At Clarendon, however, after three days' conference, the archbishop hesitated and hung back, he had grievously sinned in yielding, and he now refused the promised oath. The bishops, finding courage in his firmness, declared themselves ready to follow him in his refusal. At the news the fury of the king burst forth, and "he was as a madman in the eyes of those who stood by." The court broke into wild disorder, the servants of the king, "with faces more truculent than usual," burst into the assembly of the prelates, and flinging aside their long cloaks, flourished their axes aloft, and threatened to strike them into the heads of the bishops. Two nobles were sent to warn Thomas that orders for his death were already given unless he would submit. The weeping bishops with lamentable voices besought him to save them; knights of the Hospital and the Temple from the king's household knelt before him, sighing and pouring forth tears. "In fear of death," says one chronicler, he yielded. "I am ready," he said, "to keep the customs of the kingdom." Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when Henry commanded him to order the bishops to give the same promise, and again the Primate obeyed. But the king was still unsatisfied. His temper had risen in the discussions of the last few months; his determination was fixed that the matter should be settled once for all. With the sharp decision of a keen and practical administrator, he ordered that the "customs of the kingdom" should be written down, so that no question might ever arise as to the laws which Thomas had sworn to observe; and "wise men" passed into the next room to write according to the king's will. They returned with a draft of sixteen articles, the famous "Constitutions of Clarendon." To these the king commanded that the Primate should set his seal; but Thomas, agitated by fear and anxiety, was no longer of the same mind. "By the omnipotent God," he cried, "while I live, I will never set my seal to it!" Whether he finally submitted it is impossible now to say. But he left the court with a last protest. A copy of the writing was torn down the middle, and one half, after the fashion of the "tallies" of the day, was given to Thomas in token of his promise, while the other was laid up in the royal treasury. "I take this," said the archbishop, "not consenting nor approving," and turning to the clergy: "By this we may know the malice of the king, and those things which we must beware of." He left the council and retired to Winchester, where in sackcloth and penance, shut out from the services of the Church, he condemned himself to wait in deepest humiliation till he should receive the Pope's absolution for his momentary betrayal of duty. For years to come a furious battle was to rage round the sixteen articles drawn up at Clarendon. According to Thomas, the Constitutions were a mere act of arbitrary violence, a cunning device of tyranny. He asserted that they were the sole deed of the justiciar