In 1170, Henry II, King of England, is alleged to have complained to a group of knights within his household, “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest.” Speaking of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett, this statement was alleged to have been interpreted as an order, and a group of knights travelled to Canterbury in the ensuing days, during which Beckett was killed. While the specific historicity of the command is debatable, the line has come to serve as a stand-in for theorizing the use of rhetoric and speech by individuals in positions of power to create plausible deniability when issuing dubious commands.* This line has reappeared sporadically throughout discussions of law and power, as it becomes a case study in the ways in which either carefully constructed, or wildly irresponsible, rhetoric can come to have unintended (or explicitly intended) consequences.
As a scholar of early modern political theory, I’ve frequently found myself returning to questions of the power of speech, as the voice of the monarch and the weight of their words become central to fears and anxieties surrounding the twisting and serpentine nature of rhetoric. Drawing on a long history of rhetoric, understood to be carefully constructed persuasive speech, dating back to Roman antiquity, European audiences have long considered the possibility that certain kinds of speech might be dangerous, as speech is used to mask intentions or manipulate audiences.
This particular line, I think, has taken on a revived relevance in contemporary American discourse. In 2017, the phrase re-entered the sphere of American politics when former FBI Director James Comey cited it directly in testimony to a congressional committee, as he discussed his relationship to the investigation of Michael Flynn. When asked if he considered President Trump’s “hope” that the matter might be dropped to serve as a command, Comey responded, “Yes. It rings in my ears as kind of ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’” The direct invocation of this line asked the country to reconsider a near nine century old question concerning the nature of rhetoric and its relationship to power.
This was a debate grounded in a question of what it means to “read between the lines” of a statement that does not include a direct address to action and whether or not powerful individuals bear responsibility for ways in which their rhetoric is interpreted. While Comey’s reference may have been little more than a historical curiosity, the scholar in me can’t help but consider the long tradition of discourses surrounding the power and dangers of rhetoric that are wrapped up in the invocation of this quote.
This question of the dangerous potential of rhetoric has sadly resurfaced once again under the Trump administration. In late October 2018, a series of explosive devices were mailed to key figures within the American Democratic party, as well as an additional bomb being found in the mailroom of CNN Center in Atlanta, GA. CNN, as a news network, had repeatedly been at the center of feuds with President Trump, who accused them repeatedly on the campaign trail of smearing his campaign and being a source of “fake news.” Between Trump and his supporters, there has been an ever-present distaste for the news media, whom he has referred to as the “enemy of the American people,” and whom he has suggested are “unpatriotic.” This has caught on with his supporters, who have on multiple occasions displayed hostility towards journalists, both directly and indirectly, as demonstrated in a repeated propensity to gleefully chant “CNN Sucks,” at rallies or events.
While there is clearly no direct incitement to violence in these accusations, these recent events have recentralized the debate concerning the degree to which this kind of abstracted, non-directed rhetorical anger is understood by at least some individuals as direct calls to action. Once again, we are tasked with asking ourselves exactly how aware the President is when he complains about the various turbulent priests that he sees as impediments to his desired agendas.
While these two cases are fairly distinct, they both speak to a worry concerning how the speech of those in a position of power, either used carefully or carelessly, might be taken as a call to action by those who support them. My series of posts this month will take up this question, both in its status as a historical and as a contemporary debate surrounding the nature of rhetoric. I will look towards literary attempts to think through this question within my own period of study and I will look towards contemporary reimaginings of this question, divorced from its context within the logic of a divinely inspired monarchy. Finally, I intend to look at the degree to which this issue is complicated by the decentralization of public speech via the internet.
The goal of this series of posts is not to resolve this question of the dangers of rhetoric, but it is instead to place it within a broader literary and historical context, ideally to demonstrate the long history of the debate concerning the true meaning and implication of Henry II’s “turbulent priest.”
* The modern version of the line, often framed as “troublesome,” or “meddlesome” priest is likely archetypal, as the few historical records of this command are quite different. The implications however, seem to be consistent across versions.
Evan Hixon is a PhD student in English at Syracuse University. His research centers on early modern British drama and political writing, with an emphasis on Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson. His dissertation examines representations of spies and informants in the works of early modern English dramatists.