Four gentlemen of the king’s household, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Traci, Hugh de Moreville, and Richard Brito, taking certain passionate expressions to be a hint for Becket’s death, immediately communicated their thoughts to each other, and, swearing to avenge their prince’s quarrel, secretly withdrew from court. Some menacing expressions which they had dropped gave a suspicion of their design, and the king dispatched a messenger after them, charging them to attempt nothing against the person of the primate; but these orders arrived too late to prevent their fatal purpose. The four assassins, though they took different roads to England, arrived nearly about the same time at Saltwoode, near Canterbury, and being there joined by some assistants they proceeded in great haste to the archiepiscopal palace. They found the primate, who trusted entirely to the sacredness of his character, very slenderly attended; and, though they threw out many menaces and reproaches against him, he was so incapable of fear that, without using any precautions against their violence, he immediately went to St. Benedict’s Church to hear vespers. They followed him thither, attacked him before the altar, and having cloven his head with many blows retired without meeting any opposition. This was the tragical end of Thomas à Becket, a prelate of the most lofty, intrepid, and inflexible spirit, who was able to cover to the world, and probably to himself, the enterprises of pride and ambition under the disguise of sanctity and of zeal for the interests of religion: an extraordinary personage, surely, had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had directed the vehemence of his character to the support of law and justice, instead of being engaged, by the prejudices of the times, to sacrifice all private duties and public connections to ties which he imagined or represented as superior to every civil and political consideration. But no man who enters into the genius of that age can reasonably doubt of this prelate’s sincerity. SALADIN. BY EDWARD GIBBON. [MALEK AL-NASIR SALAH ED-DIN ABU MODHAFER YUSUF, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, born 1137, died 1193. Of Kurdish descent he finally rose from a subordinate rank to royal power. His name stands embalmed in history and tradition as the most noble and chivalrous of those Saracen rulers whom the Christian powers fought against during the Crusades.]