Out of Context 1

around, I found that Chandler was an English surname meaning one who makes and sells candles—a good person to know during an age without electricity.  In fact, a man by the name of Chandler was aboard the ship Hercules that in 1610 landed in a place later known as Jamestown.  Attebury, too, is an English surname and means , “the dweller at the borough.”  An Attebury of note popped up in one Francis Attebury (1663-1732) who was the Dean of Carlisle and later in life, the Dean of Westminster.  Churchill withstanding (no need to go there), the big one is Beckett—as in Thomas Beckett, as in Saint Thomas of Canterbury—who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170 by the king’s knights right there in the cathedral.  (I visited Canterbury Cathedral a few years ago and stood where Beckett was slain.)  Apparently, he and King Henry II of England didn’t get along.  Beckett had the king in a tizzy, and the rumor goes that Henry II, thinking aloud, said, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”  A few knights overheard him, took it as a command, and did the dirty deed, cheaply (for you AC/DC fans).  Now, while Godiva, or Lady Godiva, is not a street in Canterbury...


from "Bridge of Doon"--2011