Statutes after the advent of printing were cited as: 34.H.8.26 or c.26 -- that is the thirty-fourth year of the reign of Henry VIII (1542), chapter 26. Pulton's abstract was arranged alphabetically by topic; statute books were arranged chronologically. Below is a detail from Pulton's abstract. This entry summarizes several acts on Wales -- one is on the division of the country into twelve shires. The reference to the actual statutes involved appear at the end of the paragraph: 27.H.8.26, 34.H.8[.26] -- the twentieth-seventh year of the reign of Henry VIII (1537), chapter 26. The act was modified a few years later in the thirty-fourth year of his reign (1544).
Below is a detail from another statute book -- in this case four acts of particular significance were published as a book. This is a printing of the entry referred to in Pulton's abstract: 34.H.8.
Below is a detail from a 1763 edition of the statutes containing the same material.
The marginal notation refers to the original statute from 1537. Note that the citation system did not change in the intervening two hundred years.