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AQA A2 HISTORY HIS3B: The Triumph of Elizabeth, 1547-1603. 10th June 2016

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For Puritan Choir I haven't got major notes on it, just that Neale believed a Puritan Choir had emerged in the House of Commons and had caused Elizabeth's religious settelement to be Protestant than she desired. However Elton and Graves (I think? or could be Loades) criticise Neale and say he overestimated House of Commons; underestimated House of Lord; and over exaggerated assertiveness and size of Puritan Choir. Also Neale based his argument on the 'Puritan Choir' from the Puritan sympathising historian Simon d'Ewes, who was proven to have unreliable evidence. I think if a question came up on it it'd be more like 'There existed a Puritan Choir in Elizabeth's reign. Assess the validity of this view' and hopefully they'd include the time period up to the 1590s so we could include the whole monty of separatists, admonitions, vestements, death of puritan ministers (Leicester, Walsingham etc). Although I'd really love a Puritan threat essay I can't really see another religious settlement coming up after the glorious one they had last year!
Reply 21
Thanks very much! I wouldn't mind a Catholic Threat question but a foreign policy one would be ideal! They might ask about French and Scottish foreign policy though it might be hard to write an entire essay on it.
Original post by suavenerdiness
x

Found this among my notes:
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Seeing as a few of you have mentioned Mary Queen of Scots being a possibility, what kind of question do you guys think could come up based on her? Except from Catholic Plots and Northern Rebellion what else is related to her? I'm kinda struggling :s-smilie:
Original post by suavenerdiness
Seeing as a few of you have mentioned Mary Queen of Scots being a possibility, what kind of question do you guys think could come up based on her? Except from Catholic Plots and Northern Rebellion what else is related to her? I'm kinda struggling


I think you could talk about her marriage to the French King Francis II in 1559-60 and the French army entering Scotland leading to a civil war, where the king ended up being killed, James VI became the new king and Mary conformed to Protestantism in Scotland. In 1565 she married Lord Darnley, who had a distant claim to the English throne (he was an English nobility if memory serves me right). She began to undermine English and Protestant influences in the Scottish Court. Then there was a coup led by Moray against Mary, Mary fled to England and was placed under house arrest.

I also find the things that we can talk about MQS are pretty narrow and it's easy to stray away from the question :\ but if there is a question solely on MQS I am thinking we can link it to the following themes:
- Religion: most of the population were Catholics, and how they wanted a Catholic ruler
- Succession: plots, her marriage and all that jazz
- Foreign Policy: with Scotland, France(the Guise, the Catholic league) and Spain (Spain was involved in quite a few plots in 71, 83, 86)
I'm not sure if this is the most efficient way to structure the essay on MQS. If anyone have a better idea please let me know!
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by katinthehat
I see where they're coming from with those themes, but they're bound to chuck a mid-Tudor one in there somewhere. Mid-Tudor foreign policy isn't actually on the spec (and it would be bloody hard to squeeze 45 marks out of that inconsequential fluff), and I reckon domestic government is 9/10 going to come up so that leaves religion to Mid-Tudor. If she did come up that would probably mean we'd get mid-Tudor effectiveness of government...ugh.


Do you think the religion theme will only be limited to the Mid-Tudor period or span across the period of Edward, Mary and Elizabeth?
Reply 26
I'm struggling quite a bit with the 2011 paper, does anyone have a plan for these?
'The rebellions which occurred during the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I were mainly political in origin.' Assess the validity of this view.
How serious a threat to Elizabeth I's position were Catholic missionary priests and Jesuits?
To what extent was Elizabeth I well served by her ministers throughout her reign?
Seems like a pretty tough paper, any notes or plans would be great!
Has anyone got any advice on being analytical and not narrative.
Any structure or anything?
Reply 28
Haven't seen anything about local government in a question so this might come up in the exam. SO glad I've found other people doing this topic now!!
Reply 29
What I'm doing for revision is writing an essay for most possible questions that they'll ask, even if that means I have to make up titles. This means that I know all the different evidence that should be incorporated into one type of essay. E.g. To what extent did royal authority decline in the years 1559-70? would include stuff about the settlement opposition/lack of, foreign policy success/failures, and rebellion all contained to that specific, albeit short, period. Even if the exam question doesn't quite fit around that, it still has roughly the stuff I need to discuss. Which is why learning dates is important too - you have to make sure you cover the entire period and you're not going outside the question period unless the evidence adds to the argument.

If you don't have time to write an essay for every possible exam question, write plans. They should take no more than 10 minutes if you do them on the computer. At least that way again you'll be aware of the evidence that fits around the theme and period. I can't be bothered to do an essay a day so that's pretty much what I'm doing now :tongue:

I did this last year - though not as extensively - and managed to predict an exam question that came up on the AS paper. Though I still didn't answer it and chose to ramble about finance instead :facepalm:

Anyone else find Elizabeth easier to talk about than Edward and Mary? I think it's because on 1547-58 questions you have to look at the evidence from two separate reigns, so I find it hard to establish a balance between talking about Edward's successes/failures and Mary's.
Reply 30
Original post by Flopstar
I'm struggling quite a bit with the 2011 paper, does anyone have a plan for these?
'The rebellions which occurred during the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I were mainly political in origin.' Assess the validity of this view.
How serious a threat to Elizabeth I's position were Catholic missionary priests and Jesuits?
To what extent was Elizabeth I well served by her ministers throughout her reign?
Seems like a pretty tough paper, any notes or plans would be great!


