Q1 How useful is the source Practice Questions: Power & the People

Study Source A below, then answer the question.

Source A: From a chronicle of the kings of England written by a monk at an abbey in eastern England in about 1220, four years after King John's death. The abbey's lands had been taken into the King's hands during his quarrel with the Pope. The chronicle was written for the monks of the abbey and for other churchmen.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

In the days of King John the kingdom groaned. After he lost Normandy to the King of France he demanded scutage again and again from barons who would not sail with him, and seized the lands of those who could not pay. When he quarrelled with the Pope over the Archbishop of Canterbury, our churches were shut for six years and the dead were buried without prayers. At last the northern barons would serve him no longer, and at Runnymede they forced him to set his seal to a charter of liberties. Within weeks he begged the Pope to cancel it, and war followed.

Study Source A below, then answer the question.

Source A: From a letter written by a merchant in Boston to his business partner in London, January 1774. The merchant traded in British goods and hoped his partner would explain colonial feeling to members of Parliament.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

You will have heard by now what was done to the tea in our harbour last month. I did not approve of the destruction of private property, yet you must understand the temper here. Parliament leaves a duty on tea only to prove that it may tax us as it pleases, though we send no member to Westminster. We have petitioned, we have refused to buy British goods, and we have been answered with soldiers in our streets. If the Ministry now punishes the whole town, even moderate men will be driven to resistance.

Study Source A below, then answer the question.

Source A: From a printed leaflet handed out by a local anti-slavery society in a Yorkshire town in 1830, three years before Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act. It was written to persuade townspeople to sign a petition and to attend a public meeting.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

Reader, the trade in slaves was ended by Parliament in 1807, yet in our West Indian colonies men, women and children are still bought, sold and driven to labour in the cane fields. Will you be content that the sugar in your tea is the fruit of the whip? Our Society asks three things of you: refuse to buy slave-grown sugar; attend our meeting at the Assembly Rooms on Monday evening; and set your name to the petition we shall send to the House of Commons. Thousands of names have already been gathered in this county alone.

Study Source A below, then answer the question.

Source A: From a letter written by a woman machinist at a car factory, published in her trade union's monthly magazine in 1969. She was writing to persuade other union members to support a national campaign for equal pay.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

At our plant the women who sew the car seat covers are graded below the men who sweep the floors. Last summer the machinists at another factory stopped work for three weeks over the same grievance, and the whole line was halted for want of seat covers. Our branch supported them. We are told a Bill on equal pay is being prepared, but a law that takes years to come into force will not pay this week's bills. Until women sit on the union's committees as well as marching behind its banners, our claims will always be settled last.

Study Source A below, then answer the question.

Source A: From a letter written by a London merchant, whose city had supported Simon de Montfort in his war against Henry III, to his brother in Bristol in February 1265, while the parliament summoned by de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, was sitting at Westminster.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

Brother, you would scarcely know this city. Since the fighting at Lewes the Earl has kept the King and the King's son in his own keeping, and governs in the King's name. He has summoned to Westminster not only bishops and great lords, but two citizens from each of our chief towns and two knights from every shire. Men of our own guild sit among them, which no merchant here can remember before. The Earl says the realm shall no longer be ruled by the King's foreign kinsmen, who have emptied our purses. Yet certain lords grumble that one earl has merely taken the King's place.