Finding Becket beyond his reach, Henry next proceeded to banish the
Archbishop's kinsmen and friends, without regard to age or sex, to the
number of nearly four hundred. These miserable exiles, many of whom
were nearly destitute, were forced to leave the country in midwinter,
and excited the pity of all who saw them.
Becket indignantly retaliated. He hurled at the King's counselors the
awful sentence of excommunication or expulsion from the Church
(S194). It declared the King accursed of God and man, deprived of
help in this world, and shut out from hope in the world to come. In
this manner the quarrel went on with ever-increasing bitterness for
the space of six years.