Rebellions and Uprising in the age of the Tudors

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The sequence of rebellions which took place under the Tudor monarchs.
• The links which existed between taxation, religion , national and regional identities and rebellion.
• The reasons why so many of the rebellions were suppressed.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Describe and assess the various rebellions which took place in Tudor England.
• Demonstrate theoretical and methodological skills when considering the rebellions which took place under the Tudor monarchs
• Reflect on the place of controversy in historical studies.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Write fluently and effectively, preparing assessed work independently.
• Demonstrate problem-solving skills.
• Find, assimilate and analyse diverse and complex information.

On 22 August 1485 King Richard III was defeated and killed by the forces of the twenty-eight year old Henry Tudor at the battle of Bosworth Field. With Richard dead, his young challenger was promptly acclaimed as his successor. Thus the Tudor dynasty was established, and the man who only hours before had been the leader of a desperate rebellion found himself transformed instead into the ruler of all England. It was a stunning success – but it was also a powerful reminder of just how vulnerable the position of an early modern monarch could be. Over the succeeding decades, Henry VII, his son and grandchildren were themselves to face a series of major riots and rebellions: some of which shook the authority of the Tudor crown to its very foundations. This course introduces students to the many insurrections and popular disturbances which occurred during the period 1485-1603: episodes which – as scholars are now increasingly coming to realise – illustrate as few other episodes can the deep-seated splits and divisions which lurked behind the smooth-seeming façade of Tudor society.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

• Lectures.
• Seminars.

Learning activities include

• Intensive reading, guided by annotated reading lists, by the lectures and by your own active participation in seminars.

Studying individual sources.

Resources & Reading list

Journal Articles

P. Williams. Rebellion and Revolution in Early Modern England. War and Society: Essays in Honour of John Western.

Textbooks

A. Wall (2000). Power and Protest in England, 1525-1640 (especially chapters 9-10). London.

M. Stoyle (2002). West Britons: Cornish Identities and the Early Modern State. Exeter.

P. Slack, (ed.) (1984). Rebellion, Popular Protest and the Social Order in Early Modern England. Cambridge.

A. Wood (2002). Riot, Rebellion and Popular Politics in Early Modern England pp. 1-89. Basingstoke.

A. Fletcher and D. MacCulloch (2009). Tudor Rebellions.

A. Fletcher and J. Stevenson (1987). Order and Disorder in Early Modern England. Cambridge.

P. Williams (1979). The Tudor Regime. Oxford.

R.B. Manning (1987). Village Revolts: Social Protest and Popular Disturbances in England, 1509-1640. Oxford.

Assessment strategy

Assessments designed to provide informal, on-module feedback

 You will be given informal feedback on your oral contributions and essay planning during the course of the module.

 In this option module, you will be assessed informally on oral and group skills.

 Formal assessment of these skills will be carried out in the core modules.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External