In the mean time the excommunicated prelates had sought the King in the neighborhood of Bayeux; they implored his protection for themselves and the clergy of the realm. "If all are to be visited by spiritual censures," said the King, "who officiated at the coronation of my son, by the eyes of God, I am equally guilty." The whole conduct of Becket since his return was detailed, and no doubt deeply darkened by the hostility of his adversaries. All had been done with an insolent and seditious design of alienating the affections of the people from the King. Henry demanded counsel of the prelates; they declared themselves unable to give it. But one incautiously said, "So long as Thomas lives, you will never be at peace." The King broke out into one of his terrible constitutional fits of passion; and at length let fall the fatal words, "Have I none of my thankless and cowardly courtiers who will relieve me from the insults of one low-born and turbulent priest?" [SN: The King's fatal words.] These words were not likely to fall unheard on the ears of fierce, and warlike men, reckless of bloodshed, possessed with a strong sense of their feudal allegiance, and eager to secure to themselves the reward of desperate service. Four knights, chamberlains of the King, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Tracy, Hugh de Moreville, and Reginald Brito, disappeared from the court.[209] On the morrow, when a grave council was held, some barons are said, even there, to have advised the death of Becket. Milder measures were adopted: the Earl of Mandeville was sent off with orders to arrest the Primate; and as the disappearance of these four knights could not be unmarked, to stop them in the course of any unauthorized enterprise. But murder travels faster than justice or mercy. They were almost already on the shores of England. It is said that they met in Saltwood Castle. On the 28th of December, having, by the aid of Randulph de Broc, collected some troops in the streets of Canterbury, they took up their quarters with Clarembold, Abbot of St. Augustine's. The assassination of Becket has something appalling, with all its terrible circumstances seen in the remote past. What was it in its own age? The most distinguished churchman in Christendom, the champion of the great sacerdotal order, almost in the hour of his triumph over the most powerful king in Europe; a man, besides the awful sanctity inherent in the person of every ecclesiastic, of most saintly holiness; soon after the most solemn festival of the Church, in his own cathedral, not only sacrilegiously, but cruelly murdered, with every mark of hatred and insult. Becket had all the dauntlessness, none of the meekness of the martyr; but while his dauntlessness would command boundless admiration, few, if any, would seek the more genuine sign of Christian martyrdom. [SN: The knights before Becket.]