ABSTRACT
The Tudor revolution grew from roots which can be traced well back in time, and it was peculiarly unrevolutionary in appearance because its makers insisted on the utmost show of legality and constitutional propriety. The essential ingredient of the Tudor revolution was the concept of national sovereignty. The statute thus enunciated this doctrine: England is an independent state, sovereign within its territorial limits. The royal supremacy over the Church virtually replaced the pope in England by the king. Papal power had been defined as of two kinds: potestas jurisdictionis, or rule of the Church's temporal sphere and potestas ordinis, or the spiritual functions which the pope shared with any bishop. Parliament thus legalised the Reformation, not in the vague sense of giving the consent of the realm to what was done, but in the severely practical sense of making possible the prosecution at law of those who opposed the royal policy.
