Interest has recently revived in a slightly old-fashioned problem, the essential character of the Tudor state. The problem is less artificial than might be supposed. Of course, there is always something artificial about any attempt to establish a generalized identity for over a hundred years of history; there is danger in any formulation which necessarily ignores the changes brought by time; and there may well be deficiencies in an analysis which turns away from the realities of social relationships to the abstractions of legal and political thought. Nevertheless, I believe that we are right to inquire by what title the system of government under the Tudors should be described. For one thing, in doing so we attend to matters about which a good many people who lived under that system were concerned to think and write. For another, we need to have a firm grasp of these concepts – the sixteenth century's concepts, not ours – if we are to see the events and personalities of the age aright. Just because it follows more closely the lines of thought that engaged the sixteenth century itself, the discussion is actually nearer the heart of any sound understanding than are even those important inquiries about social structure and mobility, economic transformation, or the role of education which have rightly attracted so much attention of late.