as he afterwards confessed, less from fear of death than from the more terrible fear of the savage blinding and cruel punishments of those days. But he showed no signs of yielding when on Tuesday morning, the last day of the Council, the bishops again gathered round him beseeching him to yield to the king's will. With a fierce outbreak of passionate reproaches he solemnly forbade them to take part in any further proceedings against him, and gave formal notice of an appeal to Rome. Then kneeling before the altar of St. Stephen he celebrated mass, using the service for St. Stephen's Day with its psalm, "Princes sat and spake against me,"--"a magical rite," said Foliot, "and an act done in contempt of the king"-and commended himself to the care of the first Christian martyr, and of the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, Aelfheah. Still arrayed in his pontifical robes, he set out for his last ride to the castle. Of the forty clerks "most learned in the law," who formed his household, only two ventured to follow him; but "an innumerable multitude" of people thronged round him as he passed bearing his cross in his right hand, and followed him to the castle doors with cries of lamentation, weeping and kneeling for his benediction, for it was spread abroad that he should that day be slain. The gates were quickly closed in the face of the tumultuous crowd, and Thomas passed up the great hall, while the king, hearing of his coming in such dress and fashion, hastily withdrew to the upper chamber to take counsel with his officers. "A fool he was, and a fool he always will be," commented Foliot as Thomas entered with his uplifted cross. "Lord archbishop, thou art ill-advised to enter thus to the king with sword unsheathed--if now the king should take his sword, we shall have a well-armed king and a well-armed archbishop!" --"That we will commit to God," said Thomas. Thus he passed to his seat, the troubled and perplexed bishops "sitting opposite to him both in place and in heart."