Lesson video

Hi everyone.

Welcome to our second lesson on Mediaeval Monarchs.

Now, if you've already completed the starter quiz, that's great.

If you haven't yet completed the starter quiz, pause the video now and complete that quiz.

How did you do? Did you remember all of the key information about the events of 1066? Excellent work.

Okay, let's start our lesson for today.

Now, our key question for today's lesson is, who was responsible for the death of Thomas Becket? This is some really meaty stuff, we're going to be learning all about the death of a key player in the mediaeval age.

So in this lesson, we're going to be learning about the people that contributed to Thomas Becket's death.

We're going to learn about King Henry II, his friendship with Becket and his struggle to take back power from the church.

We will learn about how Henry and Becket's relationship fell apart due to the struggle between the monarchy and the church, and how this led to Becket's death.

So throughout this lesson we're going to start off by learning about our Knowledge Organiser and our Star words.

We're going to move on to learning about King Henry II, then we're going to discuss The King versus the Church, The murder of Thomas Becket, The role of the Pope, the head of the Christian church and finally we're going to discuss, Who was responsible? In this lesson, you'll need an exercise book, or a piece of paper, a pencil, and of course that brain of yours.

Pause the video now to get what you need.

Great, now you have what you need let's move on.

So here's our Knowledge Organiser again, we talked about the fact that this Knowledge Organiser includes all of the key information for this unit.

Now some of you out there might have already started making your flashcards, and some of you might have started learning your facts.

I'm wondering how many you know already.

Two, five, ten? My goodness, you're already on a roll.

Well, for those of you who haven't started, I wanted to give you a really snazzy system, a way of remembering all of these facts in a really organised way, and this way is called The Leitner System.

You can see I've created a link on this page called The Leitner System.

That will take you to a video and that video will show you how to create flashcards and how to use The Leitner System.

You'll know all of these facts in no time if you use that system.

You can see on this page, I've highlighted the key information that we're going to be focusing on in this lesson.

Pause the video now to take a closer look.

Okay, let's move on.

These are our Star Words for today's lesson, these are the words that are going to come up throughout the lesson.

I'm going to say them and I'd like you to repeat them after me.

Henry II, Thomas Becket, Canterbury Cathedral, ecclesiastical court, clergy.

The clergy were the men who gave their lives and worked for the Christian church.

Reign, reign is the period of time which a king or queen is on the throne.

Okay, the first thing we're going to be discussing today is King Henry II.

Have a quick look at the family tree on the right hand side of this slide.

You can see King Henry II down at the bottom.

In our last lesson we learned about William I or William the Conqueror and he won the Battle of Hastings.

Now Henry II is a direct descendant of William the Conqueror.

Let's learn more about him now.

I'm going to read the passage, you can follow along with me.

King Henry II.

Henry II's father was the Count of Anjou, a region in the middle of France.

Although Henry was born and lived in France for most of his life, his mother, Matilda the Empress, was King Henry I's daughter.

Matilda claimed to be Queen of England, or Empress, but her cousin Stephen also claimed to be King and took over.

This resulted in a civil war in England and Normandy, and a period of chaos called the Anarchy, in which there was a breakdown of law and order across England.

Henry II became the ruler of Normandy and Anjou after his father died in 1150.

He travelled to England in 1153 and reached an agreement with Stephen that he would become king after he died, which happened the following year.

Henry II became the king of a fragmented and disorganised England, sorry, disordered England.

So Henry had a very tricky situation.

Before we move on and talk about Henry a little bit more, we're going to take a closer look at this family tree.

So here's that family tree again.

Now, you can see that the family tree highlights in bold the names of the people who were King.

So you can see at the top William the Conqueror's name is in bold.

Underneath his name you can also see the years from which he reigned.

So William the Conqueror reigned from 1066 to 1087, 1066 is of course when he won the Battle of Hastings and 1087 is when he died.

You can also see a d and 1087 in brackets that shows us the year in which he died.

I am wondering, can you name the other men who were King by looking at the names that are in bold? Pause the video now and have a look at the other names in bold.

Did you work out that William Rufus, Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II were the four other kings? Great work.

