One of the first measures proposed to Parliament at the beginning of the new reign was the Act of Royal Supremacy. Its object was of course to do away with the Spiritual Supremacy of the Pope and substitute that of the Crown, and a stringent oath admitting this was to be required of all holding any office in the State. By this, every adherent of the old faith was deliberately excluded from any and every position in the Church or State. At this time ten of the English Sees were vacant and the brunt of the battle for the preservation of the old religion fell upon the diminished number of Bishops in the House of Lords. Their hands were, however, strengthened greatly by a solemn pronouncement made by the clergy in Convocation, wherein they declared their entire belief in the Catholic, as opposed to the Reformed teaching of the existence of the "natural body of Christ" under the "species of bread and wine" in "the Sacrament of the Altar, by virtue of the word of Christ, spoken by the priest." They declared also their belief in the doctrine of Transubstantiation and in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and at the same time affirmed "that to Blessed Peter and to his lawful successors in the Apostolic See, as Vicars of Christ, has been given the supreme power of feeding and ruling the Church of Christ upon Earth and of confirming their brethren." The English universities at this time also made the same declaration. Thus, when change of religion and the readoption of the principles of the Reformed Churches of Germany which had ruled in the days of Edward VI. was in the air, the unfettered Church in England, the bishops, clergy and the teaching bodies boldly declared for the old catholic faith of the Holy Eucharist, the Mass and the Supremacy of the Pope.