The whole country welcomed her as one man, and it may be truly said that it was the affection of Englishmen, no less than their loyalty that had placed her on the throne. Nevertheless, she was beset with difficulties. The art of reigning as she understood it was part and parcel of the mediæval system, but it needed a spirit touched with the inspiration of the new age, to direct the restless activities of a nation already beginning to be permeated with the Renaissance. While she looked back to the past, her people had emancipated themselves from mediæval traditions. Moulding her conduct on the ideals which she had venerated from her youth upwards, she regarded the new needs and tendencies with suspicion and dislike; and thus gradually a breach was formed between herself and the nation. She had its interests as sincerely at heart as any English monarch either before or after her, but those interests, as she understood them, were hopelessly at variance with the seething crowd of ideas that were transforming the life of the people. With intense honesty of purpose, Mary stood at the parting of the ways, between a mediævalism that seemed good in her eyes, and a progress that all her experience had taught her to interpret as revolution. It was partly her inability to distinguish between the two, to seize the good element in the new modes of thought, that brought about the catastrophe of her reign, and evolved anarchy out of aspirations, which ably led and controlled, might have contributed to the welfare of the realm. If it is unfortunate to be born in advance of one’s age, it is doubly so to be behind it; but if conscientious motives and earnest endeavour could have compensated for the mistake, Mary would have won golden opinions instead of hatred and abuse. But there were difficulties quite independent of her own limitations. At the outset, the task of forming a government was a delicate one. Nearly all the statesmen of the time had been members of Edward’s Council and had proved themselves traitors. When she had restored the Duke of Norfolk to the Council Board, had installed Sir John Gage as Constable of the Tower, had made Sir Henry Jerningham a member of her Privy Council, Vice-Chancellor and Captain of the Guard, had knighted her faithful Rochester and set him over her household, had promoted Waldegrave to the charge of the Grand Wardrobe, and had made Sir Francis Englefield a Privy Councillor, the most important of the public offices remained to be filled by those whom she could neither afford to offend nor to dispense with, but who had all failed at the critical moment. The Earl of Arundel became Lord Steward, the Marquis of Winchester retained his office of High Treasurer, while many others of doubtful loyalty, including Sir William Petre and Sir John Masone, made her Privy Council a compact body of potential conspirators. Lord Paget, the most dangerous of all, became Secretary of State and Privy Seal.