The year is 1386 and the first flowers of spring are here. A number of pilgrims are going to Canterbury to visit the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket, and they all tell stories on the way. Audio added
Thomas Becket was born in around 1120, the son of a prosperous London merchant. He was well educated and quickly became an agent to Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him on several missions to Rome. Becket's talents were noticed by Henry II, who made him his chancellor and the two became close friends. When Theobald died in 1161, Henry made Becket archbishop. Becket transformed himself from a pleasure-loving courtier into a serious, simply-dressed cleric.
Henry II is the most imposing figure among the medieval kings of England. His fiefs and domains extended from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, and his court was frequented by the greatest thinkers and men of letters of his time, besides ambassadors from all over Europe. Yet his is a reign of paradoxes: best known for his dramatic conflicts with his own wife and sons and with Thomas Becket, it was also a crucial period in the evolution of legal and governmental institutions. Here experts in the field provide significant reevaluations of its most important aspects.
The British occupation of Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War brings together two unlikely comrades, redcoat Sam Gilpin and rebel Jonathon Becket. The story of these two young men evocatively illustrates the divided loyalties that characterized this war. Though both men love the same woman, the true heroine of the novel is Becket's patriot sister, Martha Crowl. She commands the attention of the reader with every appearance. The grim and gory reality of war is skillfully played out against the gaiety of Loyalist society.
