Becket: Turbulent, or troublesome?

Factual Questions
1

Henry II allegedly said, ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ But I’ve also heard, ‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’

Edward Grim, a contemporary biographer, says Henry II actually said, ‘What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?’ But in the more commonly-known question, is the ‘correct’ word ‘turbulent’, or ‘troublesome’? (I lean toward the former.)

2

I always heard “Troublesome”

3

I don’t recall ever hearing “turbulent”.

Here’s an interesting take on it:

http://www.joshmillard.com/2010/05/12/will-no-one-rid-me-of-this-modified-noun-phrase/

4

“Turbulent priest” is by far the most common version, and is what I was taught at (Anglican) school. It was memorable since it gave me a mental image of an archbishop flapping around in strong wind gusts. Troublesome seems to be a modern interpretation, and there are 30,000-plus Google hits for “turbulent priest” versus 10,000 for troublesome.

Grim witnessed Becket’s execution, but was not present when Henry said whatever he said, so his version is no more likely than any of the others.

5

I had no sympathy with Becket, nor sorrow for his murder after reading Froude as a child; not only a* mauvais sujet *to his lawful King which deserved death in itself, he carried the contemporary monkish hatred of cleanliness to a violent extreme.

  • What could be done with him ? No
    remedy was now available but a violent one. The law
    could not restrain a man who claimed to be superior to law
    and whose claims the nation was not prepared directly to
    deny. Three centuries later the solution would have been
    a formal trial, with the block and axe as the sequel of a
    judicial sentence. Ecclesiastical pretensions were still for-
    midable under Tudors, but the State had acquired strength
    to control them. In our own day the phantom has been
    exorcised altogether, and an archbishop who used Becket’s
    language would be consigned to an asylum. In Becket’s
    own time neither of these methods was possible. Becket
    himself could neither be borne with, consistently with the
    existence of the civil government, nor resisted save at the
    risk of censures which even the king scarcely dared to en-
    counter. A bishop might have committed the seven deadly
    sins, but his word was still a spell which could close the
    gates of heaven. The allegiance of the people could not be
    depended upon for a day if Becket chose to declare the
    king excommunicated, unless the pope should interfere ;
    and the pope was an inadequate resource in a struggle for
    the supremacy of the Church over the State. It was not
    until secular governments could look popes and bishops in
    the face, and bid them curse till they were tired, that the
    relations of Church and State admitted of legal definition.*
  • With the fierce impatience of a man baffled by a problem which
    he has done his best to solve, and has failed through no
    fault of his own, Henry is reported to have exclaimed : " Is
    this varlet that I loaded with kindness, that came first to
    court to me on a lame mule, to insult me and my children,
    and take my crown from me ? What cowards have I about
    me, that no one will deliver me from this lowborn priest ! "
    It is very likely that Henry used such words. The greatest
    prince that ever sat on throne, if tried as Henry had been,
    would have said the same ; and Henry had used almost the
    same language to the bishops»at Chinon in 1166. But it is
    evident that much is still untold. These passionate denun-
    ciations can be no more than the outcome of long and in-
    effectual deliberation. Projects must have been talked
    over and rejected ; orders were certainly conceived which
    were to be sent to the archbishop, and measures were de-
    vised for dealing with him short of his death. He was to
    be required to absolve the censured bishops. If he refused,
    he might be sent in custody to the young king, he might be
    brought to Normandy, he might be exiled from the English
    dominions, or he might be imprisoned in some English
    castle. Indications can be traced of all these plans ; and
    something of the kind would probably have been resolved
    upon, although it must have been painfully clear also that,
    without the pope’s help, none of them would really meet
    the difficulty. But the result was that the knights about
    the court, seeing the king’s perplexity, determined to take
    the risk on themselves, and deliver both him and their
    country. If the king acted, the king might be excommuni-
    cated, and the empire might be laid under interdict, with
    the consequences which every one foresaw. For their own
    acts the penalty would but fall upon themselves. They did
    not know, perhaps, distinctly what they meant to do, but
    something might have to be done which the king must con-
    demn if they proposed it to him. But being done unknown,
    He would have found it afterwards well done. *
    Froude
6

