The Pope and his legate prevailed with Becket to consent to the Constitutions of the realm, without making any exception; the King said this must be done in public, and in January, 1164, convoked a council for the purpose at Clarendon, in Wiltshire. The Constitutions were read, and proved to contain much that was contrary to the canons of the Church; they were discussed and commented on for three days, and then, to Becket’s surprise and dismay, he was required not only to agree to them by word of mouth, as he had already done, but to set his archiepiscopal seal to them. He rose, and exclaimed, much agitated, “I declare by God Almighty, that no seal of mine shall ever be set to such Constitutions as these.” The King left the room in a fury, and great confusion ensued, of which we have no clear account. The nobles broke in on the bishops, and threatened them in the King’s name; the Grand Master of the Templars persuaded Becket, and it seems that his firmness in some degree gave way, though whether what he repented of was the sealing the Constitutions, or merely the promise he had given, we cannot tell. The assembly broke up, the King and each of the Archbishops taking a copy of the Constitutions. Becket, as he rode away, lamented over what had passed, as his faithful friend and biographer, Herbert of Bosham, has recorded. “My sins are the cause why the Church of England is reduced to bondage,” he said. “I was taken from the court to fill this station, a proud and vain man; not from the cloister, nor from a school of the Saviour, but from the palace of Caesar. I was a feeder of birds, and I was suddenly made a feeder of men; I was a patron of players, and a follower of hounds, and I became a shepherd over many souls. I neglected my own vineyard, and yet was intrusted with the care of others.” He fasted, and abstained from ministering at the altar, till he had received from the Pope a letter of absolution for his act of weakness; and as the Pope gave no ratification of the Constitutions of Clarendon, he did not consider them binding. Henry shifted his ground, and, calling another Council at Northampton in 1164, brought various petty charges against the Archbishop. The first was, that a man named John Marshall had failed to obtain justice in his court. The truth was, that the man had been caught making oaths on a jest-book, instead of on the Gospels; and Becket, instead of coming himself to state this, sent four knights with letters explaining it.