Henry II's penance at Canterbury

July 12, 1174

Barefoot and in a wool shirt, the king walked the last stretch into Canterbury, prostrated himself at Becket's tomb, and invited each of the cathedral monks to strike him with a rod. The next morning the Scots invading the north were defeated. Henry credited the martyred archbishop. The coincidence of timing transformed a political humiliation into a narrative of divine vindication that the king's propagandists exploited for years.