Nor is there any sign that Elizabeth had resolved on a defiance of the Papacy. She was firm indeed to assert her father's claim of supremacy over the clergy and her own title to the throne. But the difficulties in the way of an accommodation on these points were such as could be settled by negotiation; and, acting on Cecil's counsel, Elizabeth announced her accession to the Pope. The announcement showed her purpose of making no violent break in the relations of England with the Papal See. But between Elizabeth and the Papacy lay the fatal question of the Divorce. To acknowledge the young Queen was not only to own her mother's marriage, but to cancel the solemn judgement of the Holy See in Catharine's favour and its solemn assertion of her own bastardy. The temper of Paul the Fourth took fire at the news. He reproached Elizabeth with her presumption in ascending the throne, recalled the Papal judgement which pronounced her illegitimate, and summoned her to submit her claims to his tribunal. Much of this indignation was no doubt merely diplomatic. If the Pope listened to the claims of Mary Stuart, which were urged on him by the French Court, it was probably only with the purpose of using them to bring pressure to bear on Elizabeth and on the stubborn country which still refused to restore its lands to the Church and to make the complete submission which Paul demanded. But Cecil and the Queen knew that, even had they been willing to pay such a price for the crown, it was beyond their power to bring England to pay it. The form too in which Paul had couched his answer admitted of no compromise. The summons to submit the Queen's claim of succession to the judgement of Rome produced its old effect. Elizabeth was driven, as Henry had been driven, to assert the right of the nation to decide on questions which affected its very life. A Parliament which met in January, 1559, acknowledged the legitimacy of Elizabeth and her title to the crown. [Sidenote: The Supremacy re-established.]