The Tudors: What was Mary I like as Queen?

This is a fun and engaging way of introducing Mary Tudor to key stages 3 and 4 which always proves popular with students. Pupils analyse the contents of Mary's hypothetical 'handbag' to discover what she was like as queen. They look at a series of objects which represent various aspects of Mary's reign. For example, the box of matches in her handbag symbolises her penchant for burning Protestants while her rosary reflects her strong Catholic faith. Pupils complete a worksheet recording their explanations of each object. This activity could work equally well as an independent learning task set for homework or as a revision exercise at the end of a unit of work on the Tudors.