A further measure passed without trouble was a brief and innocently titled ‘Act for the Placing of the Lords in the Parliament’. For all that this might sound rather technical, it was a major shake-up in the order of precedence for the most powerful men of the realm, a matter of huge importance when political realities were expressed through public ceremony and formal rankings in seating and processions. The remarkable feature of the Act, a true Tudor Revolution in Government, was that offices of state would now automatically modify any other system of noble precedence: even the classic ladder
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