Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest? The murder in 1170 of Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, inside his own cathedral, is one of the most well-known events in the history of England. It is a famous episode in the centuries-long conflict between the authority of the Church and the authority of the State. Ultimately the Anglican church separated from the Roman church because of this conflict, but the seeds of separation were sown five centuries beforehand.