First, check that this is your course

This guide is for WJEC AS History, Unit 1, Option 2: Government, Revolution and Society in Wales and England, c.1603–1715.

It is a period study. You need to understand change across the whole period, make connections between events, and judge why developments mattered. Wales is not an optional extra: the course asks about government, religion, conflict and society in Wales and England.

In the examination, you have 1 hour 30 minutes and answer two 30-mark essay questions: one from Section A and one from Section B. The paper tests your knowledge, explanation, analysis and judgement.

The course in one view

The story begins with James VI of Scotland becoming James I of England in 1603. It passes through conflict between monarchs and Parliaments, civil war, the execution of Charles I, experiments without a king, the return of the monarchy, and another revolution in 1688–89. It ends in 1715, when party conflict, Protestant succession and a stronger parliamentary system had reshaped government.

WJEC organises the course around five connected questions:

1. Why did the Stuart monarchy face serious challenges between 1603 and 1642?
2. How did civil war affect Wales and England, and why did Parliament win?
3. Why did the Commonwealth and Protectorate fail to create a lasting republic between 1649 and 1660?
4. What pressures faced the restored monarchy between 1660 and 1685?
5. How important were the Glorious Revolution and the settlement that followed it?

This is not a simple march from royal tyranny to parliamentary freedom. Stuart kings had genuine supporters. Parliament and the army divided. Radicals wanted different futures. Governments without a king could also use force. Keep asking how religion, money, ideas, personalities, institutions and war interacted.

If that sounds complicated, you are not failing. It is complicated. Start with one simple thread: who should rule, within what limits, and with whose consent? Then add religion, finance and war around it.

The starting world in 1603

James inherited a monarchy that looked powerful but had limits. The Crown governed through royal ministers, the Privy Council, judges, bishops and local officeholders such as justices of the peace. Parliament was not a modern democratic institution. The monarch summoned it, and only a small political nation of landowners and wealthy townsmen participated. Yet Parliament mattered because it made statutes, granted taxation and gave political elites a place to express grievances.

Wales had been legally incorporated into the English kingdom by the sixteenth-century Laws in Wales Acts. Welsh counties sent representatives to Parliament, English law operated across Wales, and Welsh gentry families participated in royal and local government. Wales nevertheless retained a distinct language, culture and regional society. Institutions such as the Council in Wales and the Marches helped connect royal authority with local government. When you discuss Wales, avoid treating it either as a separate state or as merely an English county: it was politically integrated but remained socially and culturally distinctive.

Religion was inseparable from politics. The monarch was supreme governor of the Church of England. Bishops sat in the House of Lords, and local churches communicated royal authority. Most people expected religious unity, but they disagreed over what true Protestantism required. Some Protestants wanted further reform and were often called Puritans. Catholics faced legal penalties and suspicion. Religious change could therefore look like a threat to both salvation and government.

Words that unlock the course

• Dynasty: a ruling family and its succession from one generation to another.
• Prerogative: powers exercised by the monarch, such as appointing ministers and directing foreign policy.
• Divine right: the belief that royal authority came from God, although this did not necessarily mean a king could ignore every law.
• Political nation: the relatively small group of people who held office, voted, sat in Parliament or influenced government.
• Episcopacy: church government through bishops.
• Personal Rule: Charles I’s government without Parliament from 1629 to 1640.
• Regicide: the killing of a king; here, the execution of Charles I in 1649.
• Commonwealth: the republic declared after the abolition of monarchy and the House of Lords.
• Protectorate: the government headed by Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector from 1653.
• Restoration: the return of Charles II and the monarchy in 1660.
• Succession: the process by which the next monarch inherits the throne.
• Revolutionary Settlement: the constitutional and religious arrangements made after James II’s removal in 1688–89.
• Party politics: organised political alignment, especially the developing Whig and Tory groupings.

1. The Stuart monarchy under pressure, 1603–1642

James I and the new dynasty

James’s first task was to make the Stuart succession secure. He presented himself as a lawful, divinely appointed king and maintained the established Church. He relied on royal servants and local elites in Wales and England. His accession was peaceful, an important achievement after anxiety about who would succeed Elizabeth I.

Yet James faced recurring problems. Royal income had not kept pace with the cost of government, and inflation weakened its value. His spending and generosity to favourites made criticism sharper. Parliament could vote taxation, but members expected grievances to be heard in return. Projects such as the Great Contract of 1610, which might have exchanged financial support for the surrender of some royal income rights, failed because trust was too weak.

