issue, a great council was summoned to meet at Clarendon after the
Christmas holidays.

In this assembly, January 25, 1164, John of Oxford, one of the royal
chaplains, was appointed president by the King, who immediately called
on the bishops to fulfil their promise. His angry manner and
threatening tone revived the suspicions of the Primate, who ventured
to express a wish that the saving clause might still be admitted. At
this request the indignation of the King was extreme; he threatened
Becket with exile or death; the door of the next apartment was thrown
open, and discovered a body of knights with their garments tucked up,
and their swords drawn; the nobles and prelates besought the
Archbishop to relent; and two Knights Templars on their knees conjured
him to prevent by his acquiescence the massacre of all the bishops,
which otherwise would most certainly ensue. Sacrificing his own
judgment to their entreaties rather than their arguments, he promised
in the word of truth to observe the "customs," and required of the
King to be informed what they were.

The reader will probably feel some surprise to learn that they were
yet unknown; but a committee of inquiry was appointed, and the next
day Richard de Lucy and Joscelin de Baliol exhibited the sixteen
Constitutions of Clarendon. Three copies were made, each of which was
subscribed by the King, the prelates, and thirty-seven barons. Henry
then demanded that the bishops should affix their seals. After what
had passed, it was a trifle neither worth the asking nor the refusing.
The Primate replied that he had performed all that he had promised,
and that he would do nothing more. His conduct on this trying occasion
has been severely condemned for its duplicity. To me he appears more
deserving of pity than censure. His was not the tergiversation of one