The statement of the laws of England was prepared by the committee, drawn up by the Justiciar, Richard de Lucy, and laid before the Great Council at Clarendon[14] early in the next year (1164), whence the document is known as the _Constitutions of Clarendon_. The king in it proposed a compromise--that the Church court should try whether a "criminous clerk" was guilty or innocent, and, if it pronounced him guilty, should hand him over to the king's officers to suffer the same punishment that a layman who had committed a similar offence would suffer. In other matters, where a layman and a cleric went to law on secular matters, the case was to be tried in the king's court. No layman was to be punished for spiritual offences, or excommunicated, without the king's leave, and the clergy were strictly prohibited from making appeals to Rome, or going thither, unless they had the royal authorization. [Sidenote: =Opposition of Becket.=] Becket declared that the Constitutions of Clarendon violated the immunities of the Church, but for a moment he yielded and consented to sign them. Next day, however, to the surprise of all men, he asserted that his consent had been a deadly sin, that he withdrew it, and that nothing should induce him to sign the constitutions. Henry vehemently urged him to do so, and pointed out that the Archbishop of York and the rest of the bishops were ready to accept the arrangement as just and fair. But Thomas took the attitude of a martyr, refused to move, and even sent to the Pope to get absolution for his so-called sin in giving a momentary consent to the king's proposals. [Sidenote: =He leaves England.=]