A new phase of the dispute arose from Henry's wish to have his eldest son crowned. The archbishop of Canterbury alone had the right to perform the ceremony; and when Thomas insisted on this right he was not contending for an empty honour; for coronation was held to be necessary to kingship, and it was the archbishop's duty to receive a pledge of good government from the king he crowned. Alexander first agreed to allow Roger of York to crown the young king, and, later, sent to prohibit him from doing so. Henry prevented the prohibition from being brought into England, and Roger performed the ceremony. Lewis now threatened war, and the Pope's advisers urged him to vindicate the rights of Canterbury. Henry was thus driven to a reconciliation, and Thomas returned to his see. He at once suspended the bishops who had taken part in the coronation, renewed the excommunications he had already pronounced against some of them, and excommunicated some of his personal enemies who had annoyed him by violent and brutal acts. The consciousness that he was endangering his own life had no weight with him, for he constantly anticipated and even aspired to martyrdom. When the king, who was still in Normandy, heard of his proceedings he was furiously angry, and thoughtlessly exclaimed to his courtiers, "Of the cowards who eat my bread, is there none that will rid me of this troublesome priest?" Moved by these hasty words, four knights crossed the Channel, proceeded to Canterbury, and after insulting the archbishop in his palace, broke into the church where the monks had compelled him to take shelter. One bade him flee, for else he was a dead man. "I welcome death," he said, "for God and for the liberty of the Church." They tried to lay hands on him, and then the feelings of his younger days, long kept down by self-mortification, asserted themselves. He struggled with the armed men, and threw one to the ground. He cried to another not to dare to touch him, and called him by a foul name. The knights shouted, "Strike! strike!" Then he commended his "soul and the Church's cause to God, to St. Denys of France, to St. Elphege and all the Saints." His murderers attacked him with their swords, and he died with holy words upon his lips. He fell a martyr to the privileges or "liberty" of the Church. That these privileges were not really beneficial to her is not to the purpose. Men and causes are to be judged by the standard of their own age, and neither then nor for centuries later did any doubt that he laid down his life for the cause of God and His Church. [Sidenote: Henry's bishops.]