A Level History: Henry VII Extract Questions

Extract 1

Henry VII’s attitude to ruling was, for the most part, similar to that of his predecessors.
He believed in the imposition of strong and unquestioned royal leadership. This was
particularly needed in England after an interval of instability in which the authority of
the Crown had been badly damaged. However, Henry’s own background also made
demands on him. Henry Tudor was a stranger in England when he ascended the
throne, having won that throne by conquest. Thrust in this position by the events of a
single afternoon, Henry had to master the realm he now ruled. Henry had no
immediate relations whose services he could employ nor a reliable body of nobles he
could turn to. What he did, he had to do on his own.
Adapted from Wallace MacCaffrey, The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and
Stuart Britain, 2000..

Extract 2

Henry was undoubtedly shrewd, calculating and long-headed; he seems never to have
been overcome by passion. Yet if he had even a touch of the temper, this exercise of
self-restraint must have cost him a great deal. Probably the hard training of a youth
spent in wars, danger of execution and long exile tamed him and taught him to hide
his feelings and veil his purposes. That he was eager for money is certain. He was not,
however, a miser; where it served his purpose money was spent freely, and he saved
and extorted only in the interests of the Crown. To the establishment of peace, the
preservation of law and order, the security of the realm he applied all of his high
intelligence and his determination, his shrewdness and his steady and daily interest in
affairs.
Adapted from Geoffrey Elton, England under the Tudors, 3rd edition, 1991.

Extract 3

Henry’s attempts to override local powers by means of his own servants, his use of
spies, his institution of a personal bodyguard as soon as he became king, all point to a
misguided policy, which was what he knew best. It would be surprising if local
instability and Henry’s deep mistrust of the nobles that bred mistrust towards the king
had not raised some questions about his suitability to rule, and it is a fact that Henry
was troubled by plots and rebellions for much longer than he should have been after
the Battle of Stoke.
Adapted from Christine Carpenter, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the
Constitution in England, c.1437-1509, 1997.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in Extracts 1, 2 and 3 are in relation to Henry VII’s consolidation of power.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…
Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…
Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1

The dynastic threat to the Tudor regime must not be exaggerated. There was no one to cause
rival political tensions amongst Henry VII’s relations and no obvious focus for political
discontent. It is true, the supporters of Simnel and Warbeck dressed their ambitions in dynastic
clothes, but the most important revolt in Henry VII’s reign, the Cornish Rising of 1497, was not
dynastic. On the contrary, it was sparked by the parliamentary grant of that year to finance an
invasion of Scotland. The tax revolt erupted in the south west because Cornishmen refused to
underwrite a campaign against Scotland for which, they believed, a scutage or land tax levied
in the north was the correct source of finance.
Adapted from John Guy, Tudor England, 1990.

Extract 2

In May 1502 Sir James Tyrell and several other persons were arrested and executed for
treason. At the same time Lord William de la Pole, brother of Suffolk, and Lord William
Courtenay, son of the earl of Devon, were taken into prison from which they did not emerge
until after Henry’s death. It must be supposed that this is because Henry expected a far
reaching conspiracy. Perhaps Henry’s agents were inventing these threats in order to advance
their own positions, but It is nevertheless hard to avoid the conclusion that there was a spirit of
disaffection among the old families. No doubt the ambitions of the great families were also
aroused by the deaths of the king’s sons, Edmund on 12 June 1500 and Arthur on 2 April 1502,
but even without the disturbing influence of dynastic interests there was wavering support for
the King in the ranks of the old nobility.
Adapted from J D Mackie, The Earlier Tudors, 1987.

Extract 3

Whilst Henry VII used every means at his disposal to reduce the pretensions of mighty
subjects, he also did his utmost to build up his own power. The restoration of royal finances
was a key element in this. The King recognised that the secret of recovering royal authority
lay in making himself richer than his subjects. This was one reason why, unlike Edward IV, he
retained possession of the Crown lands. But there was another reason. Land was the basis of
local power. By keeping royal estates in hand and administering them through his own
household servants, Henry maintained a direct royal presence throughout his kingdom.
Henry VII was not as ruthless, consistent or as continuously successful as this brief account
implies. He faced major rebellions, especially in 1497, and was never entirely secure on the
throne. His preferred approach to the control of the provinces by divide and rule created
crises and tensions in some parts of the kingdom and stored up trouble for his successor in
others. But by ceaseless vigilance and unrelenting pressure on all his subjects, great and
small, Henry made himself respected, feared and obeyed.
Adapted from A J Pollard, The Wars of the Roses, 2001.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to the threats to Henry VII’s position in
the years 1485 to 1509.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
 This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
Henry VII was a strong and independent king, ready to assert the powers of the English Crown.
The centre of Henry VII’s government was the King himself, assisted by those with whom he
chose to surround himself – that is, his Council. This included great nobles, great prelates and
great administrators. Generally speaking, Henry’s councillors were office holders, but many of
the offices were minor. Naturally, there were grades and distinctions among them, even, up to
a point, signs of differences of responsibilities. The one qualification which embraced them all
was that the King had chosen them; they were his men and did his will. It should be made
plain, once and for all that there was never more than one Council in existence at the centre;
there was only one body to which men called councillors could belong. The Council’s function
was three-fold. It existed to advise the King in matters of policy, to administer the realm and
to adjudicate on cases brought before it in petition.
Adapted from G R Elton, England Under the Tudors, 1977.

Extract 2
Little or nothing of much significance occurred in parliament in the reign of Henry VII.
Throughout the twenty-three years and eight months of the reign, parliament sat for about
seventy-two weeks in all. In 1504 Henry expressly stated that he was not minded to summon
another parliament for a long time unless there was a ‘great and urgent cause’. Few of the
statutes that emerged from Henry VII’s parliaments can be regarded as of major importance;
many were little more than administrative developments, and some were trivial or short-term
measures. However, for certain purposes, Henry VII could not do without parliament. First
and foremost, he could not do without the financial grants agreed by parliament, and each of
his seven parliaments made some kind of financial contribution. He also needed
parliamentary assent to numerous acts of attainder and of restitution for those previously
attainted. Henry needed parliamentary support for the substantial acts which enabled him to
restore crown lands bringing him both land and power.
Adapted from S B Chrimes, Henry VII, 1972.

Extract 3
The need in Henry VII’s reign was less for new legislation than for the means to enforce
existing law. Henry’s most significant contribution to government was his shift towards direct
reliance on lesser gentry as Justices of the Peace. The role of Justices of the Peace in local
government was crucial to maintain law and order. Henry VII needed to appoint reliable men
with local knowledge, legal expertise and sufficient social standing to command authority.
Henry sought to weaken the ties which traditionally linked the local interests of the nobility
and gentry and which resulted in the corruption of justice. To increase the Crown’s control of
law and order he appointed Justices of the Peace who were middling gentry, including
professional lawyers and even men who did not have property in a shire. By the end of his
reign, Henry had not fully established his authority in the localities, however, Justices of the
Peace had superseded the sheriff and the feudal lord as the Crown’s administrative agents.
Adapted from J Guy, Tudor England, 1988.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to Henry VII’s methods of government.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…
 Extract 1
Henry VII’s character, silent and jealous, resulted in a steady drift towards absolute
royal control. Although he based his right to the throne solely on parliamentary title,
his main concern was the accumulation of treasure which would relieve him of the
need to call parliament. Henry was both grasping and mean, and money was hoarded.
A wide range of sources of income was exploited; benevolences were revived, and
Morton extorted gifts to Henry’s Exchequer. So successful were these efforts that at
the end of his reign Henry was able to bequeath a hoard of two million pounds to his
successor. Furthermore, Henry VII broke the power of the magnates; limits on retaining
were enforced with the utmost severity, as seen when the Earl of Oxford, a significant
supporter of the King, was fined £10 000. Henry VII also revived the criminal
jurisdiction of the Royal Council and enabled justices of the peace to try without juries.
Adapted from JR Green, A Short History of the English People, 1874.

