108 PATERS, ETC. 



'iönabBjii'iitg ^ärinii]. 



BY KEY. F. WAKUE. 



THE rise of tlie celebrated Thomas a' Becket, otherwise 

 St. Thomas of Canterbury, to almost unlimited 

 power mider King Henry II, ; his contest with tbat 

 monarch on the subject of Papal jm'isdiction and the 

 rights of the church ; and his bloody murder at tlie very 

 foot of the altar, in the year 1170 ; are historical facts 

 liuown to everybody: and whether we consider him ac- 

 cording to the bias of our rehgious and political opinions, 

 a turbulent traitor, a patriotic assertor of the rights of the 

 commons, a champion of the oppressed Saxon against his 

 Norman tyrant, a hot-headcd zealot, or a martyr to the 

 Church of Christ, we can hardly deny him the credit of 

 having been a sincere, honest, fearless, and single-minded 

 man. But though these are facts generally known and 

 now almost as generally admitted, there are perhaps, even 

 among the present Company, some who may not be aware 

 that of the four fierce Barons who in consequence of a 

 hasty si^eech of their King, perpetrated the atrocious 

 murder of an Archbishop at the altar of his own cathedral, 

 three at least, if not all, were west countrymen, and two 

 undoubtedly residents in this county. Fitzurse, of Willi- 

 ton ; Brito, of Sandford Bret ; Tracy, of Morthoe, near 



