the palace during Becket’s long exile, the knights forced their way in through a window. Terror-stricken at the noise, the servants and almost all of the clerks fled like sheep before hungry wolves. Those with the archbishop in his chamber besought him to fly, to seek safety in the church where vespers were being sung; but he strenuously refused, unmoved by either arguments or prayers. Then the monks took courage to act, and half dragging, half pushing, half carrying, forced him to fly. But the door leading into the cloister had some days previous been barred up; yet when one of the monks laid his hand upon the bar it yielded to him, coming out of the socket as “though fastened by nothing stronger than glue.” The cross was carried before by the clerk, Henry of Auxerre; and beside Grim there were with him his faithful friend John of Salisbury, his chaplain William Fitzstephen and a few monks. They were now in the cloister and dragged the still unwilling man along the north wall and so on to the chapter house. “What means this, sirs? What is your fear?” he continued asking them, as he angrily resisted their importunity. At last they reached the door opening into the church from the south-east corner of the cloister. As they passed through, the knights were heard following at full speed; and, on the other hand, the monks who had been singing the vespers, broke off, hastening to meet him, glorifying God because they saw him living and unharmed. So almost in the dark they must have stood, for it was late of a winter afternoon. The monks made to bar the door, but Becket bade them forbear, bidding them not to make “into a tower the house of prayer.” The murderers pushed in, with swords unsheathed, shouting, “Where is Thomas Becket, traitor to King and realm?” Receiving no reply, they called again, “Where is the archbishop?” Whereon he advanced to meet them from the steps to which he had been carried by the retreating crowd of monks, and answered, “Here I am, no traitor to the King, but a priest. What do you seek of me?” He turned aside to the right, under a pillar, on one hand the altar of the Virgin and on the other that of St Benedict. The knights followed him, bidding him restore those whom he had excommunicated, only to be met with blank refusal. They attacked him, endeavouring to drag him outside the church; but they could not move him from the pillar. Then one of the knights, to whom Becket spoke roughly as he shook him off, raised [Illustration: NORMAN STAIRCASE, KING’S SCHOOL, CANTERBURY]