Archbishop Topples Into ‘Becket’s Parlor’

CANTERBURY, England —  Archbishop of Canterbury Robert A.K. Runcie broke two ribs when he fell into an excavation at a palace dating from the time of his 12th-Century predecessor, Thomas a Becket, a church spokesman said Monday.

“I fell into Becket’s parlor,” the Church of England leader said after he tumbled more than six feet into the newly excavated archeological site near Canterbury Cathedral.

The spokesman said doctors advised the 65-year-old archbishop to rest for a few days after the weekend accident.

Becket was killed in Canterbury in 1170 on orders of King Henry II in a church-state dispute immortalized in several works of literature, including T.S. Eliot’s play “Murder in the Cathedral.”