Parliament met on November 3rd, 1529, and, from the matters brought before it, received the name of the "Parliament for the enormities of the clergy."[403] It revealed the force of lay opinion on which Henry might count in the struggle he was about to begin with the clergy. With a view of strengthening his hands still further, the King summoned an assembly of Notables,[404] which met on June 12th, 1530, and addressed the Pope in a letter in which they prayed him to consent to the King's desire, pointed out the evils which would follow from delaying the Divorce, and hinted that they might be compelled to take the matter into their own hands. This seems to have been the general feeling among the laity of England; for a foreigner writing to the Republic of Florence says: "Nothing else is thought of in that island every day, except of arranging affairs in such a way that they do no longer be in want of the Pope, neither for filling vacancies in the Church, nor for any other purpose."[405] Having made himself sure of the great mass of the laity, Henry next set himself to force the clergy into submission. He suddenly charged them all with being guilty of _Præmunire_ because they had accepted the authority of Papal Legates within the kingdom; and managed to extort a sum of £100,000, to be paid in five yearly instalments, by way of a fine from the clergy of the Province of Canterbury.[406] At the same meeting of Convocation (1531) the clergy were compelled, under threat of the law of _Præmunire_, to declare that the King was "their singular protector and only supreme lord, and, _as far as that is permitted by the law of Christ_, the Supreme Head of the Church and of the clergy." The ambiguity in the acknowledgment left a loophole for weak consciences; but the King was satisfied with the phrase, feeling confident that he could force his own interpretation of the acknowledgment on the Church. "It is all the same," Charles V.'s ambassador wrote to his master, "as far as the King is concerned, as if they had made no reservation; for no one now will be so bold as to contest with his lord the importance of this reservation."[407] This acknowledgment was, according to the King, simply a clearer statement of what was contained in the old statutes of _Præmunire_, and in all his subsequent ecclesiastical legislation he claimed that he was only giving effect to the earlier laws of England.