ABSTRACT
THE changes described in the last chapter were so manyand far-reaching that we have had no opportunity yet toinvestigate their real significance. They were revolutionary, if that term may be applied to any changes which profoundly affect the constitution and government of a state even when they do not involve the systematic and entire destruction of what there ,yas before. The Tudor revolution grew from roots which can be traced ,vell. back in time, and it was peculiarly unrevolutionary in appearance because its makers insisted on the utmost show of legality and constitutional propriety. For everything they did, they claimed the authority of ancient prescription, and in everything they did they adhered to the forms of the old law. This made the revolution most conservative to look at, and out of this arose both its enduring permanency and its ready acceptance; but none of it makes it any less of a revolution. When Thomas Cromwell died, the state and kingship of England were very different from ,vhat they had been at the fall of Wolsey, the difference lying less in the real power exercised by the king-this depended largely on personality and circumstance, not on the forms of governmentthan in the potential power released by the establishment of national sovereignty. A revolutionary era commonly produces vast upheavals and immediate profound differences, only to see the old state of affairs creep back after a time: the faster men proceed at the start, the sooner they lose their momentum and the less securely they build. The revolution of the 1530s, on the other hand, proceeded by safe stages, never outrunning its o\vn strength or breaking its lifeline with the past; as a result there was never anything like a successful reaction.
