# Becket: Turbulent, or troublesome? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 14, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452 "2017-04-14T16:24:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/1 "2017-04-14T16:24:23Z")
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.) ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/2 "2017-04-14T16:27:46Z")
I always heard “Troublesome” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/3 "2017-04-14T16:54:33Z")
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/](http://www.joshmillard.com/2010/05/12/will-no-one-rid-me-of-this-modified-noun-phrase/) > [@](#): > > As the story goes, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was rather messily killed by knights of King Henry II of England on Dec. 29th, 1170, after the king asked from his sickbed, regarding Becket, “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” > > Or maybe “…troublesome priest”. Or “meddlesome priest”? > > Or possibly pestilent, pestilential, tiresome, meddling, vexing, worrisome, insolent, accursed, cursed, bothersome, dammed [sic], insufferable, or parish priest. It depends on who you google, though “turbulent”, “troublesome”, and “meddlesome” seem to dominate the more direct discussions of Henry’s query and Becket’s death, and to dominate the snowclonish repurposings of same as the results below suggest. > > (Or it may have been “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?”, according to Edward Grim, but that’s hardly as snappy or as good for riffing. Repeatability is nine tenths of the meme.) > > In any case, Henry and Becket are dead and I’m hardly a historical scholar; but the phrase lives on as a popular snowclone, and I am enthusiastic about snowclones indeed, so I decided this morning to do a little googling and put together a list of the first several dozen riffs on this phrase I could find. > > In other words, what sorts of things other than priests do folks on the internet wish they could be rid of, and how, exactly, would said folks characterize said non-priests? > > OED TUB TIME MACHINE > > But first, a little digression. Now, besides being shit at history, I’m the very layest of lay etymologists, so someone with a better grasp of either would be able to provide more clarifying detail here, but one lurking question about the variation in word-choice in the popular phrases is that of whether any given word was contemporary to Henry II when he was committing his sly bedridden speech act in the late 12th C. > > The OED’s cites for “turbulent”, for example, only go back to the 16th and 17th century, four hundred years or so after Henry uttered it. > > “Troublesome” similarly has plenty of mid-16th century cites, but nothing earlier. “Trouble” itself has cites back to 1230, though, and “some” is an older word still though I’m having trouble making sense of the OED’s citations of this variant of the “-some” suffix form in particular. > > “Meddlesome” has nothing before the early 17th, though “meddle” like “trouble” seems to be roughly contemporary to Henry II. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/4 "2017-04-14T17:00:35Z")
“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. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/5 "2017-04-14T17:01:36Z")
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](https://archive.org/details/lifetimesofthoma00frou)** ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/6 "2017-04-14T17:05:20Z")
“Turbulent” is the one I’ve always thought was the original though not necessarily accurate quote. The real fake quote, I guess. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/7 "2017-04-14T19:03:46Z")
From _The Plantagenets_, by Dan Jones: > [@](#): > > On receiving the news, [Henry] uttered a phrase now among the most infamous in history: “What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a lowborn clerk?” (This is often rendered incorrectly as “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”) ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/8 "2017-04-14T19:08:46Z")
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](https://archive.org/details/historylifeking00lyttgoog), p. 353 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/9 "2017-04-14T20:30:09Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Troublesome seems to be a modern interpretation, and there are 30,000-plus Google hits for “turbulent priest” versus 10,000 for troublesome. [Google Ngrams search](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=me+of+this+turbulent+priest%2Cme+of+this+troublesome+priest&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cme%20of%20this%20turbulent%20priest%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cme%20of%20this%20troublesome%20priest%3B%2Cc0) “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. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/10 "2017-04-14T21:29:18Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/11 "2017-04-14T21:49:23Z")
But we do know he said it in English, right? Or may he have said it in French? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/12 "2017-04-15T16:15:23Z")
Good point. It would have been Norman French. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/13 "2017-04-15T18:09:59Z")
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… ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/14 "2017-04-15T18:38:14Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Good point. It would have been Norman French. [This](http://www.orbilat.com/Influences_of_Romance/English/RIFL-English-French-The_Domination_of_French.html) 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**] ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/15 "2017-04-15T20:02:57Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/16 "2017-04-15T21:27:32Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/17 "2017-04-16T12:21:18Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/18 "2017-06-08T21:14:31Z")
[James Comey favors “meddlesome priest.”](http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/full-text-james-comey-trump-russia-testimony-239295) ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becket-turbulent-or-troublesome/784452/19 "2017-06-08T22:31:24Z")
French or Occitan?