So your first task today is to look at the family tree, and answer the questions below on a piece of paper.

Pause the video now and answer those questions.

Great work, let's look at the next slide and you can tick or fix your answers.

Pause the video now and either tick your answers or fix them.

Remember fix means change or edit.

Okay.

I'm going to tell you about Henry II and Thomas Becket.

This is an image of Henry II and Thomas Becket and you can see that because Henry II on the left is wearing the crown, that shows that he's the king, while Thomas Becket is on the right.

He's holding a sector with a cross and he's wearing clothes that are traditionally from the Christian church.

Now, Henry II had a big job to do when he became king.

We already learned that the country was fragmented and disordered when he came into power due to those civil wars.

He had to restore law and order but he also had a desire to take back some power from the church which seemed at times to be more powerful than the King himself, Henry couldn't have that.

He asked Theobald, who was the archbishop of Canterbury at the time, for someone to help him and Theobald recommended Thomas Becket, a talented archdeacon.

Now, Henry appointed Becket to become Chancellor, a senior member of the country in 1155.

But not only that, the two men became great friends, they hunted and played chess together, and they improved things in England, for example by making the courts fairer and helping them to reach judgments more quickly when in the courts.

However, when Theobald died Henry made Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, this was the most senior position in the church.

And Henry thought that with his friend in charge, he would have more control of the church and therefore the country.

Have a look at this diagram on the left hand side.

This diagram shows us the hierarchy of the order in England at the time.

Now, hierarchy is all about who's the most important and who's the least important.

You can see at the top of the pyramid, we have God, the Pope and the church.

Now, God of course was seen as the most important being, the Pope was seen as the direct communicator to God and the church was the most important institution.

Now, you can see that the King came underneath God, Pope and Church.

Do you think Henry was happy with that? I don't think so either.

Now, underneath the King were the Nobles, the wealthiest people who held power throughout England.

Underneath the Nobles were the Knights, and at the bottom were the Peasants, that's pretty much everyone else.

Now, one of the big problems with this, with the judiciary system, was that members of the church, called the clergy, didn't have to go to the same courts as other people.

They could attend special ecclesiastical courts for clergyman, where they would get less severe sentences for their crimes.

Do you think that that was fair? Henry didn't think so either.

Let's keep reading, you can track along with me, we're on the second paragraph.

This unfairness was clear in the case of Philip De Brois, for example.

Philip, a cleric in the Bedford church, had been accused of murdering a knight.

Now, you can see from the diagram that knights were not the most important people, but neither were they the least and they worked directly for the King, so Henry was not pleased about this.

Now Philip, he went to an ecclesiastical court and was found not guilty.

One of the King's officers said that Philip should be tried in the King's court, but Phillip shouted abuse at him and said that he couldn't be tried in a normal court because he was a member of the clergy.

What do you think about that? Do you think that he should have been tried in the ecclesiastical court or the Kings court? Have a think.

Now, the King was in a tricky predicament.

He wanted to defend his knight and his country, and he wanted to take that power from the church, but he needed to honour his friend Thomas Becket.

He also needed to defend his officer who had been abused, but Beckett wanted to defend Philip, the member of the clergy.

Henry and Becket's friendship was being tested, who had more power? It was also a test between the monarchy and the church, which had more power? Let's read this paragraph.

Henry declared that from now on the clergy would be tried in the same courts as everyone else.

Becket told the priests to agree to this, but then at the last moment he grabbed the agreement and said that he gave a false oath and didn't agree to the King's wishes.

Henry was furious and took away all of Becket's land and property.

He was exiled to France where he stayed for many years.

Do you think that Henry made the right decision? Do you think that Beckett made the right decision? Let's move on.

So your second task for today is to go back and read the last two slides called, "The King versus the Church." Once you've re-read those slides, you're going to answer these questions on a piece of paper.

Pause the video now and complete that task.

Well done, let's tick or fix your answers.

Have a look at the answers, pause the video and tick or fix your answers.

Great, let's move on.

Okay.

This is a quote from Henry II, and we're going to learn a little bit about the background behind this quote.

Now, as you already know Becket was living in France.

He had been exiled by Henry but a final dispute was on the cards.

