[Footnote 791: _Cf. ibid._, vi., 1381 [3], "that if the Pope attempts war, the King shall have a moiety of the temporal lands of the Church for his defence".] [Footnote 792: _L. and P._, v., 62. Dr. Stubbs (_Lectures_, 1887, p. 318) represents the nuncio as being pressed into the King's service, and the clergy as resisting him as the Commons had done Wolsey in 1523. But this independence is imaginary; "it was agreed," writes Chapuys, "between the nuncio and me that he should go to the said ecclesiastics in their congregation and recommend them to support the immunity of the Church.... They were all utterly astonished and scandalised, and without allowing him to open his mouth they begged him to leave them in peace, for they had not the King's leave to speak with him."] [Footnote 793: _L. and P._, v., 105.] [Footnote 794: _Ibid._, v., 112.] [Footnote 795: _L. and P._, v., 124.] In Parliament, notwithstanding Chapuys' remark on the triviality of its business, more than a score of acts were passed, some limiting such abuses as the right of sanctuary, some dealing in the familiar way with social evils like the increase of beggars and vagabonds. The act depriving sanctuary-men, who committed felony, of any further protection from their sanctuary was recommended to Parliament by the King in person. So was a curious act making poisoning treason.[796] There had recently been an attempt to poison Fisher, which the King brought before the House of Lords. However familiar poisoning might be at Rome, it was a novel method in England, and was considered so heinous a crime that the ordinary penalties for murder were thought to be insufficient. Then the King's pardon to the clergy was embodied in a parliamentary bill. The Commons perceived that they were not included, took alarm, and refused to pass the bill. Henry at first assumed a superior tone; he pointed out that the Commons could not prevent his pardoning the clergy; he could do it as well under the Great Seal as by statute. The Commons, however, were not satisfied. "There was great murmuring among them," says Chapuys, "in the (p. 288) House of Commons, where it was publicly said in the presence of some of the Privy Council that the King had burdened and oppressed his kingdom with more imposts and exactions than any three or four of his predecessors, and that he ought to consider that the strength of the King lay in the affections of his people. And many instances were alleged of the inconveniences which had happened to princes through the ill-treatment of their subjects."[797] Henry was too shrewd to