Freedom of religion might have been of primary importance for the WASP colonists because that was their politics. Freedom from religion is a more 21st century need. Religion is intolerant and oppressive.
Beckett wanted clerics to be free from prosecution by the state and subject only to canon law. Henry wanted to be an absolute tyrant. They both can get bent for all the relevance they have to contemporary freedoms and politics.
This smells like the kind of thing Bill Barr would be into. But he has already fled the battlefield.
That only goes to illustrate that the fresh converts are often the most zealous ones.
It was discovered at his death, however, that he’d been wearing a hair shirt, and not just that day.
That was a ahem helluva thing for a man who’d so loved his silks and velvets.
It also confirms Anselm’s above remark re: zealotry! Mr Becket would have been one of the scariest archbishops evAr had his churchly career been a long one.
This appears to be the Fantasy Freedom-Signifier version of the Magna Carta, rather than the actual document, which was concerned with fish-weirs but not at all with Religious Freedom.
All fish-weirs are in future to be entirely removed from the Thames and the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea-coast.
Curious to be so concerned over fishing rights. I guess some things never change.
That’s part of it, but we historians (and others in the humanities) are a desperate lot with little job prospects, no matter how great our dissertations. I’m saddened, but not shocked that some people in such fields would embrace whatever opportunities arise, especially if it makes them feel like they are “dangerous outsiders saving the world” which I’m sure is how many “conservative” academics might feel.
Also, right or wrong, for many, science is at odds with the humanities, because the humanities can’t offer answers that are clear cut. You can feel the forces of something like gravity. But the evidence you can dredge up about issues like racism aren’t so clear cut as all that. It’s fairly easy to look at the evidence on issues like that and say it was worth the pain, because it led us to this moment. We can’t test that against other paths humanity might have taken historically. All we have are the texts, which are subjective in the extreme. History just isn’t a science, no matter what Marx argued. It’s always an interpretation of the past. 
Please don’t paint with such a broad brush.
Gotcha- thanks for that context. I got excited about a possible corollary to my axe-to-grind about alt-right “experts” being a growing problem. Sounds like I over-extrapolated my data there. 
Also, I would hire you if I could. 
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are some who are well-off, tenured white cishet profs, who are acting on behalf of the alt-right–those are the ones that are irritated that there are more people of color and women who are not doing “proper” history (war, politics, eurocentric, etc). They have a real problem with sharing the spotlight with those they see as doing “lesser” work than themselves. I just think that some people in the field are driven by desperation, too, because there are too many of us phds and not nearly enough full time positions.
Aw! Thanks! Let me know when you start Veronica-cooper Uni!
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