Dimensions
162 x 240 x 39mm
Behind the legend, there was a man.
In 1120 the wife of a Norman draper's merchant gave birth to a baby boy in London's bustling Cheapside. Despite his middle-class background and unremarkable abilities, he rose within the space of thirty-five years to become the most powerful man in the kingdom, second only to Henry II himself.
At his height, he led seven hundred knights into battle, brokered peace between nations, held the ear of the Pope and brought one of the strongest rulers in Christendom to his knees. And within three years of his bloody assassination in Canterbury Cathedral at the age of fifty, he was a saint whose cult had spread the length and breadth of Europe, inspiring works by Chaucer and T S Eliot.
The story of Thomas Becket is the story of an enigma. As the descendants of William the Conqueror engaged in a bitter struggle for the succession to the throne, this tall and handsome man climbed the rungs of power to become one of the most charismatic, adept and determined power-brokers of all time. At once a peace-maker and a ruthless manipulator, a lover of hunting and fine clothes yet with a reputation for asceticism, a dilettante who later found the capacity for rigorous hard work, but who remained deeply insecure about his background throughout his career, Becket's singular abilities as a politician sprang from a host of personal contradictions.
Drawing on a vast array of contemporary records, personal letters and first-hand accounts, John Guy has reconstructed a psychologically compelling, stunningly nuanced and utterly convincing account of this most remarkable man, the tumultuous times in which he lived and the pivotal role he played in his nation's history.
For nine-hundred years, Thomas Becket has been lauded and damned, venerated and judged. Here, in this living, breathing portrait, he is finally understood.