Extract 2
Henry VII’s reign was distinguished by sober statesmanship. Having defeated the
usurper, Richard, at Bosworth, Henry sought to stabilise his newly conquered country.
Whilst Henry could be both ruthless and severe, he was neither bloodthirsty nor self-
centred. In 1492, he personally led his army to France in the knowledge that the
nobility admired highly chivalric kings who defended their honour. Henry attempted to
centralise English politics and, although he appears shadowy and remote as a king, the
Tudor court began to exercise magnetic influence. If much territorial power still lay in
the hands of regional magnates, faction was tamed by recognizances and by the
exaction of royal prerogative rights by the Council Learned. Lastly, Henry’s diplomacy
and security measures guaranteed his dynasty’s survival. The turbulence of the Wars
of the Roses was quelled. Above all, it was Henry’s dynamic force, not his divine right
as his propaganda claimed, which secured the throne for the Tudors.
Adapted from J Guy, Tudor England, 1988

Extract 3
Henry VII was never an absolute monarch. He may have wished to rule in the manner
which he had observed whilst in exile in Brittany and France, and to impose formality
on the Court, but his power and authority in England were limited by custom and law.
Even if he had wished to sweep away these barriers, he could not have done so. He
had no police force and no standing army. In times of danger, even more than in times
of peace, he was dependent on the support of property owners. Equally, his
administration was decentralised rather than concentrated in the capital. The facts of
geography and poor communications were largely responsible for this and compelled
the King to devolve responsibility to men on the spot. The Council could advise,
encourage, warn, and threaten, but in the last analysis, in local government, Henry
was dependent on the co-operation of the political nation.
Adapted from R Lockyer, Henry VII, 1997

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to Henry VII.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…
Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…
Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

A Level History: Henry VIII Extract Questions

Extract 1
Monarchy was personal. Everything, therefore, depended on the king’s willingness to
devote himself to business. Most State papers were read to or summarised to him and
he did almost all his work by word of mouth. Only on issues which engaged him
personally was he willing to become fully committed. On the other hand, Henry was
not willing to delegate consistently. He also reserved the freedom to intervene as and
when he wanted. The need to accommodate Henry VIII’s particular version of personal
monarchy explains much. In essence there were two options. The first was that the
Royal Council should attempt to provide some continuity in government and the
second that a chief minister should take over, leaving the king as overall director.
Neither met the difficulties fully and the story of the reign is of fluctuation as the
options were tried in turn and successively broke down.
 Adapted from Eric W. Ives, Henry VIII in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
2004.

Extract 2
That the reign of Henry VIII was enormously significant is beyond question. His
rejection of western Christendom in favour of a national Church, the innovative use of
statute law and the resulting change on the qualitative role and importance of
Parliament, all these left a deeper mark on English history than any monarch since the
Norman conquest and any who followed him. Even more profound has been the
consequence of Henry’s decision to require, for the first time ever, that subjects should
accept belief as defined by the State. From that point on it ceased to be sufficient any
longer to offer the Crown loyalty and ability; the monarch needed to search hearts.
Ideological conformity and nonconformity became substantial and permanent features
of English life.
Adapted from Eric W. Ives, Henry VIII in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
2004.

Extract 3
Throughout his reign, Henry kept an eye on some details and dealt with some
business, but he never did enough of either to save himself from having to follow the
lead given by his ministers. He delegated power in the confidence that he could rely on
his ministers and agents; he knew he could always discard the policy with the minister.
His attitude to business shows that he was wise enough to realise that there are other
things in life. But the evidence is strong that while a minister held power it was he and
not the king who controlled and devised policy. In the hands of Henry VIII personal
monarchy did not mean personal attention to the business of government. It meant
the putting of the king’s personal force behind policies not of his devising. It is doubtful
if he was the architect of anything, least of all the English Reformation.
Adapted from Geoffrey R. Elton, Henry VIII, 1962.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in Extracts 1, 2 and 3 are in relation to Henry VIII’s rule in England.
Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…
Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…
Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…
Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
The Church faced formidable difficulties by the early sixteenth century. The growth of an
educated class of thinkers, the great impetus given to it by the printing press, the general
scepticism about many of the devotional practices which the church encouraged or at least
tolerated, the widespread resentment of church wealth, church privileges, church power; all
this provided material which could be shaped into a revolutionary movement. Luther’s protest
was to weld these somewhat disparate trends into a rival system…Lutheranism was far more
intellectually and emotionally satisfying to the religiously committed than Catholicism.
Catholicism was too much associated with the established abuses of the status quo.
Adapted from Peace, Print and Protestantism, 1450-1558, by C. S. L. Davies, 1977.

Extract 2
Much of the evidence we have gives a favourable impression of the parish clergy, and much of
it suggests that lay people were content with their priests. When churchwardens and other
parishioners were invited to complain of their clergy at the visitations of bishops and
archdeacons, they did so remarkably infrequently…At Archbishop Warham’s visitation of 260
Kent parishes in 1511-12, six priests were suspected of sexual offences (and another pestered
a woman without success), and four priests were said to be ignorant. There were complaints of
pastoral neglect from about one-fifth of the parishes, but that was rarely the fault of individual
priests. It was much the same in the huge diocese of Lincoln. At visitations of over a thousand
parishes between 1514 and 1521, only 25 allegations of sexual misconduct were made against
priests…There were 17 complaints that services were not regularly conducted, 12 that rituals
were carelessly performed, seven that the priests had failed to preach or visit the sick…
Though reformers might criticise, parishioners seemed satisfied.
Adapted from English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors,
by C. Haigh, 1993.

Extract 3
Late-medieval Catholicism exerted an enormously strong, diverse and vigorous hold over the
imagination and the loyalty of the people up to the very moment of Reformation. Traditional
religion had about it no particular marks of exhaustion and decay, and indeed in a whole host
of ways, from the multiplication of…religious books (in everyday language), to adaptations
 within the national and regional cult of the saints, was showing itself well able to meet new
needs and new conditions. Nor does it seem to me that tendencies towards growing lay
religious sophistication and literacy, or growing lay activism and power in gild and parish, had
in them that drive towards Protestantism which some historians have discerned. The
Reformation was a violent disruption, not the natural fulfilment of most of what was vigorous
in late medieval piety and religious practice.
Adapted from Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in
England, c1400-c1580, 1992.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the arguments in
these three extracts are in relation to an analysis of the state of the Catholic Church in the reign
of Henry VIII up to the time when Parliament met in 1529.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

 Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
Henry VIII was the dominant force in the making of what is best called the King’s reformation;
religious policy was essentially the King’s. Henry saw himself as God’s lieutenant whose
divinely ordained mission was to purify the Church. In the campaign for the divorce, in the
break with Rome, in the making of the articles of religion, in the dissolution of the monasteries,
and sometimes in the destruction of opponents, Henry’s role was full and decisive. Henry
overcame substantial opposition, from Thomas More and John Fisher, from the bishops, and in
the Pilgrimage of Grace. What the King sought, he largely achieved. Time and again, Henry
was cautious in pursuing his aims, not least over the break with Rome itself. He not only found
highly able servants to carry out his wishes – Cromwell, Cranmer, Norfolk – but he also
managed to get them to take the blame for what was done.
Adapted from G Bernard, The King’s Reformation, 2005

