The reign of Queen Mary brought the most important change in the military system of the country that had occurred for two centuries. The Statute of Winchester was superseded and a new Act enacted in its place. The reform, however, was in reality quite inadequate to the occasion. It provided for the supply of more modern weapons and for a new distribution, according to a new assessment, of the burdens entailed by the maintenance of a national force; but in substance the new statute was drafted on the lines of the old, and the variations were very superficial. The extinction of men-at-arms hinted at by Guistiniani is sufficiently proved by the mention of two different kinds of cavalry, "demi-lances" or "medium" horse and the light horse with which we are already acquainted; and progress in the equipment of the infantry is shown by the mention of long pikes and corselets and of harquebuses. But alongside of these improved weapons are the familiar bows and bills; and a clause which, considering that Mary had married the heir of Spain is truly marvellous, provides that a bow shall in all cases be accepted as an efficient substitute for an arquebus. These details, however, are comparatively unimportant. The difficulty was one, not of arms, but of men; and Mary knew it. She would have formed a standing army if she had dared, but as she designed it principally for the coercion of her own subjects she ventured neither to ask for the money to establish it nor to brave the indignation that would have followed on its establishment. [Sidenote: 1557.] [Sidenote: 1558.]