This final dispute was regarding the crowning of Henry the younger, this was Henry II's eldest son, you'll notice that he called him the same name.

He asked the Archbishop of York to crown his son, instead of Thomas Beckett.

Beckett was furious because that should have been his job.

He returned to England from France and threw many priests out of the church.

Now, Henry was furious when he heard this news and he's believed to have shouted, "Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?" I wonder what happened next? Can you take a guess? Pause the video and take a guess what you think might have happened after Henry said, "Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?" I wonder what you've guessed.

Let's move on and find out.

Hands up who guessed that someone murdered Thomas Becket? Well, that's exactly what happened.

I'm going to read through this slide.

The murder of Thomas Becket.

Four knights took Henry's words at face value and travelled to Canterbury, where they dragged Becket out of the cathedral to take him back to the King.

When Becket resisted, they drew their swords and butchered him in front of the High Altar inside the church.

The final blow split Becket's skull in half.

This must tell you exactly how brutal the murder was and you can see from this image that there are four knights and they're in front of the High altar.

And you can see that this last final blow is splitting Becket's skull in half, he died in a pretty brutal manner.

Okay, your third task is to re-read the passage that I just read and answer these two questions on your piece of paper.

Pause the video now and complete this task.

Let's tick or fix your answers.

Read the answers on this page and tick or fix your answers, pause the video now so that you can do that.

Excellent work.

Okay.

So, the Pope.

We've mentioned the Pope throughout our last two lessons.

The Pope was the head of the Christian church.

He was seen as the direct communication between God and the people on earth.

He had final say over many important things across Europe and as the most important person in the Christian society.

It's important to understand his role in this dispute between Henry and Thomas Becket.

I'm going to read through this slide and you can follow along with me.

The role of the Pope.

Pope Alexander III had tried to settle the disputes between Henry and Becket before his death, but nothing had worked.

After Beckett's death, the pope excommunicated, excluded from the Christian Church, the four knights, but was not too harsh on Henry.

Instead he told him that he could not take mass until he made penance, that means self-punishment.

Therefore, Henry walked barefoot to Canterbury Cathedral, where of course Thomas Becket was killed, and allowed the priests there to flog, that means whip, him.

Despite the murder of Becket and its consequences, Henry kept his power as King.

However, he lost his chance to reduce the power of the church.

Now, do you think the Pope helped this situation? When this lesson is finished, I want you to tell someone at home whether you think the Pope did enough or if he could have done more.

Let's move on to the next slide.

Okay, this is your fourth and final task.

What I'd like you to do first, is draw the table that I've created on your piece of paper, give yourself enough room to write in it.

Pause the video now and draw the table.

Great.

Now you've drawn the table, what you're going to do is you're going to write, in full sentences, how you think each of these people, Henry II, Thomas Becket and the tour Knights, were responsible for Thomas Becket's death.

I'd like you to use the words and phrases underneath the table to help you.

I'm going to go through those words, false oath, exiled, ecclesiastical court, murdered, Canterbury Cathedral, turbulent priest, remember that's from the quote that Henry is supposed to have said.

Before completing this table, you might want to go back through the slides and re-read the information.

You might even want to listen to the video again, so that you've got all the information before you complete the task.

Pause the video now and complete that task.

Brilliant.

Now you've completed the task, I want to show you how I used the words in the table.

So Henry II.

He forced Thomas Becket to stop the ecclesiastical court.

He exiled Thomas Becket to France, which would have upset him.

He said, "Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?" So those are the ways that I think that Henry II was responsible.

Let's look at Thomas Becket.

He pretended to follow Henry II's orders to stop the ecclesiastical court and then declared a false oath.

You might have also said here, that he returned to England and fired many of the priests in the Christian church.

Give yourself an extra point if you wrote that.

Now the four knights.

They murdered Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.

Now, what this table shows us is that there were lots of people who had played a part in Thomas Becket's death, Henry II, Thomas Becket and the four knights.

You might also think that there were other people along the way who were responsible.

Wasn't everyone? That's the end of the lesson for today.

You're going to complete a short quiz now to see how much of the key information you have remembered.

Thanks so much everyone and see you next week.

Bye!.