In the morning, October 18th, having previously celebrated the mass of St. Stephen the first martyr, he proceeded to court, arrayed as he was in pontifical robes, and bearing in his hand the archiepiscopal cross.  As he entered, the King with the barons retired into a neighboring apartment, and was soon after followed by the bishops.  The Primate, left alone with his clerks in the spacious hall, seated himself on a bench, and with calm and intrepid dignity awaited their decision.  The courtiers, to please the prince, strove to distinguish themselves by the intemperance of their language.  Henry, in the vehemence of his passion, inveighed, one while against the insolence of Becket, at another against the pusillanimity and ingratitude of his favorites; till even the most active of the prelates who had raised the storm began to view with horror the probable consequences.  Roger of York contrived to retire; and as he passed through the hall, bade his clerks follow him, that they might not witness the effusion of blood.  Next came the Bishop of Exeter, who threw himself at the feet of the Primate, and conjured him to have pity on himself and the episcopal order; for the King had threatened with death the first man who should speak in his favor.  “Flee, then,” he replied; “thou canst not understand the things that are of God.”  Soon afterward appeared the rest of the bishops.  Hilary of Chichester spoke in their name.  “You were,” he said, “our primate; but by opposing the royal customs, you have broken your oath of fealty to the King.  A perjured archbishop has no right to our obedience.  From you, then, we appeal to the Pope, and summon you to answer us before him.”  “I hear,” was his only reply.

The bishops seated themselves along the opposite side of the hall, and a solemn silence ensued.  At length the door opened and the Earl of Leicester at the head of the barons bade him hear his sentence.  “My sentence,” interrupted the Archbishop; “son and earl, hear me first.  You know with what fidelity I served the King, how reluctantly, to please him, I accepted my present office, and in what manner I was declared by him free from all secular claims.  For what happened before my consecration I ought not to answer, nor will I. Know, moreover, that you are my children in God.  Neither law nor reason allows you to judge your father.  I therefore decline your tribunal, and refer my quarrel to the decision of the Pope.  To him I appeal and shall now, under the protection of the Catholic Church and the apostolic see, depart.”  As he walked along the hall, some of the courtiers threw at him knots of straw, which they took from the floor.  A voice called him a traitor.  At the word he stopped, and, hastily turning round, rejoined, “Were it not that my order forbids me, that coward should repent of his insolence.”  At the gate he was received with acclamations of joy by the clergy and people, and was conducted in triumph to his lodgings.