When the parliament met on April 28, 1539, the lord chancellor announced that the king was very anxious to see all his subjects holding one and the same opinion in religion, and required that a committee should be nominated to examine the various opinions, and to draw up articles of agreement to which every one might give his consent. On May 5 nine commissioners were named, five of whom were Anglo-Catholics, and at their head was Lee, archbishop of York. A project was presented 'for extirpating heresies among the people.' A catalogue of heresies was to be drawn up and read at all the services. The commissioners held discussion for one day, but neither of the two parties would make any concession. As the vicegerent Cromwell and the archbishop of Canterbury were in the ranks of the reformation party, the majority was unable to gain the ascendency, and the commission arrived at no decision. The king was very much dissatisfied with this result. He had been willing to leave the work of conciliation in the hands of the bishops, and now the bishops did not agree. His patience, of which he had no large stock, was exhausted. The Anglo-Catholic party took advantage of his dissatisfaction, and hinted to him that if he really aimed at unity he would have to take the matter into his own hands, and settle the doctrine to which all must assent. Why should he allow his subjects the liberty of thinking for themselves? Was he not in England master and ruler of every thing? [Sidenote: THE SIX ARTICLES.] Another circumstance, of an entirely different kind, acted powerfully, about this time, upon the king's mind. The pope had just entered into an alliance with the emperor and the king of France. A fact of such importance could not fail to make a great noise in England. 'Methinks,' said one of the foreign diplomatists now in England, 'that if the pope sent an interdict and excommunications, with an injunction that no merchant should trade in any way with the English, the nation would, without further trouble, bestir itself and compel the king to return to the church.'[285] Henry, in alarm, adopted two measures of defence against this triple alliance. He gave orders for the fortification of the ports, examination of the condition of various landing-places, and reviewing of the troops; and at the same time, instead of endeavoring after a union of the two parties, he determined to throw himself entirely on the Scholastic and Catholic side. He hoped thereby to satisfy the majority of his subjects, who still adhered to the Roman church, and perhaps also to appease the powers. 'The king is determined on grounds of policy,' it was said, 'that these articles should pass.'[286]