Board: Edexcel | Option: 1B | Paper: 1 (Period Study)
About this option
England, 1509–1603: Authority, Nation and Religion covers the whole Tudor century from Henry VIII’s accession to the death of Elizabeth I. Students trace the construction and repeated transformation of the English Reformation, the nature of Tudor royal authority, England’s changing place in European politics, and the social and economic pressures of the later Tudor period. The period study structure requires breadth across nearly a century of dramatic and contested change, assessing how far England had been transformed by 1603.
Key themes
- Henry VIII: the break with Rome, the Royal Supremacy, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the Henrician Reformation’s ambiguous religious character
- Thomas Cromwell and royal government: administrative reform, the use of Parliament, and the ‘Tudor revolution in government’ debate
- Mid-Tudor instability: the Protestant advance under Edward VI, the Catholic restoration under Mary I, and the problem of female rule
- Elizabeth I’s religious settlement: its nature, the Puritan challenge, and the Catholic threat
- Elizabethan politics: the role of the Privy Council, faction, the Essex rebellion, and the succession question
- Foreign policy: England’s relationship with Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Scotland across the century
- Society and economy: population growth, poverty, enclosure, and the social tensions of late Tudor England
What the exam asks
Paper 1 period studies require breadth across the full chronological range, assessing change and the ability to make comparisons across different phases of the period. Students are expected to demonstrate precise factual knowledge and to sustain arguments across the whole option.
Historiography
Tudor England has produced some of the most influential debates in English historiography:
- The Reformation from above or below: how far was the English Reformation a top-down political process driven by Henry VIII’s dynastic needs, and how far was there genuine popular Protestant enthusiasm? (Christopher Haigh versus Patrick Collinson)
- Eamon Duffy and the ‘stripping of the altars’: the revisionist argument that pre-Reformation popular Catholicism was deeply rooted and that the Reformation was experienced as a loss rather than a liberation
- G. R. Elton’s ‘Tudor revolution in government’: the argument that Cromwell created a modern bureaucratic state, and the revisionist challenge to this (David Starkey, Penry Williams)
- The ‘golden age’ of Elizabeth: nationalist celebration versus the revisionist picture of the later reign as characterised by institutional failure, faction, and social stress
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Interpretations pack — coming September 2026
A teaching pack for this option is in development, covering all core historiographical debates. It will include named historians with argument summaries, paired comparison tasks built to Edexcel mark scheme logic, and provenance analysis prompts — all in a downloadable PDF.
£9.99 per pack · Available September 2026
