When the bishops reported to the king the primate's order forbidding them to sit in trial of him again, it was seen at once to be a violation of the Constitutions of Clarendon; and certain barons were sent to him to inquire if he stood to this, to remind him of his oath as the king's liege-man, and of the promise, equivalent to an oath, which he had made at Clarendon to keep the Constitutions "in good faith, without guile, and according to law," and to ask if he would furnish security for the payment of the claims against him as chancellor. In reply Becket stood firmly to his position, and renewed the prohibition and the appeal to the pope. The breach of the Constitutions being thus placed beyond question, the king demanded the judgment of the court, bishops and barons together. The bishops urged the ecclesiastical dangers in which they would be placed if they disregarded the archbishop's prohibition, and suggested that instead they should themselves appeal to Rome against him as a perjurer. To this the king at last agreed, and the appeal was declared by Hilary, Bishop of Chichester, who had throughout inclined to the king's side, and who urged upon the archbishop with much vigour the oath which they had all taken at Clarendon under his leadership and which he was now forcing them to violate. Becket's answer to this speech is the weakest and least honest thing that he did during all these days of trial. "We promised nothing at Clarendon," he said, "without excepting the rights of the Church. The very clauses to which you refer, 'in good faith, without guile, and according to law,' are saving clauses, because it is impossible to observe anything in good faith and according to law if it is contrary to the laws of God and to the fealty due the Church. Nor is there any such thing as the dignity of a Christian king where the liberty of the Church which he has sworn to observe has perished."