Thomas Becket was Lord Chancellor and then Archbishop of Canterbury under King Henry II, then there was a falling out between the two. Four of Henry’s knights decided to go to Canterbury Cathedral and murdered Becket at vespers (night prayer). The event has been immortalized in TS Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral, and in the 1964 film Becket staring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole, one of the Christmas movies that has become part of my Christmas tradition (watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/GFQi8tD-NeU).
O God, our Heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful servant Thomas Becket to be a Bishop in thy Church and to feed thy flock: We beseech thee to send down upon all thy Bishops, the Pastors of thy Church, the abundant gift of thy Holy Spirit, that they, being endued with power from on high, and ever walking in the footsteps of thy holy Apostles, may minister before thee in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
High Anglican Haligonian 