Accounts of Becket's death circulated throughout, Europe soon after his murder in 1170. Writing a generation later, clergyman-historian William of Newburgh offered a more balanced treatment of Becket and Henry II than any of their contemporaries.

The bishops . . . being suspended, at the insistence of the venerable Thomas, from all episcopal functions, by the authority if the apostolic see, the king was exasperated by the complaints of some of them, and grew angry and indignant beyond measure, and losing the. mastery of himself, in the heat of his exuberant passion, from the abundance of his perturbed spirit, poured forth the language of indiscretion. On which, four of the bystanders, men of noble race and renowned in arms, wrought themselves up to the commission of iniquity through zeal for their earthly master; and leaving the royal presence, and crossing the sea, with as...