Evaluate the success with which two rulers, each from a different region, overcame challenges to their power.

The question requires that candidates make an appraisal of the success of two rulers in overcoming challenges to their power, weighing up the strengths and limitations of the rulers’ responses to these challenges. The two rulers must be from different regions, but they may or may not have been contemporaries. A comparative approach may or may not be used. Candidates may refer to rulers’ responses to military challenges, challenges to political supremacy (including conflict with religious authorities), challenges posed by individual rivals for power, challenges relating to marriage, death and succession, challenges to the territorial integrity of the rulers’ land, or economic challenges. Both strengths and limitations must be clearly indicated, but there does not need to be an equal focus on each.