Quotes

Dialogue

King Henry II: You know, when I took you into my service, everyone predicted you would put a knife in my back. Thomas a Becket: Did you believe them? King Henry II: No. I assured them that you were a man of honor. And a collaborator. Thomas a Becket: That was accurate of you. King Henry II: How do you combine the two? Thomas a Becket: My Lord? King Henry II: Honor... and collaboration. Thomas a Becket: .... I don't try. I love good living, and good living is Norman. I love life, and a Saxon's only birthright is to be slaughtered. One collaborates to live. King Henry II: And honor? Thomas a Becket: Honor is a concern of the living. One can't very well be concerned about it once one's dead. King Henry II: You're too clever for me, Thomas. But I know there's something not quite right about your reasoning. Thomas a Becket: Honor is a private matter within. It's an idea, and every man has his own version of it. King Henry II: How gracefully you tell your King to mind his own business.

Dialogue

Thomas a Becket: Tonight, you can do me the honor of christening my forks. King Henry II: Forks? Thomas a Becket: Yes, from Florence. New little invention. It's for pronging meat and carrying it to the mouth. It saves you dirtying your fingers. King Henry II: But then you dirty the fork. Thomas a Becket: Yes, but it's washable. King Henry II: So are your fingers. I don't see the point. Thomas a Becket: Well, it hasn't any, practically speaking. But it's refined, it's subtle, it's very... un-Norman. [Henry laughs at that.]

Dialogue

Thomas a Becket: Meanwhile, we have some business to discuss. I've been studying the dispatches from England. King Henry II: You love work, don't you? If you love anything. Thomas a Becket: I love doing what I have to do and doing it well. King Henry II: You'd be as efficient against me as for me, wouldn't you? Thomas a Becket: If Fate had arranged it that way. King Henry II: So what in most people is morality, in you, it's just an exercise in... what's the word? Thomas a Becket: Aesthetics. King Henry II: Yes, that's the word. Always "aesthetics."

Dialogue

King Henry II: But what will God say if I attack His Church? After all, they're His bishops. Thomas a Becket: We must manage the Church. One can always come to a sensible little arrangement with God. King Henry II: [laughs] Becket,... you're a monster. Thomas a Becket: [chuckles] You flatter me, My Lord. But please, my Lord, dress quickly. It's, uh... it's inelegant for conquerers to be late. King Henry II: [laughs even harder] You're a MONSTER!

Dialogue

King Henry II: Am I the strongest or am I not? Thomas a Becket: You are today, but one must never drive one's enemy to despair; it makes him strong. Gentleness is better politics, it saps virility. A good occupational force must never crush. It must corrupt.

Dialogue

Thomas a Becket: Well, now. Wouldn't you rather have a Saxon Archbishop than a Norman one? [Brother John doesn't answer] I hope I won't regret sending for you. Brother John: Why did you? Thomas a Becket: I'm not sure. Perhaps in a young, intemperate way, yours is a voice that is good for me to hear. Brother John: Then why-- Thomas a Becket: But PLEASE. Not too often, and not too loud, Brother John. Brother John: You betrayed your Saxon race. Now you betray God. Thomas a Becket: Perhaps you will succeed in teaching me humility. It's a virtue I've never really mastered.

Dialogue

Thomas a Becket: [returning the Chancellor's ring] Forgive me. King Henry II: You give the lions of England back to me, like a little boy who doesn't want to play anymore. I would have gone to war with all England's might behind me, and even against England's interests, to defend you, Thomas. I would have given away my life laughingly for you. Only I loved you and you didn't love me. That's the difference.

Dialogue

King Henry II: Becket is my enemy. But in the human balance, traitor that he is and naked as his mother made him, he's worth a hundred of you, madam, with your crown and your jewels and your august uncle, the Emperor, into the bargain. I'm forced to fight him now and crush him, but at least he gave me with open hands everything that is at all good in me. And you have never given me anything but your carping mediocrity and your everlasting obsession with your puny little person and what you thought was due to it. That is why I forbid you to smile while Becket is being destroyed. Eleanor of Aquitaine: I gave you my youth. Gave you your children. King Henry II: I don't LIKE my children! And as for your youth, that withered flower, pressed between the pages of a hymn book since you were twelve years old with its watery blood and stale insipid scent, you can bid farewell to that without a tear. Your body was a empty desert, madam, that duty forced me to wander in alone. But you have never b

Dialogue

King Henry II: You never loved me, did you, Thomas?! Thomas a Becket: In so far as I was capable of love,.... yes, I did.

Dialogue

King Henry II: Tell me, do you ever think? Baron: Never, sire! A gentleman has better things to do.

Dialogue

Brother Philip: Your Grace, there are armed men at the doors. I bolted the doors, but... Thomas a Becket: It's time for Vespers. Does one bolt the doors during Vespers? I've never heard of it. Brother Philip: But, your Grace... Thomas a Becket: Open them. Everything must be as it should be for divine service.

Dialogue

King Henry II: The honor of God, gentlemen, is a very good thing. And all things considered, one gains by having it on one's side. Thomas Becket, our friend, always used to say so. Tonight in counsel, we will determine what punishment his murderers should receive. Baron: Sire. They are unknown. King Henry II: Our justice will seek them out, you may be sure. [gives the barons a pointed look] It is a time, my dear barons,... for all of us to do penance.