 A house of Dominican friars was established at Smithfield, but this was only possible through importing professed religious from Holland and Spain, and Mary's hopes of further refoundations foundered, as she found it very difficult to persuade former monks and nuns to resume the religious life; consequently schemes for restoring the abbeys at Glastonbury and St Albans failed for lack of volunteers.All the refounded houses were in properties that had remained in Crown possession; but, in spite of much prompting, none of Mary's lay supporters would co-operate in returning their holdings of monastic lands to religious use; while the lay lords in Parliament proved unremittingly hostile, as a revival of the "mitred" abbeys would have returned the House of Lords to having an ecclesiastical majority.Moreover, there remained a widespread suspicion that the return of religious communities to their former premises might call into question the legal title of lay purchasers of monastic land, and accordingly all Mary's foundations were technically new communities in law.