Tristram Shandy: Who is Thomas o' Becket in vol. 7?

[Zazie]

I just finished reading The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and I loved it!
There is one small question for which I couldn't find the answer anywhere else. My native language is not English so it could be just my weak understanding of the sentence.

The second paragraph of the vol.7, chapter 2 reads as follows:
--So without arguing the matter further with Thomas o’Becket, or any one else—

Who is Thomas o'Becket? Do you think it's Thomas à Becket the saint? or Thomas Becket the publisher of Sterne?
I was confused reading this because the saint is of course dead at this point and thus you can't argue with a dead person...or, maybe the sentence means to argue the matter about Becket...?

I hope someone here can help me with finding the answer.
Thank you!

[tomf]

Hi ... I suspect it is Thomas à Becket the saint. He is also known as "Saint Thomas of Canterbury" ... and, three lines above in the text, Sterne refers to "St. Thomas at Canterbury". It's been a while since I read the book. If you're interested, you can see my review on my blog, https://lessthanamegabyte.wordpress.com/ . I think I need to read my review again, myself. :-) --Tom

[mortalterror]

Thomas Becket was the friend of king Henry II. He was a crony of sorts and when Henry made him Lord Chancellor he often sided with Henry in disputes with wealthy aristocrats. But when he made Becket Archbishop of Canterbury Becket put his religious convictions first and sided with the church, which he was nominally the head of in England. There was many clashes of religious and secular authority at that time and Henry eventually had his old friend Becket assassinated while praying in his cathedral.

There's a good movie about it called Becket starring Peter O'Toole as Henry and Richard Burton as Becket. Or you could read the play Murder In the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot.