Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. According to one commentator this rogue (my description) who carried on his nefarious activities for nearly forty years 'was one of the most damaging spies ever to operate in Britain. His crimes against his country are such an indictment of wartime security that every effort has been made to cover them up.'
He managed to bluff the security services for which he worked on at least eleven different occasions when his links to other known spies was investigated.
Who was this traitor, spy and rogue?
2. This 17th century villain, as he subsequently proved to be, was described by the famous historian Lord Macaulay as 'the greatest perjurer in history ... His voice, uplifted in accusation, instituted a period of terror unparalleled in the history of an ancient people'. Do you know who this most evil of villains was?
3. This question illustrates British eccentricity but from a different angle. I'll give you the facts and you tell me the fiction. This hotel proprietor owned a hotel in Torquay. He was known to be extremely rude to guests and staff alike. Apparently a Monty Python film was being filmed nearby and, three of its stars, briefly, stayed there. His character subsequently was used to create a comedic character of some legendary status. Who was this eccentric character?
4. This insurance swindler was brought to justice in the UK in 1967 after several years of insurance frauds. He had the ability to auto simulate the symptoms of a heart attack and used this skill to escape close scrutiny on more than one occasion. He even had the gall to appear on British TV to defend his record. When his companies were forcibly wound up over 250,000 motorists were left with no insurance. So do you know who this scoundrel was?
5. This barrister educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford lived from 1840 to until he drowned himself in the Thames. Allegedly a sexual deviant, his death coincided with the end of the Jack the Ripper Murders. Do you know who this rogue was?
6. During the seventeenth century there was a Europe-wide fear of witchcraft and there were persecutions of likely suspects in many countries including England. One particular character claimed to have been appointed by the Puritan Parliament of the day (during the English Civil War) to be a 'Witch Finder General'. He used water and other tortures to wring confessions from his victims. Can you identify this villain?
7. Throughout history pirates of course have been recognised as true villains. British pirates have been amongst the forefront of unpleasantness. This question is about the 18th century Welsh born pirate who is frequently credited by many historians to have been the origin of the phrase "The Jolly Roger" from his habit of wearing a crimson coat and for his personal flag which was black with two skulls. Do you know he was?
8. This question is about an aristocrat who was so shy that he had a private tunnel built from his ancestral home to the nearest railway station so that he could be driven in his blacked out coach through his tunnel to the station, have himself, inside his carriage, loaded aboard the train and transported to London to his town house. So do you know who this was?
9. This aristocrat liked being in the water so much that his servants sometimes had to carry him from the sea in a near unconscious state. He had a massive water chamber surmounted by a glass dome built at his home near Hythe (in Kent) and lay floating in this pool for hours at a time even entertaining his guests to dinner from this position. Can you identify this man?
10. One to titillate the curiousity of our American friends. This aristocrat returned to his ancestral home from his honeymoon with his new American bride only to take to his bed for the next several weeks. An event he said every Lord ************* (not the right number of letters) had done ever since an ancestor lost the 13 Colonies. So, do you know who this was?
Source: Author
bracklaman
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
bloomsby before going online.
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