But on the morrow they were obliged to bury him in great haste in order to spare his dead body the indignity of being insulted by Ranulph de Broc, who desired to take it away. {169} The Archbishop of York publicly declared that Becket had fallen in his guilt and his pride like Pharaoh, while other bishops maintained that the body of the traitor ought not to lie in consecrated ground, and that he should be thrown into the foulest ditch or be put upon a gibbet to rot. It was forbidden in the churches to speak of him as a martyr. Decrees are incapable of influencing the development of public opinion; King Henry was the first to discover this. Scarcely had he heard the news, when a profound feeling of repentance for his imprudent words overcame him; he shut himself up in his private apartment, and during three days would not see anybody or take any food. When he awoke from this sullen depression, he immediately sent an ambassador to the Pope, assuring the latter of his innocence and of the grief which the death of the archbishop caused him. At the same time, he hesitated to punish the murderers, who had acted according to his suggestion, and he allowed them the benefit of clergy, the crime having been committed upon the person of a priest. Thus the liberties of the Church, for which Becket had just died, protected his assassins. It is related that the latter were stricken with remorse in their turn, and that they went and threw themselves at the feet of the Pope, at Rome, who ordered them to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where they died sincerely penitent. If the story of the repentance of the murderers is not well authenticated, that of Becket's posthumous triumph is incontestable. He had not been buried two years, and King Henry had scarcely obtained forgiveness of the Pope (1172) by undertaking to support, during three years, two hundred horsemen intended for the defence of the Holy Sepulchre, when pilgrims were already proceeding in crowds to Canterbury Cathedral, begging the protection of the martyr, canonized by the public voice before being recognized as a saint by the Church. {170} Two more years elapsed, and on the 10th of July, 1174, the king was proceeding barefooted along the road leading to Canterbury. Each step he made left behind him a spot of blood; he wore a pilgrim's dress, and on his arrival descended into the crypt, and prostrated himself before the tomb. The Bishop of London, from the pulpit, assured the people of the innocence of the king, of the profound grief which the death of the archbishop had caused him, and of the remorse which he experienced for the fit of anger which had caused the commission of the crime; the king remained praying. He rose, uncovered his shoulders, and, passing before the chapter, he received from each monk three strokes from a knotted rope; Henry then returned to the tomb, still fasting and praying. He passed the night in the church, and the morning