Reginald FitzUrse: The Bear Knight Who Slayed a Saint

On 29 December 1170, four armed knights pushed through the freezing rain towards Canterbury Cathedral. Their leader was Reginald FitzUrse—a man whose very name meant “son of the bear.” He would live up to it in every sense: fierce, proud, and dangerously impulsive.

When Thomas Becket fell beneath their swords that night, FitzUrse’s roar echoed through the nave. It was he who first laid hands on the archbishop, striking the blow that turned a quarrel between king and church into one of the most shocking crimes of the Middle Ages.

A Knight of the King’s Household

Little is known of FitzUrse’s early life. He came from a respectable Somerset family, holding lands at Willeton and Barham. Like many younger sons of the gentry, he found advancement in royal service. By the 1160s he was one of Henry II’s household knights—trusted, well-paid, and fiercely loyal to the king who rewarded courage and obedience above all else.

That loyalty, however, would prove fatal.