AQA HIS1B 13th May 2015

The question was 'How far did the marriage to Elizabeth of York consolidate Henry's royal authority' - which is the most unclear thing ever. It didn't mention how far was it the most important factor, but it didn't mention success either, so i wasn't sure whether to analyse to what extent the marriage consolidated power, or whether it was the most important factor compared with other factors

I wasn't sure what the question was asking either. Was is saying how far did the marriage to Elizabeth contribute to his consolidation, as in were we meant to talk about how the marriage consolidated power, and then talk about how other things did too like parliament and propaganda and management of nobles? Or were we simply meant to assess how successful the marriage was in consolidating Henry's power? As in talk about how the marriage did consolidate his power and then the ways it didn't?

No idea. I initially talked about how he prioritised forming a Council and also held Parliament to pass other legislation - but he did legitimise his marriage to Elizabeth. Then I talked about how the marriage failed in preventing the Lovell and Simnel rebellions, then how the marriage WAS important in maintaining dynastic security and being a tool for propaganda (although there were also other propaganda devices that he used).

Tried to cover both interpretations of the question and it became a mess.

That's what i did! Most people at my school seemed to just do a paragraph on marriage, a paragraph on parliament and a paragraph on management of nobles or whatever, and wrote how each of those consolidated his power.

Hence why i thought i'd done it wrong - i wrote about how his marriage was a symbol of the uniting of the Houses of York and Lancaster and an attempt to appease the Yorkists who resented Henry for taking the throne. Then i said there were still Yorkist rebellions so it clearly wasn;t enough for them to accept Henry as King. I mentioned other factors briefly, like how the lack of support for the rebellions could be down to the marriage and the peace it symbolised, but more likely to do with his punishments like Acts if Attainder, but i certainly didn't write a whole paragraph on the other factors like everyone else seems to have done. I focused very heavily on assessing the marriage's strengths or weaknesses in relation to consolidation instead.

Ugh i hate how stupidly they word the questions, it would have been so much clearer either way if they had asked 'How successful was Henry's marriage to Elizabeth of York in consolidating his royal authority?' or 'How far was Henry's consolidation of power due to his marriage with Elizabeth of York?'

I know what you guys mean, we had exactly the same problem at our school so don't worry you're not alone! I think it was about 3/4 of us did marriage and then other factors like parliament and about 1/4 of us did just the marriage. To be honest, I think they're going to have to give credit for both interpretations of the answer as it wasn't explicitly clear which you should do, meaning if you did the 'wrong' one that's incredibly unfair. I have a feeling people would take issue with AQA if they didn't do that so we're probably all fine!

ah what way did you do it then? And i agree apart from the ambiguous wording on the consolidation the paper was really good. I'd written a 12 marker on Empson and Dudley a few weeks ago, and got 12 on it, so for that i just had to regurgitate what i'd already written! And loads of people avoided wealth of the crown because they don't like finance/trade but that question was one of the best i could of got. I was really happy with my answer for that question!

I did it the half and half way. I wrote half my paper on the importance of Henry's marriage to Elizabeth of York and then the other half I wrote about Lovell and Simnel, propaganda etc. - but my super smart friend wrote about the positives and negatives of Elizabeth of York, to be honest I am not fussing about it because what's done is done and none of us can change it

I think the Empson and Dudley was thrown into Henry to confuse people, but I was dead set we were going to get the questions from 2010 and we did! And wow that's really lucky for you! I just looked up the mark scheme and, if I'm lucky, I reckon I got about 9 or 10 which I'm quite happy with considering I know practically no other Wolsey And yeah I really like the wealth of the crown, the key is just not to confuse it with the economy and you're all set Found it really hard to disagree with it though because all I wrote about was the coronation and bonds and recognisances, which is kind of a weak argument and I should have gone for the biggies like the trade embargo, but like I say can't change it now

I was really happy we weren't thrown too much of a curveball - hopefully because it's the last year of the spec the examiners will be a bit nicer, but we'll see!

Yeah i thought the examiners were quite nice to us. 'Wealth of the crown' is so general you can talk about so many different things, i hate the ones where they are so specific, like a whole 24 marker on trade or something like that, but luckily they didn't throw us any of those.

I'm hoping this continues with my other paper! Which one are you doing? I've got Impact of Stalin's Leadership on Friday :P

Ah good luck! I've got the Vietnam War on Wednesday, but yeah I hope they stay nice to us for the second unit

I know what you guys mean, we had exactly the same problem at our school so don't worry you're not alone! I think it was about 3/4 of us did marriage and then other factors like parliament and about 1/4 of us did just the marriage. To be honest, I think they're going to have to give credit for both interpretations of the answer as it wasn't explicitly clear which you should do, meaning if you did the 'wrong' one that's incredibly unfair. I have a feeling people would take issue with AQA if they didn't do that so we're probably all fine!

Does anyone remember the questions on Wolsey?

The 12 marker was about Wolsey's rise to power. The 24 marker asked to what extent Wolsey's fall from power in 1529 was due to his personal failings

What did you write on each?

On the 12 marker I wrote about his skills, his networking/patrons, HVIII's personality and the rise of the pro-war faction under Surrey.
On the 24 marker I wrote about FP, the Great Matter, Amicable Grant, Enclosure and his creation of powerful enemies/lack of allies that worsened through the increasing isolation from the King in the from 1527 onwards.
What about you? I'd looked up the mark schemes for questions similar so I already had a clear idea of the basic requirements of the structure which hopefully came through.