When I first saw these questions I thought they looked awful, but they're not too bad if you consider a plan! As usual I found Edward VI and Mary I the hardest. Copied and pasted from an OpenOffice doc so excuse the formatting.

Spoiler


These plans could have some more historiography added to them.
(edited 7 years ago)
Hi everyone,
So glad I found this thread...really nervous for this exam!

I'm thinking possible Q's could be on stability in govt (Privy Council/Parl) & maybe the Catholic/Puritan threat. Any thoughts?

Saffron :smile: x
What points would people say for this question- To what extent was England provided w/ effective government during the reign of Elizabeth I?

@Saffron_G yeah they do look likely as haven't seen them in any past papers, cos it is the last year of specification they could really go for anything though- that's whats worrying me :frown:
Can someone mark and criticise one of my paragraph's please, this is only one sided as its only one paragraph.
'During the last years of Elizabeth reign, England became an unstable kingdom, menaced by crisis' assess the validity

During the last years of Elizabeth's reign, England did become an instable kingdom which was menaced by crisis because of the hardship that many experienced. An example of this hardship would be the lack of food, in particular in 1596 which saw the worst harvest's of the century, worse than that of 1549. This meant that food prices increased, which coincided with real wages decreasing, to the level of the Black Death 1348-49, which could have been a consequence of the inflationary pressures. As a result of this, people were becoming more frustrated and ultimately becoming increasingly ill. This is evident in the dramatic increase in influenza, especially in Newcastle where according to historians 25% of poor folk consequently died. As a whole, Slack has suggested that the death rate rose quite dramatically to around 6%. With all these factors being considered where many coincided with each other, such as the increase food prices and the decrease in real wages, which contributed to England becoming a unstable kingdom, menaced by crisis.

Would someone just give me any pointers or anything
Original post by tomsouth98
Can someone mark and criticise one of my paragraph's please, this is only one sided as its only one paragraph.
'During the last years of Elizabeth reign, England became an unstable kingdom, menaced by crisis' assess the validity

During the last years of Elizabeth's reign, England did become an instable kingdom which was menaced by crisis because of the hardship that many experienced. An example of this hardship would be the lack of food, in particular in 1596 which saw the worst harvest's of the century, worse than that of 1549. This meant that food prices increased, which coincided with real wages decreasing, to the level of the Black Death 1348-49, which could have been a consequence of the inflationary pressures. As a result of this, people were becoming more frustrated and ultimately becoming increasingly ill. This is evident in the dramatic increase in influenza, especially in Newcastle where according to historians 25% of poor folk consequently died. As a whole, Slack has suggested that the death rate rose quite dramatically to around 6%. With all these factors being considered where many coincided with each other, such as the increase food prices and the decrease in real wages, which contributed to England becoming a unstable kingdom, menaced by crisis.

Would someone just give me any pointers or anything


It just seems a bit narrative, a bit more evaluation and analysis I would say is needed. You could bring in Elizabeth's '97 Poor Laws but argue that as they were after the worst periods of the influenza, it led to the impression that she was an 'uncaring' monarch who was too focused on the Spanish wars instead of her own realm, as this tarnished her strong perception had an deteriorating effect on her royal authority and thus stability of government. You could then go on to say this crisis evolved through food riots in London, Kent, etc and the Oxfordshire Rebellion, definite deterioration in stability and evidence that Poor Laws were inadequate. I'd say each line you've done is really good and it shows you do know your stuff, what you just have to do now is kind of link it to how this affected stability of the country, any evidence on how it affected this (e.g. through rebellions, historians views or increased crime rates) and make sure you include JUDGEMENT. I like the last sentence about the factors coinciding and think it's really strong so just try and keep that strong line throughout your paragraph. Sorry if this is a bit strong, I may be wrong aswell just what i'd personally change to it.
Thanks for your criticism, I do actually go into the Poor Laws in my next paragraph because I felt it would be too long if I fitted it in one paragraph. Do you any recommendations on how to not be narrative and analysis ive tried to do it but I don't know if it is.
Original post by suavenerdiness
It just seems a bit narrative, a bit more evaluation and analysis I would say is needed. You could bring in Elizabeth's '97 Poor Laws but argue that as they were after the worst periods of the influenza, it led to the impression that she was an 'uncaring' monarch who was too focused on the Spanish wars instead of her own realm, as this tarnished her strong perception had an deteriorating effect on her royal authority and thus stability of government. You could then go on to say this crisis evolved through food riots in London, Kent, etc and the Oxfordshire Rebellion, definite deterioration in stability and evidence that Poor Laws were inadequate. I'd say each line you've done is really good and it shows you do know your stuff, what you just have to do now is kind of link it to how this affected stability of the country, any evidence on how it affected this (e.g. through rebellions, historians views or increased crime rates) and make sure you include JUDGEMENT. I like the last sentence about the factors coinciding and think it's really strong so just try and keep that strong line throughout your paragraph. Sorry if this is a bit strong, I may be wrong aswell just what i'd personally change to it.


