Becket answered wildly that he would not go—never again would he leave England. Nothing but death should now part him from his church. Stung by the reproach of ill-faith, he poured out the catalogue of his own injuries. He had been promised restoration, and instead of restoration he had been robbed and insulted. Ranulf de Broc had laid an embargo on his wine. Robert de Broc had cut off his mule's tail; and now the knights had come to menace him.
De Morville said that if he had suffered any wrong he had only to appeal to the Council, and justice would be done.
Becket did not wish for the Council's justice. "I have complained enough," he said; "so many wrongs are daily heaped upon me that I could not find messengers to carry the tale of them. I am refused access to the court. Neither one king nor the other will do me right. I will endure it no more. I will use my own powers as archbishop, and no child of man shall prevent me."
"You will lay the realm under interdict, then, and excommunicate the whole of us?" said Fitzurse.
"So God help me," said one of the others, "he shall not do that. He has excommunicated over-many already. We have borne too long with him."
The knights sprang to their feet, twisting their gloves and swinging their arms. The archbishop rose. In the general noise words could no longer be accurately heard. At length the knights moved to leave the room, and addressing the archbishop's attendants, said, "In the King's name we command you to see that this man does not escape."
"Do you think I shall fly, then?" cried the archbishop. "Neither for the King nor for any living man will I fly. You cannot be more ready to kill me than I am to die.... Here you will find me," he shouted, following them to the door as they went out, and calling after them. Some of his friends thought that he had asked De Morville to come back and speak quietly with him, but it was not so. He returned to his seat, still excited and complaining.
"My lord," said John of Salisbury to him, "it is strange that you will never be advised. What occasion was there for you to go after these men and exasperate them with your bitter speeches? You would have done better, surely, by being quiet and giving them a milder answer. They mean no good, and you only commit yourself."
The archbishop sighed, and said, "I have done with advice. I know what I have before me."
It was four o'clock when the knights entered. It was now nearly five; and unless there were lights the room must have been almost dark. Beyond the archbishop's chamber was an ante-room, beyond the ante-room the hall. The knights, passing through the hall into the quadrangle, and thence to the lodge, called their men to arms. The great gate was closed. A mounted guard was stationed outside, with orders to allow no one to go out or in. The knights threw off their cloaks and buckled on their swords. This was the work of a few minutes. From the cathedral tower the vesper bell was beginning to sound. The archbishop had seated himself to recover from the agitation of the preceding scene, when a breathless monk rushed in to say that the knights were arming. "Who cares? Let them arm," was all that the archbishop said. His clergy was less indifferent. If the archbishop was ready for death, they were not. The door from the hall into the court was closed and barred, and a short respite was thus secured. The intention of the knights, it may be presumed, was to seize the archbishop and carry him off to Saltwood or to De Morville's castle at Knaresborough, or perhaps to Normandy. Coming back to execute their purpose, they found themselves stopped by the hall door. To burst it open would require time; the ante-room between the hall and the archbishop's apartments opened by an oriel window and an outside stair into a garden. Robert de Broc, who knew the house well, led the way to it in the dark. The steps were broken, but a ladder was standing against the window, by which the knights mounted, and the crash of the falling casement told the fluttered group about the archbishop that their enemies were upon them. There was still a moment. The party who entered by the window, instead of turning into the archbishop's room, first went into the hall to open the door and admit their comrades. From the archbishop's room a second passage, little used, opened into the northwest corner of the cloister, and from the cloister there was a way into the north transept of the cathedral. The cry was "To the church! To the church!" There at least there would be immediate safety.