Extract 2
During the 1530s, the English Church broke from the Papacy and was placed under the control
of the Crown in Parliament. The changes to religion were not only the result of the need to
secure the King’s divorce. From 1529, Parliament itself had begun to attack the Church. Some
of the more outspoken MPs managed to keep alive the bitter memories of the Hunne case.
There were many critics in the House of Commons who demanded changes. The Commons
attacked canon law and church administration and said that the bishops and archbishops
thought nothing so important as the continuation of every privilege and source of income. It
was stated that clergy took everything from their parishioners; that they would take a dead
man’s cow and turn his children into beggars. Bills to reform the Church were debated in the
House of Commons on a daily basis. With remarkable speed, a whole series of statutes were
passed through Parliament to break with Rome and to reform the Church.
Adapted from AG Dickens, The English Reformation, 1964

Extract 3
Reform of the Church in England did not begin with Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of
Aragon. In the years when Henry was still the Pope’s loyal ‘defender of the faith’, small but
increasing numbers of English men and women had begun working for a transformation of the
Church. What was new in the views of these ‘evangelicals’ was that salvation came through
faith alone, formed by reading the Bible. Monasteries, chantries, masses, vows, pilgrimages,
veneration of saints and confessions to priests, were a distraction from the Church’s true
mission of proclaiming God’s word. The divorce campaign transformed the opportunities for
those who held such views and their persecution came to an end. By the early 1530s, a
number of evangelical sympathisers came to occupy positions of real political influence.
Thomas Cromwell managed the business of the Reformation Parliament and was promoted to
the new post of Vicegerent in Spirituals. Thomas Cranmer, the surprise candidate for
Archbishop of Canterbury, remained at the heart of government until Henry’s death.
Adapted from P Marshall, Reformation England 1480–1642, 2003

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the arguments in
these three extracts are in relation to religious changes from the late 1520s to the death of
Henry VIII.
Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…
Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

A Level History: The “Mid-Tudor” period Extract Questions

Extract 1
Edward’s life, after he ascended the throne, was played out mainly in the Privy
Chamber, the focus of the court’s political life, to which access was closely guarded by
the four principal gentlemen of the Chamber, of whom the most important was Sir
Michael Stanhope, Somerset’s brother-in-law. Until the Protector’s fall in October 1549,
Edward was a cypher in politics, exercising little influence of his own. He was like the
king on a chessboard, having little room for manoeuvre, but crucial to the
development of the game. Control of the person determined possession of power.
Adapted from Penry Williams, The Later Tudors, England: 1547-1603, 1995.

Extract 2

Dependent upon personal influences and relationships, Tudor government varied in

style from one reign to another. Henry VII relied very much upon a corps of household
servants and other officers operating under special commissions outside the formal
institutions of government. Henry VIII put his trust in two great ministers, both of whom
built up institutions which they could dominate: Wolsey developing the Chancery and
Star Chamber; Cromwell working through the secretaryship and the new financial
courts. In their relations with the nobility Henry was mean with new creations and
grants of land. Henry VIII and Edward VI by contrast raised many to the peerage and
endowed them generously.
Adapted from Penry Williams, The Tudor Regime, 1979.

Extract 3

Edward’s character remains in many ways unclear, no wonder since he lived so short
a time. On the other hand, more writings survive from his hand than from that of any
other Tudor, and these have led to much speculation, especially in the notion of a
highly intelligent young ruler who in his mid-teens was composing profound State
papers. In such memorials Edward demonstrably was copying other people’s drafts,
though no doubt he contributed this or that point himself; more purely personal is the
diary he kept from early in the reign to the last days of his illness. The king’s
‘majesty’ comes through strongly in his frequent assertion of personal authority.
Edward was a boy tyrant. Whoever, therefore, really devised policy, no one could
afford to ignore the king’s religion
Adapted from Geoffrey Elton, Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558, 1977

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to the quality of government in the
years 1485 to 1553.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
 convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
The evangelical establishment were determined to join the religious revolution in the
rest of Europe: to destroy the old conservative and Catholic world of devotion in the
English Church, which was now severed from its link with European Catholicism.
Edward’s leading political advisers were ready to implement an alternative
programme for making religion more radical. They could not have failed to notice that
a programme of religious change also gave the possibility of diverting some of the
Church’s huge wealth to their own pockets.
Adapted from Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the
Protestant Reformation, 1999..

Extract 2
Henry VIII carried the great conservative bulk of the nation with him in his dual action –
the severance of England from Roman jurisdiction and the curtailment of the wealth
and privileges enjoyed by the English Church. The quiet advancement of Protestantism
during Henry’s last years account for the ease with which Somerset established it as
the new official religion from the beginning of the new reign. The Edwardian years
display a rough poetic justice. The seizure of chantries and church goods marred the
public image of the Reformation in the eyes of many people. The fund of social
idealism among the reformers, deeply impressive on paper and in the pulpit, availed
little at this stage to check the profiteering which it so loudly denounced.
Adapted from A G. Dickens, The English Reformation, 1964.

Extract 3
By the end of Edward VI’s reign in most churches the altars and statues were gone,
Whatever the Crown commanded, the people, for the most part, did. When resistance
erupted it was often because of specific local provocations or social and economic
crisis. For historians convinced of the bankruptcy of late medieval Catholicism there is
nothing here to surprise. Thus, for A. G. Dickens the chantries could be dissolved and
the altars demolished because people no longer believed in intercession and the
Mass as sacrifice, However, the vigour, richness and creativity of late medieval
religion was undiminished and continued to hold the imagination and loyalty of the
majority of the population. In the majority of English villages people breathed easier
for the accession of a Catholic queen.
Adapted from Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in
England, c.1400-1580, 1992.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to religious changes in England in the
years 1532 to 1553.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…
Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…
Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
Mary was arrogant, assertive, bigoted, stubborn, suspicious and rather stupid. Her
portraits show a bitter and narrow-minded woman, curiously unlike her father, brother
and sister. Certainly, she had led a truly unhappy life. For twenty years before her
accession she had lived in the shadows. Her experience would very probably have
soured a sweeter and more tolerant temper. The fact remains she was ill-prepared to
be England’s first woman sovereign. She had ever been her mother’s daughter, devoid
of political skill, unable to compromise; set only on the wholesale reversal of a
generation’s history, she was a manifest portent of strife. If it is not clear whether she
leant towards the new rigour of the rising Counter-Reformation, or a pre-Lutheran
conventional piety, this is mainly because she never gave any sign of a genuinely
intelligent interest in the issues that confronted her. She seized a power rightfully hers
for the exercise of which she was utterly unsuited.
Adapted from Geoffrey Elton, Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558,
1977.

Extract 2
Mary was swept to power by a revolution. In part, it was her own doing. She had
escaped to Suffolk, and immediately summoned some reliable supporters to join her
and others to prepare to tackle any opposition. In response major figures supported
her. But it was popular support for Mary’s bid which determined the outcome. On 19
July Mary was proclaimed queen. ‘Great was the triumph here at London, for my time I
never saw the like’, wrote one chronicler. There were ‘bonfires in every street in
London, with good cheer at every bonfire, the bells ringing in every parish church, and
for the most part all night till the next day at noon’. It was the same everywhere. There
had been a mass rejection of Northumberland and approbation of Mary.
Adapted from Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and
Society under the Tudors, 1993.

