The Triumph of Papal Over Regal?

Although he was undoubtedly religious, there is – and probably always will be – arguments over whether or not Becket was a ‘good’ man. The Reformation affected Becket’s worshippers badly because for the first time in nearly five centuries, a King had said that he was in fact a traitor, by going against a monarch’s wishes.
After becoming Archbishop, Becket is said to have changed. In the Liturgies in Honour of Thomas Becket, author Kay Brainerd Slocum looks back to Ancient Rome for an explanation for this change. With new powers, a new man can emerge and this is compared back to orator Cicero – Slocum writes that ‘the concept of novus homo is an echo of classical references to Cicero, the ‘new man’ who came to Rome from the provinces and made a spectacular career’. Cicero’s career can indeed be compared to Becket’s – he was judged in his life time, much like Becket was in his. However Slocum also says that ‘All of Becket’s biographers were emphatic in their claims that Thomas became a transformed human being’. This use of ‘emphatic’ may not be a positive; his contemporary biographers would have been emphatic because they worshipped him. This ‘transformation’ also may not have been good – it may even explain the tensions between King and Archbishop.
Although most texts only note Becket’s imagery being lost to the Reformation, it may actually not have been as personal an attack as previously considered. In The Social circulation of the Past: English Historical Culture, 1500-1730 by Daniel R. Woolf, he acknowledges that ‘popular piety had refocused on the images of saints rather than relics’. This suggests that as the country was becoming ever more industrial and self sufficient, there was less need to worship relics; rather Saints were remembered through art. The relics of Saints and religious figures higher up the chain than Becket were also collated, Woolf states that ‘an inventory of the pieces of Holy Cross, bones of Mary Magdalen and the other Saints… filled four sheets of paper’. Both Woolf and Colin Morris and Peter Roberts, who both wrote Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan acknowledge that this change happened relatively early into the 1530’s, without immediate regal pressure. Morris and Roberts wrote that ‘the veneration of Saints and images… was launched in the mid 1530’s’ with Woolf agreeing that images of Saints were being ignored by ‘early reformers, who strove to extinguish such popular occasions as Relic Sunday… [that was held on] 6th July 1536’.
With regards to how far Becket’s popularity stretched into Europe, Biggs, Michalove and Reeves consider the impact of relics and shrines, with particular reference to France. In their text Reputation and Representation in Fifteenth Century Europe, the passage concerning Becket opens by informing the reader just how far his popularity had stretched over Europe – ‘Boulogne was not the only corner of this part of the continent [with strong religious connections to England]’. They also consider towns further afield, such as Tournai in Belgium. They particularly reference Becket’s cult too, saying that ‘the relics of St. Thomas, like his cult, were geographically widespread across Europe’. Members of British royalty were still visiting Saint-Omer in 1480* – only a mere fifty years before Becket was banished from history.Saint-Omer, as observed by Biggs and his co-writers, is said to have had one of the largest Becket relic-based shrines, consisting of ‘his tunic, hair shirt, hairs, blood and his staff, to which should be added his crozier’. Both King’s Henry IV and Henry VI were too obsessed with Becket. Henry IV is the only Tudor King not to be buried in Westminster Abbey or St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle due to his insistence that he be buried next to Becket. Upon his coronation as King of France, Henry VI was anointed with the ‘sacred oil’ of Becket (considered to be a mix of holy water and his blood).
In conclusion with regards to literature, I do not think that Becket was a bad man; he was a man who fought for his beliefs and would do anything to protect his cause. Europe did not take such a heavy interest in every British Saint, and their adoration towards Becket (as I have shown through the creation of the windows, architecture, chasses and pilgrimage tokens) proves without doubt his importance and shows how he developed popular piety almost singlehandedly.
Footnotes:
Margaret of York is said to have visited Becket’s relics in Saint-Omer twice in her life; once when she was ‘on her way to marry Charles the Bold in 1468. the second time when she was [on her way back to] England as the chief negotiator of Maximilian in 1480’. Becket also features in Richard III’s ‘Book of Hours’ which Henry VII gave to his mother.