The thesis statement is clear. It identifies the main point of the paragraph.

The writer introduces the example and uses a specific historical detail

The writer defines the example This further explains the historical detail to the reader.

The writer answers the question: Why is this example important? There is a clear connection made to the overall argument of the paragraph.

The concluding sentence sums up the main point of the paragraph. It reminds the reader of the main point- or thesis statement- as well as the example used in the paragraph.



do you think this is a good structure to take, to get high marks in the exam
Original post by tomsouth98
Thanks for your criticism, I do actually go into the Poor Laws in my next paragraph because I felt it would be too long if I fitted it in one paragraph. Do you any recommendations on how to not be narrative and analysis ive tried to do it but I don't know if it is.


It's okay :smile: Yeah I used to do the exact same habit of just trying to include all I know and even now I find it hard to not slip into narrative. The simplest way is through this method: I'd get someone to ask me the question (so like To what extent bla di da...), then I'd have to explain my point/view on the matter. But after each point I would say that person would say WHY, and then I'd explain it and the person would say WHY again, so this would make me really analyse and evaluate what my point was trying to say. So say if I had the question- to what extent were Puritans a threat to Elizabeth's settlement, I'd keep on asking myself WHY to get an evaluation out of the subject. So one point could be: they were a threat due to presence of Puritan sympathising ministers within Elizabeth's parliament, WHY--> these ministers had influence in parliament and could affect the proceedings if enough support was gained, WHY---> evidence of Strickland's Alphabet Bills, (powerful MP), and those such as Cope and Turner who proposed Puritan/Presbyterian bills, WHY---> direct opposition to Elizabeth's settlement, fact they were allowed to be read showed Parliament had Puritan sympathies so could argue they were a 'threat from within' Elizabeth's government as actually had a significant chance of affecting her government and religious reforms.
However because you also have to have some balance within the essay, I'd then go on to argue although Puritans had potential to affect Settlement within Parliament, they conclusively didn't due to strength of the Crown and the response from those such as Whitgift. Sorry this is so long it's really hard to explain the concept online aha, that's why I've tried to use an example. You've just got to imagine you're doing like a debate for your line of argument in the essay, and people are asking you 'why' or 'why not' and you have to respond to this in the essay itself. Even though sometimes I feel like I'm just stating the obvious, it really does improve the analytical standard of your work.
Original post by tomsouth98
The thesis statement is clear. It identifies the main point of the paragraph.

The writer introduces the example and uses a specific historical detail

The writer defines the example This further explains the historical detail to the reader.

The writer answers the question: Why is this example important? There is a clear connection made to the overall argument of the paragraph.

The concluding sentence sums up the main point of the paragraph. It reminds the reader of the main point- or thesis statement- as well as the example used in the paragraph.



do you think this is a good structure to take, to get high marks in the exam


Sorry just seen this after submitting my last reply aha! Yeah I'd totally agree that's a really good structure for each paragraph. Just make sure you show judegement (without being too assertive) and evaluate any arguments against your thesis, and you're all set :smile:
I've wrote out another paragraph and was wondering if this was any better. Feel free for anyone to critise it as it would be much appreciated.

The Question is: Throughout the whole of her reign, Elizabeth I was faced with significant opposition in parliament’ assess the validity of this view

Elizabeth was faced with significant opposition in parliament because various issues such as the marriage, the succession and her religious settlement. This was because MP’s wanted to eliminate the uncertainty of not knowing a successor and there was also challenged in parliament from puritans who wanted further reform, such as Anthony Cope. The evidence for opposition can be seen in the 1559 parliament, with the MP’s reaction to the settlement. The religious settlement was opposed by the House of Lords, because of the Marian Bishops and conservative peers. This conveys clear opposition because many historians have argued that the settlement was only passed by just one vote. This supports the statement due to the nature of the opposition because the religious settlement is regarded as one of the most important policies for any Monarch, especially in the 16th century to pass, the opposition of this policy meant that they were directly challenging the Queen. Further, challenged to Elisabeth’s authority is the 1601 parliament. Elizabeth’s reluctance to replace her ministers, who had died such as Leicester in 1588, Walsingham in 1590 and Hatton in 1591, with new minister lead to her government becoming less effective as she replaced father with sons. This is evident in the 1601 parliament where the less able Robert Cecil lost control of the House of Commons, this meant that the agenda for the parliamentary proceedings was not in the control of Elizabeth’s minster, Cecil. This implied, according to Bossy, a more organised parliament, which would emerge a significant threat in the 17th century. However, both the 1601 and the 1559 parliaments were dealt with. This is supported by Elizabeth’s Golden Speech, where she showed, as she did throughout her reign, her charisma and political skill. She compromised and was granted a quadruple tax. Meaning that even when parliament did get out of control Elizabeth was there to remind the MP’s they serve her.

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