Extract 3
From a childhood in which she was adored and feted and then violently rejected, a
fighter was born. Mary maintained her faith and her self-belief. Despite repeated
attempts to deprive her of her life and her right to the throne, the warrior princess
turned victor, and became the warrior queen. The boldness and scale of her
achievements is often overlooked. The campaign that Mary led in the summer of 1553
would prove to be the only successful revolt against central government in sixteenth-
century England. In the moment of crisis she proved decisive and courageous, and
won the support of the English people as the legitimate Tudor heir. Mary proved to be
a conscientious and hard-working queen who was determined to be closely involved in
government business and policy-making. She was also a woman who lived by her
conscience and was prepared to die for her faith.
Adapted from Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen, 2009.
Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to Mary as queen.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
The persecution set the seal on Mary’s failure to restore the Church of Rome in
England, but that failure was pretty much guaranteed also by Pole’s policies and by
the fact that the earlier Reformation had taken a much firmer hold than has often been
supposed. The signs are everywhere. The steadfastness of those executed proved so
effective because they were setting their example to men and women more than half
persuaded. The new owners’ determination to retain the secularised lands not only
demonstrated an understandable attachment to property, but also testified to the
continued absence of any scruple about sacrilege. Despite herself, Mary throughout
acted as the ruler of a Church which yet she believed was ruled solely by the Pope, a
point underlined when Philip and Pope Paul IV had a serious argument and Pole lost
the special papal authority which had lent some credibility to the notion that
everything was done by and for Rome.
Adapted from Geoffrey Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509-1558,
1977.

Extract 2
At the parish level English Catholicism recovered under Mary – not everywhere and in
all respects, since the past could not be entirely undone, but on the whole. The Church
showed signs of health which had not been seen since the 1520s, and promise for the
future. In clerical recruitment, for example, twenty-five years of decline were reversed,
though career prospects had not improved very much. Under Edward VI ordinations
had almost ceased; in Mary’s reign they boomed. Again, after two decades in which
the printing press had been used to undermine traditional religion, there were
numerous books of Catholic teaching and devotion. The Marian Church was the Church
of the 1520s writ later: a vigorous pastoral episcopate; high levels of clerical
recruitment; best-selling works of personal edification and piety; active investment in
parish religion – and a troublesome cardinal, distrust of clerical authority and a heresy
problem.
Adapted from Christopher Haigh, English Reformation: Religion, Politics and
Society under the Tudors, 1993.

Extract 3
The constructive aspects of Marian Catholicism were less dramatic than the
persecutions, but even so were not negligible. Mary and Pole were able as a result of
deprivation and death to appoint – or in some cases to restore – bishops of
unquestioned loyalty to the Catholic faith. The leaders of the Marian Church were as
well qualified to provide pastoral guidance and discipline as any bench of bishops in
the century. Yet able and devoted as they were, they lacked the calibre or the spirit to
inspire a true rebuilding. Pole himself had been defeated at the Council of Trent and
now put his trust in ceremony and obedience. He was, besides, an old, sick man,
whose last eighteen months were marred by his quarrel with Pope Paul IV.
Adapted from Penry Williams, The Late Tudors: England, 1547-1603

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to the Church in Marian England.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

 Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
It is clear from the Privy Council’s own registers that nine Privy Councillors ran the
country from 1541 to 1547. Although Henry intervened, he did so spasmodically and in
matters that had always concerned him: diplomacy, military strategy, theology and his
wives. The irony is that the Duke of Norfolk was not among the nine. After the fall of
Catherine Howard the entire Howard connection was threatened with destruction, and
the reformed cause revived at court when Henry married his sixth wife, Katherine Parr,
in 1543. However, factionalism was encouraged by the hottest political issue of the
king’s last years – the succession, a battle won by the Earl of Hertford (later Duke of
Somerset). As Protector to Edward VI, Somerset’s arrogance aroused resentment. He
mishandled the revolts of 1549 and his overthrow became inevitable.
Adapted from John Guy, Tudor England, 1988.

Extract 2
From a childhood in which she was adored and feted and then violently rejected, a
fighter was born. Mary maintained her faith and her self-belief. Despite repeated
attempts to deprive her of her life and her right to the throne, the warrior princess
turned victor, and became the warrior queen. The boldness and scale of her
achievements is often overlooked. The campaign that Mary led in the summer of 1553
would prove to be the only successful revolt against central government in sixteenth-
century England. In the moment of crisis she proved decisive and courageous, and
won the support of the English people as the legitimate Tudor heir. Mary proved to be
a conscientious and hard-working queen who was determined to be closely involved in
government business and policy-making. She was also a woman who lived by her
conscience and was prepared to die for her faith.
Adapted from Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen, 2009.

Extract 3
Elizabeth gained her kingdom without having to fight for it, but never forgot the
danger which had lain in her way. In January 1559, leaving the Tower which once, as a
prisoner in Mary’s reign, she had thought never to leave except in her coffin, she
thanked God for saving her as He had Daniel from the lion’s den. By this Old
Testament analogy she offered a deliberate promise to all those who waited for a
Protestant princess to bring their own deliverance. As even her enemies admitted,
Elizabeth had ‘powers of enchantment’, and as she passed through her capital to her
coronation she displayed them. Mary had made no response to the pageants which
had greeted her, but Elizabeth promised her new subjects a reign of mutual love and
undying royal self-sacrifice. With a new monarch came a new court and Council. Even
Paget was dispensable. Elizabeth’s Privy Council was composed, at first, of laymen. A
few great magnates, even those of suspect loyalty, stayed, but her Council was far
from baronial. Most were trained to public life at the universities and Inns of Court.
Adapted from Susan Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds: the Rule of the Tudors, 1485-
1603, 2000.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to the nature of Tudor rule in the years
1541 to 1563.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
 unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
The picture we see of Henry VIII towards the end of his reign is a very different image
from that which started his reign. Gone is the picture of confidence and virility.
Instead, we see the bloated face of a man who had lived an extremely tempestuous
life…Henry had done his best to fulfil his role as warrior-king. The victory at Boulogne
would live on in popular memory for the rest of the century. However, Henry had
provoked real hostility in his personal life – his rejection of Catherine of Aragon and his
series of new wives hardly matched his father’s fidelity. It is hard to see Henry VIII in a
positive light, both as man and as king…Henry talked a good game – his own church,
warrior-like-posing in foreign fields, monuments built to his own magnificence. But
when asked the question, ‘What has Henry VIII ever done for you?’, the peasant in the
field might well have been lost for words…
Adapted from D. Rogerson, The Early Tudors: England 1485-1558, 2001.

Extract 2
The concept of a mid-sixteenth century crisis in England is now considered to be
difficult to maintain. This is certainly true if by 'crisis' it is implied that the whole
country, and all of the people, were experiencing a crisis continuously between 1547
and 1558. Indeed, it is only really possible to say that the country as a whole and some
sections of society underwent very short-lived crises at times between these dates. If
this is the case, most historians would consider that this was normal for any country at
any time. Mid Tudor England faced a variety of problems. Many of these arose from
the political, social and economic breakdown at the end of the late Middle Ages.
Others, like the reactions to the English Reformation, can be seen as more short-term.
A few, such as the succession crisis of 1553, were responses to immediate events. At
no time, even in 1549, was the country in danger of collapse, and for most people life
went on as normal.
Adapted from Nigel Heard, Edward VI and Mary I: A Mid-Tudor Crisis?, 2000.

