracles." Thus, More was likely named after Becket as well.

Ackroyd notes that the More family home on Milk Street just twenty yards from where Becket was born.  On his way to school every day, young More would pass Becket's birthplace at Ironmonger Lane and Cheapside where by then there was a church dedicated to Becket.

Much later, "More felt a strong attachment to his saintly namesake, now that his own life in opposition to the king so closely resembled that of the murdered archbishop."

In a letter shortly before his death, More told his daughter Margaret that "he wished to die on that following day, Tuesday, because of its coincidence with the vigil of the translation of the relics of St. Thomas Becket."  More's reference was to July 7, 1220 (the 50th jubilee year of Becket's death) when, with great ceremony, Becket's relics were transferred from their grave to a shrine in Trinity Chapel in the east end of Canterbury Cathedral. Thus, began a major feast on July 7 commemorating that event.

Thomas More was indeed beheaded on July 6, 1535, the eve of the feast of the translation of Becket's relics.  And the following year (1536), the July 7 feast in honor of Becket was suppressed.  Relics of both saints are now in the rebuilt Walsingham shrine (which was destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries, and its image of Our Lady burnt).

Text:  All quotes in text are from Peter Ackroyd, The Life of St. Thomas More (Anchor Books, 1999),  Kindle edition without pagination.

Image:  Photograph by Immanuel Giel of a Thomas Becket plaque on the floor of Canterbury Cathedral.  From Wikimedia Commons in the public domain.