“Turbulent” is the one I’ve always thought was the original though not necessarily accurate quote. The real fake quote, I guess. :smiley:

7

From The Plantagenets, by Dan Jones:

8

The usual version is ‘turbulent’. The first writer to use the phrase ‘turbulent priest’ was Lord Lyttelton in 1777 in his biography of Henry II, although his version was that Henry had rather less pithily complained that, ‘he was very unfortunate to have maintained so many cowardly and ungrateful men in his court, none of whom would revenge him of the injuries he sustained from one turbulent priest.’

The history of the life of King Henry the Second, and the age in which he lived, in five books: to which is prefixed a history of the revolutions of England from the death of Edward the Confessor to the birth of Henry the Second.. : Lyttelton, George Lyttelton, Baron, 1709-1773 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive, p. 353

9

Google Ngrams search

“Turbulent” is indeed more popular overall, and “troublesome” does seem to have a recent surge in popularity, but there are also instances of “troublesome” going back to 1847.

10

I must say, “troublesome” sounds a bit wet as an inspiration for murder: “turbulent” (which was what I too was brought up with) carries much more the overtone of rebellion that an ambitious courtier might seize upon as a justification for such a crime, rather than just being an irritating nuisance.

11

But we do know he said it in English, right? Or may he have said it in French?

12

Good point. It would have been Norman French.

13

Before anything else, when I read OP title I immediately thought of when Homer Simpson bites into a donut he found in the attic, which Marge has warned him is from the 1960s:

Homer: Mmmm…turbulent…

14

This is from extensive on-line excerpts of the chapter “The Norman Conquest and the Subjection of English, 1066-1200,” from Baugh and Cable’s A History of the English Language, 3rd. ed. (1978).

…Henry II himself seems to have understood English, though he did not speak it. According to a story twice told by Giraldus Cambrensis he was once addressed by a Welshman in English. Understanding the remark, “the king, in French, desired Philip de Mercros, who held the reins of his horse, to ask the rustic if he had dreamt this.” [Itinerary through Wales, Bk. I, chap. 6; Conquest of Ireland, Bk. I, chap. 40] When the knight explained the king’s question in English, the peasant replied in the same language he had used before, addressing himself to the king, not the interpreter.

That the king’s knowledge of English did not extend to an ability to speak the language is in harmony with the testimony of Walter Map, who credits him with “having a knowledge of all the languages which are spoken from the Bay of Biscay to the Jordan, but making use only of Latin and French.” [De Nugis Curialium, V, vi (trans. Tupper and Ogle)] His wife, however, Eleanor of Aquitaine, always required an interpreter when people spoke English. [Richard of Devizes, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, III, 431. (Rolls Series.)] The three young women of aristocratic family for whom the Ancrene Riwle, or Rule for Anchoresses, was probably written about 1200 were advised to do their reading in either French or English, and the original language of the Rule itself was almost certainly English. [reformatted for clarity and references inserted in-line*–LB]

15

I also, have disliked Becket – whatever might have been his king’s exact word concerning him – ever since learning that during a sojourn in the village of Otford in the county of Kent, he was reputedly distracted during his night-time devotions by the singing of a nightingale; whereupon he commanded that no nightingale should sing in that locality ever again – and local lore has it, that none ever has, there, from that day to this. For me: miserable, one-track-minded, joyless bastard, and good riddance to him. His slightly later co-religionist Francis of Assisi would, I figure, have felt very differently on this issue.

16

Interesting… Yet that little tick Domingo de Guzman, aka St. Dominic — contemporary of Francis — went a step worse and tore the feathers off a live sparrow with his bare hands then threw it out the window. So the Devil’s Advocate sometimes sleeps.
He also was a showrunner for the Albigensian Crusade.

17

Yes, the enormous amount of nastiness that has been perpetrated in response to Genesis I: 28… as regards the predominating view on this issue, unfortunately Francis was an oddball.

18

James Comey favors “meddlesome priest.”

19

French or Occitan?