Religion created further tension. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 intensified anti-Catholic fear. Puritans hoped for greater reform, while James defended bishops because he saw them as supports of monarchy. His foreign policy also caused dispute. Many Protestants wanted firm action in support of European Protestantism, but James preferred negotiation and pursued a possible Spanish marriage for his son. Critics associated Spain with Catholic danger.

James did not simply lose control. He managed Parliament for long periods, preserved peace and passed the Crown securely to Charles in 1625. A strong answer should therefore weigh strain against survival.

Charles I: distrust becomes breakdown

Charles I was less flexible in political relationships. Early Parliaments criticised his favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, unsuccessful wars and demands for money. When Charles collected forced loans and imprisoned some who refused, opponents feared arbitrary government. The Petition of Right in 1628 asserted that taxation required parliamentary consent and challenged imprisonment without stated cause. Charles accepted it, but disagreement over its meaning continued.

In 1629 Charles dissolved Parliament and began Personal Rule. Governing without Parliament was not automatically illegal, but it made his financial and religious policies more controversial. He raised revenue through measures such as ship money, extended inland in the 1630s. The Crown’s victory in the Hampden case did not make the tax popular. Critics believed Charles was exploiting old powers to create a permanent income without Parliament.

Religious policy deepened fear. Archbishop Laud promoted ceremony, order and the authority of bishops. To supporters this restored beauty and discipline. To Puritan critics it looked dangerously close to Catholicism. Charles’s Catholic queen, Henrietta Maria, made suspicion worse. In Wales, as in England, royal and church authority worked through gentry, clergy and local officeholders; reactions varied rather than following one national pattern.

The crisis came when Charles tried to impose a new prayer book on Scotland. Scottish resistance led to the Bishops’ Wars, which Charles could not finance effectively without Parliament. The Short Parliament of 1640 refused immediate cooperation and was dissolved. Military failure forced Charles to call the Long Parliament. It attacked royal ministers, abolished or restricted machinery associated with Personal Rule, and ensured that Parliament could not simply be dismissed.

The Irish Rebellion of 1641 then created a terrifying question: who should control the army raised to restore order? Parliament’s Grand Remonstrance exposed its own divisions. Charles’s failed attempt to arrest five MPs in January 1642 destroyed confidence. Both sides mobilised, and war began in August.

Civil war was not caused by one disagreement. Long-term financial and religious tensions mattered, but a crisis became war through decisions made in 1640–42. In an essay, distinguish between conditions that made conflict possible and actions that made it happen.

2. Civil war, Parliament’s victory and regicide, 1640–1649

The wars divided families, towns and counties. Allegiance reflected religion, local rivalries, personal loyalty, economic interests and calculations of safety. Much of the Welsh gentry initially supported the king, and Wales supplied Charles with recruits and resources. That does not mean every Welsh person was a committed Royalist. Parliament had support in places including parts of Pembrokeshire, and loyalties could change under military pressure.

War reached civilians through taxation, requisitioning, billeting, damaged trade, disease and the movement of armies. Communities paid money and supplied horses, food and labour. Sieges and battles caused local destruction. The fall of Royalist strongholds, including Raglan Castle in 1646, showed the extension of parliamentary power into Wales. A renewed rising in south Wales in 1648 and Parliament’s victory at St Fagans also reveal that the first civil war had not created a stable settlement.

Parliament won for several connected reasons. It controlled London, important ports and many wealthier areas. This gave it stronger access to taxation, credit, arms and manpower. Its alliance with the Scots helped alter the military balance, particularly in 1644. The creation of the New Model Army in 1645 produced a more unified, disciplined force with capable commanders such as Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.

Royalist weakness mattered too. Charles struggled to coordinate separate armies and maintain resources. Royalist divisions and strategic mistakes limited opportunities. Parliament’s victory was therefore neither inevitable nor caused simply by better soldiers: resources, alliances, organisation and leadership reinforced each other.

Victory did not answer the political question. Charles negotiated while hoping his opponents would divide. Parliament, the army and Scottish allies wanted different religious and constitutional settlements. Army radicals demanded wider changes; Levellers argued for greater political rights, though even their proposals stopped far short of modern democracy.

After the second civil war in 1648, army leaders concluded that Charles could not be trusted. Pride’s Purge removed MPs likely to continue negotiations, leaving the Rump Parliament. Charles was tried for treason against his people and executed in January 1649.

Regicide was revolutionary because it claimed that a king could be held accountable to a higher public authority. It was also the action of a committed minority backed by the army, not the clear choice of the population. This tension between principle and force haunted the governments that followed.

Pause and secure the story

Before moving on, make sure you can explain this chain in your own words:

weak trust + disputes over money and religion + war emergencies → breakdown in 1642 → parliamentary military victory → failure to settle with Charles → regicide in 1649

If one arrow feels unclear, return only to that section. You do not need to relearn everything at once.

