Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? (Wikipedia)
- “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” (also expressed as “troublesome priest” or “meddlesome priest”) is a quote attributed to Henry II of England preceding the death of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170. While the quote was not expressed as an order, it prompted four knights to travel from Normandy to Canterbury, where they killed Becket. The phrase is commonly used in modern-day contexts to express that a ruler’s wish may be interpreted as a command by his or her subordinates. It is also commonly understood as shorthand for any rhetorical device allowing leaders to covertly order or exhort violence among their followers, while still being able to claim plausible deniability for political, legal, or other reasons.
- The popular version of the phrase was first used in 1740 by the author and bookseller Robert Dodsley, in his Chronicle of the Kings of England, where he described Henry II’s words as follows: “O wretched Man that I am, who shall deliver me from this turbulent Priest?”
- In The Chronicle of the Kings of England (1821), it becomes “Will none of these lazy insignificant persons, whom I maintain, deliver me from this turbulent priest?”, which is then shortened to “who shall deliver me from this turbulent priest?”
- In Jean Anouilh’s 1959 play Becket, Henry says, “Will no one rid me of him? A priest! A priest who jeers at me and does me injury.”
- In the 1964 film Becket, which was based on the Anouilh play, Henry says, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
- There are likely several English iterations of Henry II’s original quote because it had to be translated; Henry, though he understood many languages, spoke only Latin and French.