AQA A Level History 1C The Tudors: England 1485-1603 7042/1C - 06 Jun 2018

The local issues was vague but if it had been more precise then I don’t even think it could have even been a question as literally there were only like 7 rebellions and majority to do with dynasty and economic underlying.

I’m surprised that it was limited as well but I guess if it was longer then it would have led to everyone talking about break from Rome etc.

The only thing I read on population was that it increased by a couple of million and then I guess you could link that to bad harvests (need to feed mor people with low yield) and other things like vagrants etc. I didn’t do that question but it was very precise to pinpoint it to increasing population- normally you’d expect government policy etc.

I found that a wonderful paper. Henry 8 Foreign Policy between 1509-1529 had a lot to talk about because of the 1518 Treaty of London, then the Field of the Cloth of the Gold, but also the Treaty of Amiens that all serve as evidence for Henry chasing European peace but each of those can be undermined in the opposite argument, such as how the Treaty of London led to Wolsey being papal legate but nothing more. You could then bring up how the Holy League isolated the French in a hostile manner, how England went to war with Scotland in 1513 and then the flip-flopping of relations with France and the HRE. Could've thrown the Louis-Mary marriage alliance in there too.

7 rebellions...? All I could think of was Yorkshire, Stafford/Lovell, Cornish + the de la Pole rebellion, what other 3 did you get? I didn't count Warbeck as there was no real rebellion from him, I did say he latched onto the Cornish rebellion though (therefore making it partly a political rebellion).

I thought everything went pretty well to be honest, sources were pretty easy to analyse. I did the rebellion question/Henry's foreign policy.

For the rebellion question I wrote about the four rebellions I knew. I disagreed with the statement and said the Stafford/Lovell rebellion refuted the argument posed by the question, I said Yorkshire agreed, I said Cornish went both ways (yes it was taxation, but the rebels marched to Blackheath, close to London so therefore perhaps signalling intent to usurp Henry - more than local issues + Warbeck latched onto the rebellion) and then the de la Pole rebellion was again, a dynastic issue.

For Henry's foreign policy I disagreed with the statement again, I used examples like his first incursion into France (Battle of Spurs) but I did somewhat argue that Wolsey's resulting treaty with Louis XII (marriage to Henry's sister) could be interpreted as agreeing but it was reactionary rather than Henry's desire to seek peace. After that I just talked about the Treaty of London, Holy Roman League, Field of Cloth of Gold, Treaty of Bruges + 1522 invasion of France. I felt like I hardly wrote anything for that question though, wrote about 2 pages.

I thought it was a very decent paper, I agree with a lot of the points you guys have made in this thread though. Plus... no religion? No Edward/Mary?! That's like 60% of the course gone!

The “7” was actually exaggerated! I did count Warbeck imposture as he invaded with Scottish force as well as from Burgundy with mercenary and Henry had to intervene, so it’s a rebellion, right?? I felt that this was weaker than Foreign Policy.

Foreign policy I spoke about Peace for domestic reasons and need for united European front hence Treaty of London etc. And then second point was on diplomacy- field of cloth of gold/ Treaty of Amiens. Counter points were military glory (French war) and national security (1513 Scotland battle of Flodden).

It is surprising how Elizabeth orientated it was- I’m not surprised but kind of wished I’d done last question now instead of rebellion but reading the “population” part kind of put me off!

Yeah that's true to be fair, guess you could count it as a rebellion. I wrote about a lot of the same points for the foreign policy one. Don't worry though, I'm sure you did great by the looks of it!

I agree with you in regards to Elizabeth. I won't lie though, I'm hella happy that Elizabeth foreign policy didn't come up as I hardly knew everything + every teacher I had told me it was gonna be the one to come up. It came up a little in the sources but it wasn't so much so I was able to talk about it. The grade boundaries last year were quite low for an A* so don't worry (as long as you got an A* in the coursework it's only like 60ish for an A*).

You’ve done great too- I wouldn’t worry about writing two pages- as along as the content is there and analysed! It’s quite demanding that they ask us to write 3 consecutive essays in 2hr30 mins on different topics!

I do hope boundaries are low. They’ll probably be higher than last year but the vagueness of the questions etc will probably keep them low.

What other topic do you do (depth)?

The American Dream 1945 - 1980, which is basically just the US presidents and their economy, civil rights, domestic and foreign policy. I'm much worse at the breadth paper though, I find the sources harder to analyse as you need more for them (e.g. bad with provenance + tone) but it's whatever. What about you?

What makes you think the grade boundaries will be higher? The questions last year were really easy imo, and it seems that a lot of people are upset with the questions this year.

