Invasion

Model answer

A is the Danelaw, the area of eastern and northern England where Danish law and customs were followed. B is York, which the Vikings called Jorvik.

Model answer

Source A is useful to an historian studying how Cnut ruled England because it shows how he wanted to be seen. Cnut was a Danish conqueror who had won the throne by force at the Battle of Assandun in 1016, but here he is a generous Christian king placing a gold cross on the altar, while an angel crowns him. This message, that he ruled by God's will, fits what I know about his rule: he gave gifts to churches, went on pilgrimage to Rome in 1027, and had his laws drafted by Archbishop Wulfstan of York, based on the laws of the English king Edgar.

The drawing also shows Emma, under her English name Aelfgifu, drawn the same size as the king. This is useful because Cnut married her in 1017; as Ethelred II's widow she linked him to the old English royal family and to Normandy, which helped him win acceptance. The hand on his sword is a reminder that he was still a warrior king.

The provenance limits the source as well as adding to it. It was made by the monks of the New Minster, who received gifts from Cnut and Emma, so they had every reason to flatter them. It is propaganda: it shows the image Cnut wanted, not necessarily the reality. It leaves out the harsher side of his rule, such as the execution of Eadric Streona and other nobles in 1017 and the enormous tax of 72,000 pounds plus 10,500 pounds from London in 1018. Nor does it show how he governed through powerful earls such as Godwin while he was away ruling Denmark and Norway.

Overall, Source A is very useful for showing how Cnut presented himself as a Christian king working with the Church and with Emma, which was central to how he won acceptance, but it is less useful for the practical and harsher realities of his government.

Model answer

Emma of Normandy was significant first because of her marriages, which linked England to Normandy. She was the daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy, and in 1002 she married Ethelred II. The marriage was an alliance meant to stop the Normans sheltering Viking fleets that attacked England. It also gave the English royal family a place of refuge: when Sweyn Forkbeard conquered England in 1013, Ethelred and his family fled to Normandy.

Her second marriage, to Cnut in 1017, was significant at the time because it helped the Danish conqueror win acceptance. By marrying Ethelred's widow, Cnut linked himself to the old English royal family and gained an alliance with Normandy. Emma was a prominent queen: in the New Minster Liber Vitae of about 1031 she is drawn the same size as Cnut.

Emma was also significant as the mother of two kings, Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor. After Cnut died in 1035 she held Winchester and the royal treasury for Harthacnut against Harold Harefoot, Cnut's son by another wife. The struggle cost her dearly: her son Alfred was blinded and died in 1036, and she was exiled to Flanders in 1037. But Harthacnut became king in 1040, Edward returned in 1041, and Emma commissioned the Encomium Emmae Reginae to defend her reputation and her sons' rights.

In the long term her greatest significance was the Norman connection. Edward the Confessor spent about 25 years in exile in Normandy and favoured Normans when he became king, making Robert of Jumieges Archbishop of Canterbury. Emma was William of Normandy's great-aunt, and this family tie was part of William's claim to the throne in 1066. The Norman Conquest bound England to France for centuries. Historians today therefore see Emma as one of the most powerful and important women in early medieval England.

Model answer

Religion has played a part in many conflicts between Britain and other peoples, sometimes as a cause and more often as a justification or something that made conflict more bitter. However, across the whole period I think the desire for wealth and power was a more important cause, with religion the main factor in only a few cases.

At first sight, the Viking attacks look like a religious conflict. Pagan raiders attacked Christian monasteries such as Lindisfarne in 793, and churchmen such as Alcuin called them 'a pagan race'. But the Vikings attacked monasteries because they were rich and undefended, not because they were Christian. Religion actually helped to end the conflict: after Edington in 878 Guthrum was baptised with Alfred as his godfather, and the Danes in the Danelaw converted quickly, making it easier to bring them into an English kingdom. Cnut, a Danish conqueror, ruled as a Christian king.

Religion was used to justify conquest in Ireland. Henry II's involvement was supported by the papal grant known as Laudabiliter, issued by the English pope Adrian IV in 1155, which called for the reform of the Irish Church, although historians debate whether the document is genuine. Henry actually went to Ireland in 1171 because he feared that his own barons, such as Strongbow, would set up an independent kingdom there, so power was the real cause. Religion mattered more in the Ulster plantation from 1609, when Protestant settlers from England and Scotland were given land taken from Catholic Irish lords, creating divisions that lasted for centuries.

Religion was most clearly a cause in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Sepoys believed that the cartridges for the new Enfield rifle were greased with cow and pig fat, offending both Hindus and Muslims, and many Indians feared that missionaries and British reforms threatened their religions. Yet even here, other causes mattered, such as the annexation of states under the Doctrine of Lapse and of Awadh in 1856. In Sudan, the Mahdi's religious movement led to the death of General Gordon in 1885, but Britain's reconquest at Omdurman in 1898 was mainly about controlling the Nile and protecting Egypt and the Suez Canal.

Economic resources and power caused more conflicts. The Vikings sought plunder and land. The Hundred Years' War began in 1337 because of Edward III's claim to the French throne, disputes over Gascony and its wine trade, and England's wool trade with Flanders. Elizabethan sea dogs attacked Spain for its silver as much as for its Catholicism. Britain occupied Egypt in 1882 to protect the Suez Canal, and the Boer War of 1899-1902 was fought largely over control of the gold of the Transvaal. In the twentieth century, nationalism, not religion, drove the independence movements of India and Africa and the Suez Crisis of 1956.

In conclusion, religion was the main factor in some conflicts, especially the rebellion of 1857 and the divisions created by the Ulster plantation, and it often made other conflicts more bitter. But across the whole period from c790, the search for wealth and the struggle for power caused far more conflict. Religion was more often a justification for conflict than its real cause.