Parliament opened on the 15th January, perhaps the most fateful assembly that ever met at Westminster. The country, as we have seen, was indignant at the treatment of Katharine and her daughter, but the instinct of loyalty to the King was strong, and there was no powerful centre around which revolt might crystallise. The clergy especially--even those who, like Stokesley, Fox, and Gardiner, were Henry's instruments--dreaded the great changes that portended; and an attempt to influence Parliament by a declaration of the clergy in Convocation against the King's first marriage, failed, notwithstanding the flagrant violence with which signatures were sought. With difficulty, even though the nobles known to favour Katharine were not summoned, a bill granting a dowry to the Queen as Dowager Princess of Wales was passed; but the House of Commons, trembling for the English property in the imperial dominions, threw it out. The prospect for a time looked black for the great ecclesiastical changes that were contemplated, and the hopes of Katharine's friends rose again. The Bishop of Paris in the meanwhile had contrived to frighten Clement and his Cardinals, by his threatening talk of English schism and the universal spread of dissent, into an insincere and half-hearted acquiescence in a compromise that would submit the question of a divorce to a tribunal of two Cardinals sitting at Cambray to save appearances, and deciding in favour of Henry. When the French ambassador Castillon came to Henry with this news (early in March 1534) the King had experienced the difficulty of bringing Parliament and Convocation to his views; and, again, if left to himself, he would probably have yielded. But Anne and Cromwell, and indeed Cranmer, were now in the same boat; and any wavering on the part of the King would have meant ruin to them all. They did their best to stiffen Henry, but he was nearly inclined to give way behind their backs; and after the French ambassador had left the Council unsuccessful, Henry had a long secret talk with him in the garden, in which he assured him that he would not have anything done hastily against the Holy See.