About three years after the death of Becket, the King visited his tomb at Canterbury. When he came within sight of the church where the archbishop lay buried, he alighted from his horse, and for three miles walked in the habit of a pilgrim with bare and bleeding feet along the rough road. He threw himself prostrate before the tomb of the now canonized saint. After lying in that position for a considerable time he prayed to be scourged by the monks; an operation which they were not unwilling to perform. So, from one end of the church to the other, the pride of the monks was gratified, by each one inflicting a few stripes on the back of the haughty Norman. He then passed all that day and night without any refreshment, kneeling upon the bare stones.
The triumph of the spiritual over the temporal power, in the person of the King, and well nigh over the law of the land, was complete. And thus the ambitious purposes of the papacy were better served by the death of their champion than they could have been by a prolongation of his life.