3. The search for government without a king, 1649–1660

After Charles’s execution, England and Wales became a Commonwealth. The monarchy and House of Lords were abolished, and the Rump claimed supreme authority. Its leaders faced enormous problems: war in Ireland and Scotland, Royalist threats, religious division, debts, army costs and doubts about the regime’s legitimacy.

Cromwell became central because of military success and his standing in the army. Yet force could defeat opponents without creating broad consent. The Rump was criticised for moving too slowly on reform and protecting its own position. Cromwell dissolved it in 1653. The nominated Barebone’s Parliament also failed after internal division.

The Instrument of Government created the Protectorate, with Cromwell as Lord Protector, a Council and Parliaments. It was an attempt to combine authority, law and limited religious toleration. However, Cromwell repeatedly clashed with Parliaments over the constitution, religion, taxation and the army.

The rule of the Major-Generals from 1655 divided England and Wales into military districts. They supervised security, taxation and moral reform. Supporters saw godly order; opponents experienced intrusive army government. The system showed the Protectorate’s problem clearly: it wanted civilian legitimacy but depended heavily on soldiers.

Religious policy had particular significance in Wales. The 1650 Act for the Better Propagation and Preaching of the Gospel in Wales aimed to remove ministers judged unsuitable and spread Protestant preaching. It encouraged energetic figures and new congregations, but investigations and dismissals also created resentment. Welsh-language religious life and local loyalties made the results more complex than a simple story of reform imposed on a passive country.

Cromwell refused the crown in 1657 but accepted a revised constitutional settlement. When he died in 1658, his son Richard lacked his authority and army support. Political confusion returned. General George Monck advanced from Scotland, elections followed, and Charles II was restored in 1660.

Republican government failed because its supporters disagreed about what should replace monarchy, because the army intervened repeatedly, and because successive arrangements lacked broad legitimacy. Financial and security pressures made stable civilian rule harder. The Restoration was popular among many in Wales and England because it promised peace, familiar government and an end to military disruption. That popularity did not mean everyone had forgotten the failures of Charles I.

4. The restored monarchy under pressure, 1660–1685

Charles II returned under the Declaration of Breda, which offered a degree of pardon, settlement and religious reassurance, with details left to Parliament. Monarchy, Lords and the established Church returned. The settlement punished a limited number of regicides but avoided indiscriminate revenge.

Religious uniformity remained divisive. The laws often grouped as the Clarendon Code strengthened the restored Church and placed restrictions on Protestant dissenters. In Wales, Nonconformist communities faced penalties but continued to worship and organise. Charles personally favoured greater toleration, yet many MPs feared that toleration might help Catholicism.

The Crown still faced financial limits and relied on parliamentary grants. Foreign policy and war against the Dutch produced criticism, particularly after disasters such as the Dutch raid on the Medway in 1667. Charles’s secret dealings with Louis XIV of France increased later suspicions, since France represented Catholic and absolutist power to many Protestants.

The succession turned suspicion into crisis. Charles had no legitimate child, so his Catholic brother James, Duke of York, was heir. The Popish Plot scare from 1678 encouraged false accusations and public panic. Exclusionists tried to prevent James succeeding. Their opponents defended hereditary monarchy and feared another slide towards rebellion.

These arguments helped shape Whig and Tory identities. Whigs were more likely to support exclusion and resistance to a threatening ruler; Tories defended hereditary succession, monarchy and the established Church. These were developing coalitions rather than perfectly organised modern parties.

Charles defeated exclusion, dissolved Parliament and ruled without it during his final years. By 1685 the monarchy appeared stronger. Yet the underlying problem remained: could a Catholic successor be trusted to preserve Protestant religion and established law?

5. Revolution, settlement and party conflict, 1685–1715

James II initially received substantial support. The memory of civil war made many political leaders reluctant to resist a lawful king. The rebellions of Monmouth in England and Argyll in Scotland failed, strengthening James’s position.

James then undermined that support. He used royal powers to suspend or dispense with laws, promoted Catholics to office and maintained a standing army that alarmed critics. His Declarations of Indulgence offered religious toleration, but many suspected that the immediate aim was to advance Catholicism through prerogative power. The prosecution and acquittal of the Seven Bishops in 1688 revealed the scale of opposition.

The birth of a Catholic male heir changed the situation. A Catholic dynasty now seemed possible. A group of leading figures invited William of Orange, the Protestant husband of James’s daughter Mary, to intervene. William landed in November 1688. As support collapsed, James fled. England experienced limited fighting compared with Scotland and Ireland, but the transfer of power still depended on military intervention. In Wales, political elites and communities responded within the same kingdom-wide struggle over Protestantism, law and allegiance; the absence of a separate Welsh revolution does not make Wales irrelevant.