I do Weimar Germany- I prefer this topic as there’s more to talk about with sources as you’re basically not just focusing on historian’s interpretation.

I only think they’ll be higher (slightly) because normally in the 1st year of teaching, they are low. This year’s paper was actually more difficult than last, that is true but I also think it’s going to depend on paper 2. They don’t really have individual boundaries- on the website it’s the two options plus coursework put together. Therefore, last year, the highest was 178/200 and lowest was like 140. Tudors is the most common topic out of all of them. The depth topic actually varies quite a lot so it all depends. Let’s just hope for a good paper 2!

I still used taxation and debasement because you can think longer term effect and later wastn really specific

Did anybody write about enclosure for the poverty question?

Did many of you do the poverty question then? Sounds like most people did both Henry questions. I did Henry VIII and poverty questions and for the poverty questions I overall disagreed with the statement and said the following:
1. For pop growth - growing food demands + diminishing supply because of farming issues mixed with growing unemployment = high inflation
2. For other factors - heavy spending under H8 put more money into circulation = inflation, Elizabeth taking the bullion = more money in circulation and inflation. Then I said dissolution of monasteries = unemployment and loss of charitable stuff for poor and I can't really remember the other factors.

If you did it did you do the structure of agree disagree or not? The wording of the Q was strange I thought

Yeah, I wrote quite a lot about agricultural issues so enclosure and engrossing and the fact that they were persistent problems that were never really solved.



I did partly agree - and then did a paragraph on population growth, a paragraph on agriculture, a paragraph on like problems in government so debasement & inflation and then a paragraph on the insufficiency of legislation to deal w/ it - so like the poor law and stuff.

I probably should have referenced more to H8 and stuff like you said w/ monasteries & money in circulation but I was kinda hung up on the 'later' part of the century wording.

7 rebellions...? All I could think of was Yorkshire, Stafford/Lovell, Cornish + the de la Pole rebellion, what other 3 did you get? I didn't count Warbeck as there was no real rebellion from him, I did say he latched onto the Cornish rebellion though (therefore making it partly a political rebellion).

I thought everything went pretty well to be honest, sources were pretty easy to analyse. I did the rebellion question/Henry's foreign policy.

For the rebellion question I wrote about the four rebellions I knew. I disagreed with the statement and said the Stafford/Lovell rebellion refuted the argument posed by the question, I said Yorkshire agreed, I said Cornish went both ways (yes it was taxation, but the rebels marched to Blackheath, close to London so therefore perhaps signalling intent to usurp Henry - more than local issues + Warbeck latched onto the rebellion) and then the de la Pole rebellion was again, a dynastic issue.

For Henry's foreign policy I disagreed with the statement again, I used examples like his first incursion into France (Battle of Spurs) but I did somewhat argue that Wolsey's resulting treaty with Louis XII (marriage to Henry's sister) could be interpreted as agreeing but it was reactionary rather than Henry's desire to seek peace. After that I just talked about the Treaty of London, Holy Roman League, Field of Cloth of Gold, Treaty of Bruges, Amiens + 1522 invasion of France. I felt like I hardly wrote anything for that question though, wrote about 2 pages.

I thought it was a very decent paper, I agree with a lot of the points you guys have made in this thread though. Plus... no religion? No Edward/Mary?! That's like 60% of the course gone!



Nice to read someone else wrote a lot of the same. I didn't mention the Battle of Flodden, because it was a reaction to the invasion by the Scots - wasn't really a way to seek peace but it wasn't as if Henry directly invaded the Scottish either.

Isn't it normal for them to leave out the vast majority of the course? I think the whole system of teaching over a huge period and then only asking about one area over 20 years. I think it's really wasteful and leaves me feeling like all of that work trying to nail the mid-tudor crisis, Elizabeth's religion, Elizabeth's foreign, Elizabeth's social (big units) were all for nothing, absolutely nothing. It's really demoralising imo.

Hi All, i did'nt think it was too bad! Last year it was 16/25 for an A, it might be a bit higher but its not going to be too much higher. I did the rebellions and foreign policy question. I'm so annoyed though, I missed out Aimens and i dont think i added enough detail to the rebellions - i tried to stay with te question, and so i don't think it really needed that much knowledge of things like the exact amount of people, their exact course ect. Overall i argued that local issues were the tax, didn't argue that they were national due to them being 9 years apart. Went on to explain dydnastic, reference to Lambert Simnel and a few others. Is that okay? I also argued that dynastic was on an individual, more threatening level especially considering foreign support, adding a European element. Hope thats okay, please let me know what you think. Could i still get a B?