Extract 3
(In the traditional interpretation) Mary was portrayed as a politically naïve zealot
whose reintroduction of Catholicism was widely unpopular. In particular, her burning of
Protestants as heretics backfired, as she inadvertently turned them into martyrs and
was subsequently labelled by Protestant propagandists as ‘Bloody Mary’. Her
Catholicism led her into domestic and foreign policy disasters as she stacked her Privy
Council with Catholic nonentities…Mary was lucky to survive the Wyatt Rebellion,
which the Spanish match provoked. Marriage to Philip then led to English involvement
in the Spanish-French war, which disastrously culminated in the loss of the last English
possession in France: Calais…This picture of the mid-Tudor period apparently reveals a
country lurching from crisis to crisis. Given the link between religious and political
opposition, and the way in which economic discontent fuelled rebellion, the case for a
full-scale structural crisis appears to be a strong one.
Adapted from John Warren, Elizabeth I: Meeting the Challenge, England 1541-
1603, 2008.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to the existence of a mid-Tudor crisis
from 1538 to 1558.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
 unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
There was religious compromise among the elites and apathy, or even indifference, among
the mass of the population towards religious change and it is increasingly doubtful
whether Protestantism had taken much of a hold in England by 1553. Indeed, it is now
popular to suggest that Catholicism had wide popular support among the lower orders in
both the towns and the countryside and that, had Mary lived longer, England would
probably have remained Roman Catholic. Possibly there was much less hostility between
English Catholics and Protestants than was previously believed. It is true that there were
extremists on both sides, however, the vast majority of people were very moderate in their
outlook at least initially. However, 1570 was a turning point with the excommunication of
the queen. After that the Settlement was rigorously enforced and fines for non-attendance
were raised. The authorities became less tolerant of dissident Protestants (Puritans) and of
recusants (Catholics) and displayed a greater degree of ruthlessness in their pursuit of
Jesuits and evangelists.
Adapted from R Turvey and N Heard, Change and Protest 1536-1588, 2012.

Extract 2
A habitual, conventional Catholicism took a whole generation to die out and in some
parishes mass was said more or less openly in defiance of the law. Only a small core of
men were prepared however to take the more positive step of refusal to attend their
protestant parish church, once the generation of Marian priests had died out and
maintaining catholic practices had come to involve harbouring illegal, foreign-trained,
priests. Elizabeth’s reign in fact saw the development of a popular, aggressive anti-
Catholicism and which was further fostered by increasingly strained relations with Spain.
Even so, pockets of Catholicism survived in what the Puritans called ‘the dark corners of
the realm’. Even more annoying to the zealots was the continuing indifference of many
people to religious matters; the poor, it was complained, seldom went to their church to
hear their duties. Not all Elizabethans were obsessed by sin and salvation, although those
who were disproportionately influential.
Adapted from C S L Davies, Peace, Print and Protestantism, 1988

Extract 3
There was much in common between the squire, the lawyer, the merchant and the
yeoman. They were all men of the new age and they tended to become protestant alike
from self-interest and also from conviction. They evolved an essentially middle-class
religion. The tendency of Protestant doctrine was to exalt the married state, and to
dedicate the business life, in reaction against a medieval doctrine that the true religion
was celibacy and monastic separation from the world. These ideas and practices were by
no means confined to extremists – they were the practice of Anglican families who loved
and fought for the new Prayer Book. Protestantism and reading the bible became a social
custom common to all English protestants. The martyrs recorded in Foxe’s book provided
a moral basis for the new national religion beginning to emerge out of the chaos When
Elizabeth came to the throne, the bible and Prayer Book formed the intellectual and
spiritual foundation of a new social order.
Adapted from G M Trevelyan, English Social History, 1946

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the arguments
in these three extracts are in relation to religious change after 1547.
Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…
Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
We may at once define the fundamental issue of these decades; that of the continuity,
security and power of the Tudor Monarchy. The theme of ensuring security is constant;
whether this takes the form of Henry VIII’s frantic quests to stabilise the succession to the
throne following the birth of Edward in 1537, or of Edward VI, a sickly boy destined never
to achieve adulthood, or, finally, of Mary, ‘the Spanish Tudor’, the most tragic of them all.
Throughout these years the security of the monarchy was directly reflected in their
religious policies and international relations. The security and power of the Crown were
affected by these issues and by financial and economic problems. The monarchs were
beset by the perpetual fear that any one or combination of these issues, might give rise to
civil strife. It is this integral relationship between the different factors, which gives the
crisis a certain unity. It was a crisis of both the dynasty and society.
Adapted from W Jones, The Mid-Tudor Crisis, 1973

Extract 2
Historians have become rather too fond of inventing crises and are in danger of devaluing
the word. There was no general crisis of authority in the mid-Tudor years. Nor was there
any economic or social crisis which was peculiar to this period. Serious inflation dates
from about 1545 and was largely the result of Henry’s policy of debasement, but was
short-lived. Social and agrarian problems certainly existed and had been building up for
half a century. In terms of national security there was a bad scare in 1539, but no real
threat of an invasion. The rebellions were spectacular but relatively harmless. The effect
of the changes on the Church, on the other hand, seems to present a more convincing
argument. Exposed to dramatic change by the creation of a Royal Supremacy from 1533;
it was forced through a protestant revolution between 1547 and 1549 only to be forcibly
re-catholicised by Mary. But such a period of protracted and fundamental change can
hardly be called a ‘crisis’.
Adapted from D Loades, The Mid-Tudor Crisis, 1992.

Extract 3
There is obviously something to be said for the view that the years 1536 to 1558 were a
period of crisis for the people of England. These years saw unprecedented rapid changes
in the economy and in religion, arguably the two areas which affected most intimately the
lives of ordinary Englishmen. Historians are now emphasising the profound psychological
shocks which these upheavals must have meant for hundreds of thousands of men and
women who had been accustomed to much less volatile conditions. It is doubtful, on the
other hand, if the Tudor State was ever in quite such serious difficulties as the word ‘crisis’
implies. It was occupied successively by a sick and rapidly aging bully, a boy who was too
young to rule and a woman with limited political abilities. In these circumstances what is
significant and remarkable is not the weakness of government but its relative strength.
Adapted from AGR Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 1997.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the arguments
in these three extracts are in relation to the crises faced by the Tudors in the years 1533 to
1558.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…
Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…
Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

A Level History: Elizabeth I Extract Questions

Extract 1
As the Catholics had done in 1553, the Protestants now took their revenge. At Exeter those
citizens most noted as devotees of images were made to throw them into the fire before the
cathedral. When there was opposition to the demolition of the rood-loft at Throwley in Kent,
one man was forced to be present when it was taken down ‘for that he was an accuser in
Queen Mary’s time’. At Bures in Suffolk some of the parishioners hacked down the rood-
screen. But usually resistance by conservatives was more evident than exuberance by
radicals. Many parishes were slow to take down their altars and images, and others hid them
away. Only 23% of the senior clergy in the province of York endorsed the new arrangements.
Elizabeth seems to have been outraged by the results of the visitation, both by the provocative
iconoclasm, of the Protestants and of the surly disobedience of the conservatives.
Adapted from Christopher Haigh, English Reformation: Religion, Politics and Society
under the Tudors, 1993.

