Murder in the Cathedral was written for production at the Canterbury Festival in June of 1935, and in subsequent years was slightly revised a few times.  It has been called Eliot's masterpiece and has been the subject of much scholarly attention.
 

Thomas returns from France, to the people's joy, in early December.  He resists four temptations: leaving well enough alone by backing down, temporal power as Chancellor, the prospect of breaking Henry's power in retaliation for all he's suffered, and finally, the glory (as in personal glory) of martyrdom.

Thomas preaches his Christmas sermon, saying, among other things, that the true martyr has lost his will in God.

The knights come and threaten, but Thomas stands firm.  The knights return with weapons and kill him in the cathedral, then explain to the audience their reasons for why it had to be done, echoing the tempters.
 

A couple of years ago, my brother and I decided to go to the midnight Christmas Eve church service.  When it came to the sermon, the minister said, "I was going to read the Christmas sermon T. S. Eliot" - here I guessed what was coming and elbowed my brother, who has been known to fall to the ground and say, "This fellow won't get up again!" - "put in the mouth of Thomas Becket, but then I thought it wouldn't be a good idea under the circumstances."  (He was leaving for a new post on December 30th.)  So instead he preached that we are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon, although not in those words, of course.

I'm not going to try to do any kind of literary analysis here.  As I said about Becket or the Honor of God, plenty of other people have already done it and done it better than I could.  I'm not at home with English literature the way I am with French.  I'll limit myself to superficial observations.

Speaking of analysis, let me just say that if you're going to write in a library book, do the rest of us a favor and at least write insightful comments.  The copy I have contains the most inane marginalia I've seen since I checked out Anouilh's play.  For example: "TEMPTER: Yes!  Or bravery will be broken."  Margin: "appeals to his bravery."  You think?

I like how parts of the play are in rhyming verse, reminiscent of medieval mystery plays.  The second tempter also occasionally speaks in alliterative, rhythmic, Anglo-Saxonesque verse: "Power obtained grows to glory,/ Life lasting, a permanent possession./ A templed tomb, monument of marble."  I've put some links at the bottom about this kind of poetry.

Near the beginning, the messenger who brings news that Thomas is approaching remarks, "I think his horse will be deprived of its tail."  I thought, "That's an interesting piece of trivia to put in," thinking of how Ranulph de Broc had amputated the tail of one of Becket's packhorses.  But it turns out he just meant people were taking hairs for souvenirs.  I guess I have too much book-learning.
 

T. S. Eliot

The Complete Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Poetry.
Hear the sounds of this poetry.
And a little more about it.