 FACT: Contrary to one of the films central plot lines, Thomas à  Becket was a Norman (Thomas Bequet), not a Saxon.  Jean Anouilh (qv) admitted he discovered this after having  finished his play, having based it on the outdated 1825 work "The  History of the Conquest of England by the Normans", by Augustin  Thierry; but he decided that it made a better story the way he had  written it.