Extract 2
Devout Protestants were delighted to see the removal of the Mass – but the strictest had
scruples about the things retained by the new Church that reminded them of Catholicism.
They expected the Church to be purged, and they believed that the queen would continue the
reform. Certainly the bishops were of the opinion that she would take ‘further orders’ as the
statute said. This meant that in the first few years of the reign the Godly, as they thought of
themselves, were waiting expectantly and worshipping as they believed proper. The bishops,
when they took office, often encouraged this behaviour, believing in the queen’s commitment
to a further reformation. In order to get a partially reformed Church most were willing to live
within it for a short time, philosophically reminding themselves of the concept of adiaphora,
that held that things unnecessary for salvation could be tolerated.
Adapted from Norman Jones, The Birth of the Elizabethan Age: England in the 1560s,
1993.
 Extract 3
For nine months after the parliamentary statutes were carried out Elizabeth ruled the Church
directly. Injunctions for its government were issued during the summer of 1559. For the most
part these followed the Edwardian injunctions of 1547, commanding strict performance of
duties by the clergy, the destruction of ‘monuments of idolatry’ and the avoidance of
contention and strife. Reluctantly, Elizabeth permitted the clergy to marry, pointing out that
many had previously been indiscreet in their choice of wives. At the same time she appointed
royal visitors to secure the subscription of the clergy to the royal supremacy. Only the
visitation records for the northern province have survived; they indicate a fairly low proportion
of refusals but a higher number of absentees. Outright refusal was rare among parish priests,
commoner in cathedral chapters and the universities. The large numbers who avoided
committing themselves suggest that the Elizabethan Church was a long way from winning firm
support. But by the beginning of 1560 the foundation of that Church had been laid and
Elizabeth was able to delegate the task of administering it to her bishops.
Adapted from Penry Williams, The Later Tudors: England, 1547-1603, 1995.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to the impact of the Elizabethan
religious settlement.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…
Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…
Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
Elizabeth’s reign was a period of order and good government, such as had not been
seen in England since the 1520s. The Privy Council met twice a week, usually with up
to ten of the courtiers and bureaucrats in attendance. The formal business was
dispatched briskly and only foreign policy issues and the treatment of Mary, Queen of
Scots, required lengthy discussion. There were some disagreements among
councillors, but no struggles for power. The key members were related, and shared the
same ambitions and assumptions. The queen rarely saw her Council as a whole, and
dealt privately with Burghley, Leicester, Walsingham, Sussex and, later, Hatton, so
their leadership was assured. The wider royal court was dominated by the same
individuals and families, and the factionalism of the 1560s had passed. The
parliaments of 1571, 1572, 1576 and 1581 were carefully managed by the councillors
and their agents. It was a narrow, but coherent and effective regime.
Adapted from Christopher Haigh, ‘Politics in an Age of Peace and War, 1570-
1630’, 1996.

Extract 2
Most accounts of the court have tended to emphasise factional strife and a vicious
atmosphere of place-seeking, enmity and competition surrounding an alternately
goddess-like or hag-like queen. Yet much of the evidence for factional strife has been
drawn from the 1590s and by no means reflects the reality of the previous decades.
The court was never completely free from conflict. But such conflict was less the
product of faction among courtiers than of disputes between an able, charming, yet
imperious and idiosyncratic queen, and councillors and intimates who in general
shared a high degree of social, political and cultural homogeneity. It is not the
surprising to find some of the strongest criticisms of court life from men at the centre.
Yet compared to that of Henry VIII Elizabeth’s governance was mild and merciful.
Elizabeth may have been imperious, vain and sharp of temper, but she was unwilling
to go to extremes.
Adapted from Simon Adams, ‘Eliza enthroned? The court and its politics’, 1984.

Extract 3
Elizabeth I carefully managed her own policy. As Sir Robert Naunton later explained,
‘Though very capable of counsel, she was absolute enough in her own resolution,
which was apparent, even to her last’. She knew her mind; her instinct to power was
infallible. When her privy councillors tried to manipulate her, they were rarely
successful; she would lose her temper and the matter would rest in abeyance. Yet she
repeatedly postponed important decisions; unless panicked, she could procrastinate
for years. Her successive ditherings drove Sir William Cecil to distraction. Francis
Bacon put his finger on the essence of Elizabethan politics: first, that to succeed at
court politicians had to pretend to be in love with the queen; secondly, that the
conduct of the ‘game’ of courtship was Elizabeth’s most effective tool of policy.
 Adapted from John Guy, ‘Tudor monarchy and political culture’, 1996.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to Elizabethan government.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
What made it all so exceedingly frustrating was that the war dragged on for nineteen
long years and that, although victory seemed on several occasions – in 1589, in 1591,
in 1596 – just around the corner, in the event it never arrived. On those three
occasions victory did seem almost within sight, at least victory in the sense that
Elizabeth understood it: the expulsion of Spanish troops from the Netherlands and
those countries’ return to the substantial measure of home rule they had enjoyed
under Charles V, combined with the restoration of the French monarchy to strength
and independence as an effective counterpoise to Spanish mightiness. On each
occasion, however, victory slipped away. Those whose shoulders were most galled by
the burdens therefore tended to blame the government, some for not making peace,
quite as many for not winning the war. This happened all the more because
government was getting more inbred, and court and country were beginning to grow
apart. All this added up to a widespread groundswell of grumbling. It all bred a new
and more critical attitude to central government.
Adapted from R. B. Wernham, The Making of Elizabethan Foreign Policy, 1558-
1603, 1980.

Extract 2
From the days of Secretary Walsingham onwards, Elizabeth has been criticised for her
slow, indecisive and stingy habits when dealing with overseas problems, charges to
which modern historians from Froude onwards have added ill-placed reproaches at her
unwillingness to promote ideals, whether as the champion of Protestantism or as the
godmother of a reconstructed and liberated Netherlands. Her objectives were prosaic
and local, but practicable. Her success is to be measured by the survival of the cloth-
export traffic to central Europe and by the maintenance of royal credit in foreign
exchanges as well as by the defeat of the Armada in 1588. Her policy, whatever its
shortcomings in execution had worked. By the time of her death, the kingdom had
weathered the threat of invasion.
Adapted from G. D. Ramsay, The Foreign Policy of Elizabeth, 1996.

Extract 3
The key to Elizabethan conservatism remains financial, and it is on the success of its
financial policies that Elizabethan government must be judged. Here, foreign policy
played a central role, for the peculiar circumstances of European politics in the second
half of the sixteenth century placed England in a uniquely critical position. Not only
were the possibilities for military and naval intervention practically limitless, but over
£1 million of Elizabeth’s wartime expenditure took the form of loans and subsidies to
allies. Moreover, this was a government deeply conscious of the disasters created by
military over-extension in Edward VI’s reign. That it was able to conduct a reasonably
successful foreign policy without bankrupting the Crown, for all the failures in detail,
was its great accomplishment. The danger lay in the bequest to Elizabeth’s successors
of the myth of a glorious foreign policy that they found impossible to live up to.
Adapted from Simon Adams, England and the world under the Tudors, 1996.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to Elizabethan foreign policy.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…
Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…
Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
The measures of parish relief adopted in the reign of Elizabeth were probably
sufficient, with the assistance of charitable bequests and indiscriminate alms-giving to
keep the aged and ‘impotent’ poor alive at a very low level of assistance during times
of normal harvests. Over most of the country these measures, combined with the
government’s corn policy, helped to avoid widespread starvation. But in the north
people did die of hunger in bad years: a report from Newcastle in 1597 spoke of
‘sundry starving and dying in our streets and in the fields for lack of bread’; and other
parts of northern England were probably still worse off. But in the Midlands and the
south-east disease seems to have been a more dangerous killer than hunger – though
it is hardly possible to make a clear distinction between the two. How far the
government’s measures were responsible for this happier fate it is impossible to say.
Adapted from Penry Williams, The Tudor Regime, 1979.