In 1689 Parliament offered the crown jointly to William and Mary. The Bill of Rights condemned abuses associated with James, restricted suspending powers and taxation without parliamentary grant, and protected parliamentary proceedings. It did not create full democracy or make ministers immediately accountable in the modern sense. The Crown retained major powers, but regular cooperation with Parliament became increasingly necessary.

Other measures deepened change. The Mutiny Act helped make the standing army dependent on repeated parliamentary approval. The Toleration Act gave limited freedom of worship to many Protestant dissenters but not Catholics, and it did not establish religious equality. The Triennial Act encouraged regular Parliaments. The Act of Settlement 1701 secured a Protestant succession and placed further constitutional limits on the monarchy.

War against Louis XIV increased government spending. Parliament’s control of taxation and borrowing encouraged a financial revolution, including the creation of the Bank of England in 1694 and a funded national debt. This strengthened the state’s ability to wage war while also strengthening Parliament’s regular role.

Party conflict became embedded under William III and Anne. Whigs and Tories disagreed over war, the Church, dissent and the succession. Government increasingly depended on managing support in Parliament. The 1707 Union joined the English and Scottish Parliaments in a new Parliament of Great Britain. Wales, already represented through its incorporation with England, entered this new British state as part of the English parliamentary system.

When Anne died in 1714, George I succeeded under the Protestant settlement. The Jacobite rising of 1715 attempted to restore the Stuart line but failed. The danger of disputed succession had not vanished, yet the settlement survived.

Was 1688–89 a revolution? There was continuity: monarchy, social hierarchy and the established Church remained. Yet the identity of the monarch changed, Parliament determined the succession, royal powers were more clearly limited, and financial dependence made regular parliamentary government harder to avoid. The best judgement depends on what kind of revolution the question asks you to measure.

Six anchor dates

• 1603: James I begins Stuart rule in England and Wales.
• 1642: civil war begins.
• 1649: Charles I is executed and the Commonwealth declared.
• 1660: Charles II is restored.
• 1688–89: James II is removed; William and Mary accept the crown and settlement.
• 1715: the Jacobite rising fails, testing the Protestant succession.

Learn these first. Then attach two or three developments to each. A secure framework is more useful than a loose pile of dates.

How to approach the examination

You answer one question from Section A and one from Section B. Each is worth 30 marks, so divide the 90 minutes sensibly. Allow a few minutes to choose and plan each answer, then protect enough time to finish both.

WJEC rewards a focused argument supported by accurate knowledge. Before writing, underline the judgement word—such as main, most significant or successful—and the precise dates. Turn the question into a test. For example:

To what extent was religion the main cause of the breakdown between Charles I and Parliament by 1642?

Your test might be: religion was the main cause if it created deeper and less negotiable distrust than finance, personality or the immediate crisis of 1640–42.

A strong paragraph does four jobs:

1. makes a claim that answers the question;
2. supports it with precise and relevant knowledge;
3. explains why that evidence proves the claim;
4. compares its importance with another factor or identifies a limit.

Avoid narrating everything you know. Selection is part of the skill. Use Wales where it genuinely answers the question, and never add a disconnected sentence merely to mention it. If the question concerns the effect of war, religious policy, republicanism, Restoration or revolution in Wales and England, comparison and integration are essential.

Your conclusion should not introduce a new story. State the overall judgement, apply a clear criterion, and explain why the strongest alternative is less convincing or only works under particular conditions.

Practice questions

1. How successfully did James I deal with the challenges facing the monarchy between 1603 and 1625?
2. Was Charles I’s personality the main reason for the outbreak of civil war in 1642?
3. How far was Parliament’s victory in the civil wars caused by its superior resources?
4. To what extent did republican government fail because it depended on the army?
5. How effectively did Charles II manage the political and religious pressures of his reign?
6. How revolutionary was the settlement made after 1688?

For one question, try a five-minute plan: write your judgement, three paragraph claims, one piece of evidence for each, and the strongest challenge to your view. That is useful work even if you do not write the full essay.

When you are ready to go further

The next step is to build focused revision pages for each of the five course strands, with evidence banks, timelines and guided essay practice. If a section here still feels too dense, begin with the anchor dates and the simple chain at the pause point. Then return to one section at a time.

You are not expected to understand 112 years of conflict in a single reading. Historical understanding grows through returning, connecting and testing. The complexity is not proof that you cannot do history; learning to handle it is exactly what doing history means.