Perhaps the most famous event that happened at Canterbury Cathedral was the murder of Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, on December 29, 1170. He quarreled with King Henry II of England over the rights and privileges of the Roman Catholic Church. Some violent words of Henry’s about Becket were taken literally by four leading knights of the court, and they killed Becket in the cathedral. Within a few days Becket’s tomb became a pilgrimage site, and English and foreign pilgrims came in numbers, substantially increasing both the prestige and the income of the cathedral. Becket was canonized by Pope Alexander III in 1173.
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