Extract 2
There is little evidence for a problem of rural poverty on a large scale, except during
the famine crisis of 1596-1598. In villages in Bedfordshire and Essex, income from the
poor-rate always exceeded expenditure, and there was always enough to maintain the
deserving poor, at least until the 1590s. What may be suggested as normal in the later
Tudor period was that many were certainly desperately poor in all areas, but except in
times of famine or economic depression the rural areas could normally support their
indigenous poor, sending on their way paupers and vagrants who tried to come in from
elsewhere. Where the system broke down was in the towns, especially in the larger
towns and, above all, in the capital. What this might have meant is that if the
countryside remained free of overwhelming poverty, it was achieved only through
exporting its problems to the towns.
Adapted from David M. Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth: England under the Later
Tudors, 1547-1603, 1983.

Extract 3
The poor law could not be an ambitious blueprint for social reconstruction or major
schemes for public works financed by central taxation or a new kind of slavery. Such
utopian ideals were cut down to size by the realities of local government represented
in Parliament by sceptical MPs. The poor law had to be applicable to small rural
communities as well as major cities. It was likely to reflect the interests of those who
had traditionally managed charitable distributions. It was bound therefore to be
parochial if it was to be nationally uniform. Such matters as who was to be counted a
vagrant had in the end to be left to local constables and justices to determine;
similarly, the question of who were the impotent. A local tax for the poor was a striking
achievement and one unique to England.
Adapted from Paul Slack, The English Poor Law, 1531-1782, 1990.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to poor relief in Elizabethan England.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

 Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
Evictions of tenants certainly occurred, especially those with the weakest sorts of
tenancies; and certainly there were many disputes over rights, as landlords showed
their eagerness to acquire more land, to enclose land or to jack up their rental income.
Many a tenant of small resources could not afford legal redress against such
pressures; or, squeezed between rising prices and inadequate land to provide a
consistent saleable surplus, sold out to neighbours with larger holdings or to landlords
eager to consolidate their estates. In this way, such men went down the social ladder
to swell the growing number either of wholly landless agricultural labourers or that
familiar stratum of the pre-industrialised society, the struggling husbandman, the
small peasant with just enough land to feed his family in good times but forever at the
mercy of a bad harvest and often in debt to local tradesmen.
Adapted from Donald C. Coleman, The Economy of England, 1450-1750, 1977.

Extract 2
A combination of relatively broadly spread prosperity, and only a small proportion of
the population wholly dependent on wages, limited the degree of impoverishment. The
evidence of inventories – which reach down to a fairly humble social level – suggests
that even the better-off labourers lived better, and enjoyed more consumer goods,
than their grandparents. If they were falling behind the landholders, they were still
generally better off in absolute terms. It may well be that, as a result of rising prices,
smallholders and the landless had to run faster to stay in the same place. Many took
up additional employments to increase the family income, especially the making of
consumer goods like stocking, nails, pins, soap, starch and beer. That in turn
presupposes a large home demand for these goods, and does not suggest a badly
impoverished society.
Adapted from David M. Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth: England under the Later
Tudors, 1547-1603, 1983.

Extract 3
Industrial growth was barely sustained between 1550 and 1603. It seems that the pool
of surplus labour caused by population expansion, the decline in purchasing power of
wage-earners, and the fact that some two fifths of the population were on the margins
of subsistence, combined to depress industrial demand and gave merchant
entrepreneurs insufficient incentive to raise output, seek organisational change or
technical innovation, or practise import substitution on a wide-scale. Consumer
demand was mainly for a restricted range of products: woollen textiles and leather
goods, building materials, and agricultural and household implements.
Adapted from John Guy, Tudor England, 1988.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to Elizabethan society and the
economy.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
 unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
In the 1580s the powerful and organised opposition which threatened the established
Church appeared at times to be so formidable that it seems remarkable that the
Church managed to emerge fundamentally unchanged at the end of the decade and to
be in a position to launch a vigorous counter-offensive against those who sought to
change it. There were many very influential people in the 1580s who were prepared to
answer ‘yes’ to the question asked in a Puritan petition of 1588 – ‘whether the desire
of a further and better reformation in the Church of England, in dutiful manner, be not
warranted by the word of God and law of England’? But the fierce onslaughts were
repelled, mainly, it seems, because the queen resolutely and skilfully resisted any
attempts to alter the Church.
Adapted from Patrick McGrath, Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I, 1967.

Extract 2
Whitgift’s Protestantism, even his Calvinism, was not in question, and on the subject of
preaching he would have found it easier to agree with Grindal than with his royal
mistress. But. Sharing Elizabeth’s dread of ‘factious’ nonconformity and bringing to his
office a schoolmasterly testiness which was all his own, he required the entire clergy of
his province to endorse by formal subscription the established doctrine, liturgy and
government of the Church as entirely scriptural. Francis Bacon would later warn
Whitgift and his colleagues that ‘in standing so precisely upon altering nothing’, they
incurred much of the blame for what ensued. Hundreds of preaching ministers were
silenced and placed in peril of deprivation, often on account of minor conscientious
scruples. This was a tactical error which created a broad alliance of forces hostile to
the Archbishop.
Adapted from Patrick Collinson, English Puritanism, 1983.

Extract 3
The state of religion in Elizabethan England fell short of the Puritan ideal. None the
less, historians should not underestimate the achievements of the late Elizabethan
Church: the great advance made in the conversion of the people during the second
half of the reign, the improvement in the quality of the clergy and the revitalisation of
the Church courts. Through the efforts of the government, bishops and Puritan laity, a
new framework for Protestant worship and devotion was erected in most English
parishes, which ultimately led to a major change in religious beliefs. Lay people’s
memory of Catholic forms of worship gradually disappeared as the external features of
the old religion were eventually removed from the churches, while a regular exposure
to the Elizabethan prayer book and to Protestant sermons imbued ordinary men and
women with a deep anti-papalism.
Adapted from Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Religion, 1558-1603, 1994.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to the condition of the Church of
England during the reign of Elizabeth I.
Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…
Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
There were many reasons for dissatisfaction with Elizabeth’s rule. In refusing to name her
heir, she took enormous risks for her kingdom. All possible solutions to the problem carried
with them dangers, but her course was the most dangerous of all, and only good fortune
saved the country from a disputed succession. She procrastinated over matters of foreign
policy and military strategy. She did little to strengthen her Church and a good deal to
weaken it. She allowed royal revenues to be eroded by inflation and she sold off the lands
of the Crown. She let the Cecil group take over the court, antagonising Essex and many
other of the younger nobles. However, there is more to be said on the other side. Elizabeth
had the great gift of choosing able ministers and of standing by them, giving her realm the
stable regime that it had lacked under her father, her brother and her sister. She had a
skill in public display which made her deeply admired. Thanks in part to her caution, the
realm was preserved from the dissensions and calamities that beset Europe and the Crown
was saved from the disasters that befell it under those two interventionist monarchs,
Charles I and James II.
Adapted from Penry Williams, The Later Tudors, 1547-1603, 1995.

