Economic and Social Problems under Mary

Active learning lets students engage with economic and social pressures as lived experiences rather than abstract policies. Handling primary evidence, debating trade-offs, and building timelines turn distant hardship into tangible decisions, building historical empathy and analytical rigor.

• Year 12
• History
• 4 activities
• 30 min–50 min

Learning Objectives

1. Analyze the causes and consequences of harvest failures and food shortages during Mary I's reign.
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of Mary I's government's administrative and fiscal reforms in addressing economic instability.
3. Critique the extent to which the 'sweating sickness' contributed to social and economic crisis in the 1550s.
4. Compare Mary I's naval reforms with those of preceding and succeeding monarchs, assessing their long-term impact.
5. Synthesize evidence to argue whether Mary I's reign was primarily a period of crisis or continuity.

Hexagonal Thinking

⏱ 50 min·Small Groups

Source Stations: Crisis Evidence

Prepare stations with extracts on harvest failures, sweating sickness reports, and reform proclamations. Groups visit each for 10 minutes, noting causes, responses, and impacts, then share syntheses. Follow with class vote on crisis extent.

Prepare & details

Explain how Mary's government responded to the inflation of the 1550s.

Facilitation Tip: During Source Stations, place a mix of quantitative (grain price lists) and qualitative (letters from constables) at each station to force students to connect numbers and human impact.

Setup: Flat table or floor space for arranging hexagons

Materials: Pre-printed hexagon cards (15-25 per group), Large paper for final arrangement

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Hexagonal Thinking

⏱ 45 min·Pairs

Debate Pairs: Reforms vs Crisis

Assign pairs to argue for or against Mary's reforms as Elizabethan foundations. Provide data cards on naval spending and coinage. Pairs prepare 3-minute speeches, then switch sides for rebuttals. Conclude with whole-class evaluation.

Prepare & details

Analyze whether the administrative and naval reforms of Mary's reign were the basis for Elizabethan success.

Facilitation Tip: For Debate Pairs, assign students roles as pro-reform merchants or distressed laborers to ensure claims are grounded in the sources they’ve handled in earlier activities.

Setup: Flat table or floor space for arranging hexagons

Materials: Pre-printed hexagon cards (15-25 per group), Large paper for final arrangement

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Hexagonal Thinking

⏱ 30 min·Small Groups

Timeline Build: Economic Timeline

Individuals or pairs sequence 12 event cards on inflation, sickness, and reforms chronologically. Add impact annotations using class glossary. Groups present one segment, linking to key questions.

Prepare & details

Evaluate the extent to which Mary's reign was a period of 'crisis'.

Facilitation Tip: When building the Economic Timeline, provide blank slips for each event so students physically rearrange them, revealing how sequencing changes causal stories.

Setup: Flat table or floor space for arranging hexagons

Materials: Pre-printed hexagon cards (15-25 per group), Large paper for final arrangement

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Hexagonal Thinking

⏱ 40 min·Small Groups

Council Role-Play: Inflation Response

Form council groups with roles like chancellor and advisors. Present scenario of 1557 price spike; groups propose and vote on policies from source menu. Debrief compares to actual decisions.

Prepare & details

Explain how Mary's government responded to the inflation of the 1550s.

Facilitation Tip: In the Council Role-Play, give advisers distinct agendas (finance minister vs. social welfare advocate) to surface trade-offs in real time.

Setup: Flat table or floor space for arranging hexagons

Materials: Pre-printed hexagon cards (15-25 per group), Large paper for final arrangement

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Teaching This Topic

Start with the concrete: use grain price graphs and sweating-sickness mortality tables to anchor analysis before introducing policy debates. Avoid framing Mary’s reign as a failure narrative; instead, guide students to assess problems in context, noting what succeeded (coinage reform) and what did not (enclosure controls). Research shows students over-generalize Tudor inflation; slow them down by forcing them to calculate triple-price increases on sample baskets of goods.

What to Expect

Students will trace how harvest failures, disease, and inflation interacted with government responses like coinage reform and enclosure controls. They will weigh evidence, debate causality, and sequence events to explain outcomes, not just recall dates.

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

Common Misconception

During Source Stations, watch for students attributing all hardship to Mary’s religious policies.

What to Teach Instead

Ask students to sort sources into two columns: one labeled 'circumstance' (harvest, disease) and one 'policy' (coinage, enclosure), using the station’s evidence to justify each placement.

Common Misconception

During Debate Pairs, students may claim all of Mary’s reforms failed.

What to Teach Instead

Direct pairs to use the reform cards from the timeline activity to tally successes (coinage output stabilized) and setbacks (enclosure grievances persisted), anchoring arguments in measurable outcomes.

Common Misconception

During Timeline Build, students may understate inflation’s scale.

What to Teach Instead

Have students post price increases next to key events; when a price doubles or triples, ask them to mark it visually with a bold arrow to force attention to magnitude.

Assessment Ideas

Exit Ticket

After Source Stations, give students a short excerpt describing a riot over bread prices. Ask them to write two sentences explaining the immediate cause and one sentence connecting it to a policy attempt from Mary’s reign.

Discussion Prompt

During Debate Pairs, circulate and listen for whether pairs cite specific reforms (coinage recoinage, dockyard expansion) and their measured effects (e.g., reduced mint fraud, increased ship output) to support their arguments about legacy vs. continuity.

Quick Check

During Timeline Build, ask students to categorize events as economic problem, social problem, or government response, then justify one choice in writing; collect responses to check precision before moving to role-play.

Extensions & Scaffolding

• Challenge early finishers to draft a 1557 pamphlet arguing for or against enclosure controls, using their timeline evidence to predict consequences.
• Scaffolding for struggling students: provide pre-sorted source pairs (e.g., price list + contemporary complaint) to model how to link data to human impact.
• Deeper exploration: ask students to compare Mary’s naval reforms with Elizabeth’s later shipbuilding programs to evaluate continuity and change over two reigns.

Key Vocabulary

Debasement	The reduction in the precious metal content of a country's coinage, often leading to inflation and loss of confidence in the currency.
Sweating Sickness	A mysterious and rapid epidemic disease that caused high mortality rates in England, particularly in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, reappearing during Mary's reign.
Enclosure Movement	The process of consolidating small landholdings into larger farms, often by fencing off common lands, which could lead to social disruption and food supply issues.
Recoinage	The process of calling in old, debased coinage and issuing new, standard-value coins, undertaken to stabilize the currency.
Poor Laws	Legislation aimed at addressing poverty and social welfare, which became increasingly important as economic hardship and population growth strained relief systems.