A medieval king and an icon in our times

I am sorry I have not been able to post here very often this spring, but it has been due to circumstances beyond my control. Unfortunately, some of my body parts are no longer user-friendly and I have had to limit my time at the computer. But I love interacting with you all on Facebook, and will try my best to stop by more often as we slide into summer.
Here is a post involving my favorite king, Henry II, and one of his rare political blunders. As I had Eleanor say in Devil’s Brood, “Harry and I have more in common than quick tempers. We rarely make mistakes, but when we do, they tend to be spectacular.”
There were a few other historical happenings on June 3rd, ( the fall of Antioch, for one) but I am going to have to beg off from dealing with them, for real life has come to a screeching halt as I remain trapped in the deadline doldrums. So I’ll just focus on June 3rd, 1162, a day that would soon give Henry II considerable grief, for it was on this date that his great good friend, Thomas Becket, was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury, just one day after he’d been ordained as a priest. Henry was convinced theirs would be the perfect partnership. Rarely ever was he so wrong.
I would also like to mention the passing of an icon. Very few people have the courage of their convictions; we all would like to think we do, but when the moment of truth comes, most of us compromise. I think it is human nature to do so. There are those, though, who are willing to make great sacrifices to honor a principle. Muhammad Ali was such a man. In honoring his courage, I am not talking of his feats in the ring; I have never been a boxing fan. But he took a moral stand even knowing that it could cost him his career, his liberty, his glowing future. At the time, I greatly admired him for that. And in his later years, I admired him for revealing he had Parkinson’s. Here is Michael J Fox discussing the impact that Muhammad Ali had. http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/05/opinion...
I think it always helps for well-known individuals to be candid about illnesses. Today it is far more common, but I remember a time when people were secretive about disease, almost as if they were ashamed of being stricken. When Betty Ford spoke with candor about her fight against breast cancer, people were actually shocked that she was willing to go public with it. So when Muhammad Ali and Michael J Fox refused to hide their struggles with Parkinson’s, they were making life easier for others afflicted with this ailment or with other incapacitating diseases. In the same way, I am grateful to the Reagan family for shining a spotlight upon one of the most insidious of diseases and the terrible toll that it takes upon everyone, what Nancy Reagan so heartbreakingly and eloquently called “the long goodbye.”