Extract 2
Queen Elizabeth did not attempt to solve problems, she simply avoided them – and then
survived long enough for some to go away. The rest returned to plague her successor,
James I – but that was his problem, and she had never given much attention to what would
happen after her death. Her refusal to tackle the succession issue, her sale of Crown lands
to finance wars, and her denial of place and reward to the Essex generation showed how
limited was her concern for the future. This pragmatic approach to politics was possible
because Elizabeth had a restricted conception of her role as queen. Though she spoke
much of her duty to God and her care for her people, this was political rhetoric to justify
her role. After the ecclesiastical settlement of 1559, she felt no public obligation to do
anything more – she did not reform administration, or purify the Church or improve the lot
of the poor – because she saw no reason why she should.
Adapted from Christopher Haigh, Elizabeth I, 1988.

Extract 3
Elizabeth I carefully managed her own policy. As Sir Robert Naunton later explained,
‘Though very capable of counsel, she was absolute enough in her own resolution, which
was apparent, even to her last’. She knew her mind; her instinct to power was infallible.
When her privy councillors tried to manipulate her, they were rarely successful; she would
lose her temper and the matter would rest in abeyance. Yet she repeatedly postponed
important decisions. Her successive ditherings drove Burghley to distraction. Thus she
wavered over intervention in 1559-60 in support of the Protestant lords in Scotland; over
the safety of the realm and the succession issue in the 1560s, 1570s and 1580s; over the
trial and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1585-87; and over what became the most
vexed issue of all, whether or not to offer military assistance to the Dutch Protestants in
their heroic struggle against Philip II.
Adapted from John Guy, ‘Tudor monarchy and political culture’, 1996

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the arguments
in these three extracts are in relation to Elizabeth I.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…
 Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…
Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
In the view of the Tudor sovereigns – and Elizabeth held it to the end – parliaments
were summoned to do three things, and three things only: to vote such taxes as were
required, to legislate on topics submitted to them, and to give advice on policy when
asked. Elizabeth’s parliaments certainly fulfilled these functions. Each session was
called with some principal object in view…(However) it was during these sessions that
the House of Commons began to grope towards another, and rival, conception of its
functions, and in the process to join issue with the Crown. That issue is epitomised in
the immortal words ‘freedom of speech’…’Matters of state’ could come up only on the
royal initiative. Unfortunately, the two questions which touched Members most keenly
were by this definition ‘matters of state’…Succeeding parliaments went on urging the
Queen to ease her subjects’ minds by marrying or naming a successor, or at least by
disposing of the claim and person of Mary Stuart.
Adapted from S. T. Bindoff, Tudor England, 1950.

Extract 2
Some historians have argued that Parliament became politicised under Elizabeth;
ordinary MPs, especially puritans and common lawyers, according to this view,
ventilated their ‘opposition’ to her conservatism. But this interpretation endows the
House of Commons with a preconceived status and fails to recognise the influence of
the Lords in an aristocratic age. It also falsely presupposes that ‘adversary politics’
prevailed in the sixteenth century…Those who have posited the ‘rise’ of the Commons
have studied Tudor Parliaments from the perspective of a determinist interpretation of
the ‘origins’ of the Civil War and Interregnum. By seeking the origins of the Stuart
conflict in the so-called ‘apprenticeship to future greatness’ of the Elizabethan House
of Commons, the leading exponent of this interpretation (J. E. Neale) was driven to
manufacture a ‘puritan choir’ supposedly operating within Elizabeth’s early
Parliaments.
Adapted from John Guy, Tudor England, 1988.

Extract 3
(In 1601 Elizabeth’s) touch was as sure as ever. Before Christmas her words to the
deputation in the Council Chamber were in print and later generations were to call it
her ‘golden speech’, for she had here put into words, without attempting definition, the
essence of that remarkable relationship between sovereign and people in the golden
age of monarchy that passed with her death…The Commons had responded loyally
with voting four subsidies and eight fifteenths and tenths…Before they dispersed to
their homes for Christmas, she gave member…a masterly survey of policy during the
forty-four years as queen, a statesman’s swan-song, for with taxation voted for the
next four years she knew, surely, she would be unlikely to survive to address another
Parliament.
Adapted from Neville Williams, Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1967.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to Elizabeth’s relations with Parliament
during her reign.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…
Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…
Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Extract 1
Elizabeth possessed great qualifications in government. She had a very masculine
attribute – a forceful imperious personality. She used this ruthlessly to subordinate
both Court and Council to her will. Elizabeth displayed two other qualities. The first
was self-mastery which enabled her, at crucial moments, to put political goals ahead of
personal preferences. The great testing time for this quality came in 1560–61 when
she turned away from marriage with Dudley. But that mastery was not always
complete. In her relations with Mary Stuart, for instance, personal biases alternated
uncertainly with political calculation, and her ministers had always to reckon with the
influence of these half-buried but intensely felt instinctive reactions. Secondly there
was the keen political judgement which the professionals of her court came to
appreciate. This professional admiration which the Queen commanded in the highest
political circles stood her in good stead when her control of policy was seriously
challenged in 1569.
Adapted from Wallace MacCaffrey, The Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime, 1969.

Extract 2
The direct personal interest which the Queen took in all aspects of administration and
her ability to pick good ministers and delegate authority to them in routine matters
were admirable qualities. However much she may have relied on ministers for advice
and ideas, she alone made the final decisions. In the last analysis, credit for the
triumphs of the period must therefore go to Elizabeth. There can be no doubt indeed
that it was largely due to the personal and constant vigilance of the Queen that
England escaped financial disaster. Fortunately, Elizabeth had admirable sense in
money matters. This was evident during the last years of her reign when Elizabeth
was conducting naval operations against Spain and fighting expensive wars in France
and Ireland. In view of the enormous demands upon her purse it is astonishing that
she managed to stay solvent. She was able to achieve this only because she cut
ordinary expenditure to the bone.
Adapted from AGR Smith, The Government of Elizabethan England, 1967.

Extract 3
The politics of Elizabethan England were dominated by events which did not happen.
The most pressing question of diplomacy and high politics – the Queen’s marriage –
was eventually resolved by inaction, when it finally became clear that she would not
marry at all. Elizabeth’s foreign policy was not quite so static, but its themes were
consistent. She was poor, she knew it and she had no interest in crusades or military
glory. She spent most of her reign resisting cries for intervention to defend her fellow
Protestants, beleaguered in Scotland, France and the Netherlands and when she did
succumb she did so to the minimal extent possible. Whether we call this stability,
prevarication or paralysis, it was how Elizabeth liked to govern. On those rare
occasions when real action was taken it was usually preceded by months of royal
deliberation and obstruction. The political world of Elizabethan England was one of
frustration at the Queen’s apparent refusal to act.
Adapted from Alec Ryrie, The Age of Reformation, 2009.

Q: Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the
arguments in these three extracts are in relation to Elizabeth I’s style of government.

Paragraph One: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 1
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Two: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 1
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph HISTORIAN argues that…

Three: Extract 2
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Four: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 2
unconvincing
This can be challenged…

Paragraph Five: HISTORIAN argues that…

Extract 3
convincing
This is a convincing argument because…

Paragraph Six: However, HISTORIAN also argues that…

Extract 3
unconvincing
This can be challenged…