King Richard III Trivia

1. Although there are many historical inaccuracies in the play, the presence of one character in particular is most unhistorical, as he/she had died in 1482 and, prior to that, had been in exile in France. Which character is it?

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: Queen Margaret

Margaret of Anjou, the French-born consort of Henry VI, was sent into exile in France in 1475, four years after the Battle of Tewkesbury, and never returned to England. Devastated and thoroughly demoralized by the death of her son Edward, as well as the subsequent assassination of her husband, she spent her remaining years in poverty and misery and died in 1482, the year before Richard ascended the throne. In the play, she acts as a sort of sybil, taking grim pleasure in the sufferings of her enemies and prophesying doom for many of Richard's victims, many of whom mistakenly put their trust in him or underestimate his villainy. Her first appearance among the bickering Woodvilles and Plantagenets in Act I, scene III astonishes them. Richard reminds her that she had been banished upon pain of death, to which she replies "I was; but I do find more pain in banishment than death can yield me here by my abode." The two film versions of "Richard III" (Olivier's and Ian Mc Kellan's) eliminated Queen Margaret; Ian Mc Kellan's version divides some of her more memorable lines between the Duchess of York (Richard's mother, played by Maggie Smith) and Queen Elizabeth.

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: Buckingham

Margaret curses virtually everyone present in Act I, scene III, but she is fond of the "princely Buckingham" and warns him against Richard ("O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog! Look when he fawns he bites"). When Buckingham shows solidarity with Richard and rebuffs her warning, she is both hurt and angered and makes this doleful prediction: "O, but remember this another day, when he shall split thy very heart with sorrow, and say poor Margaret was a prophetess!" Before his execution in Act V, Buckingham exclaims "Thus Margaret's curse falls heavily on my neck", and quotes her warning to him.

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: A boar

Richard's heraldic emblem was the "blancsanglier", or white boar. Historically, this may have arisen out of his supposed devotion to St. Antony of Egypt, who was said to have been protected in the wilderness by a wild boar; a boar, or large pig, figures in the saint's iconography. Others have speculated that, since the Latin spelling of the name "York" is "Eboracum", it may have been something of a play on words. In the play, of course, the boar is used to far different symbolic effect; it symbolizes both Richard's deformity (as when old Queen Margaret calls him "Thou elvish mark'd, abortive, rooting hog! Thou that was sealed in thy nativity the slave of nature and the son of Hell!") and his ferocious, predatory nature, as foreseen by Lord Stanley's prophetic dream, related to Hastings, in which "the boar had rased off his [Hasting's] helm."

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: Strawberries

Richard, at this point, is disguising his ambition by feigning disinterest in the impending coronation; he arrives a little late, claiming to have overslept, and nonchalantly asks the Bishop of Ely to send for some strawberries from his garden. According to the Ribner-Kittredge edition of Shakespeare's works "In medieval iconography strawberries were conventional symbols of treachery, since they were usually depicted hiding an adder."

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: If

Richard is determined to remove any obstacles to the throne; chief of which, at this point, are the two young Princes; he doubts that Hastings will be unscrupulous enough to support him in his schemes. When Buckingham, in Act III, scene I, asks what shall be done if Hastings appears too soft, Richard bluntly replies "Chop off his head!". Later that night a messenger from Lord Stanley relates to Hastings Stanley's grisly dream that Hastings had been done to death by a boar. In scene V, Richard tells the lords of the Council, including Hastings, that his arm is "...like a blasted sapling, wither'd up" as a result of witchcraft practiced upon him by Queen Elizabeth and Mistress Jane Shore (Shore was the late Edward's mistress, who is now Hasting's lover. Elizabeth Woodville was, historically, rumored to have been a witch and to have used enchantment on Edward to entice him to marry her, against the will of the influential Earl of Warwick, his chief counsellor). Hastings diplomatically begins to respond to this surprising allegation; he gets no further than "If they have done this deed, my noble lord-" before Richard angrily explodes: "If? Thou protector of this damned strumpet, talk'st thou to me of if's? Thou art a traitor. Off with his head!". He orders the stunned Hastings' summary execution. Historically, Hastings' beheading was the first recorded execution in the Tower.

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: His wife, Anne

Richard hints to Buckingham that he wants the two princes out of the way; when Buckingham fails to construe his meaning, he chides him: "Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull. Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead, and I would have it suddenly performed," After dismissing Buckingham, he calls Catesby to his side and orders him to spread abroad a rumour that his wife Anne is grievously ill and at the point of death. Privately, he muses that "I must be married to my brother's daughter [Elizabeth], or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass." He clearly intends to do away with Anne (probably by poison) in order to make Princess Elizabeth his wife; this will secure his position since, theoretically, Clarence's son has a better claim on the throne. Though we never hear any details of Anne's death, she has clearly died by Act IV, scene IV, when Richard brazenly asks Queen Elizabeth for her daughter's hand. Elizabeth notes that, in order to free himself to marry her daughter, Richard "...mads't quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.", an indication that Richard brought about Anne's death. Historically, Anne is believed to have died of tuberculosis.

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: To teach her how to curse her enemies.

Elizabeth, no doubt, has noted that of the various people Margaret has cursed, all have either died or come to grief (except, thus far, for Buckingham, who will come to grief shortly). She asks Margaret to teach her to curse her enemies; Margaret replies, with remarkable self-perception: "Forbear to sleep the nights and fast the days; Compare dead happiness with living woe; Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were, and he that slew them fouler than he is. Bett'ring thy loss makes the bad causer worse; revolving this will teach thee how to curse."

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: His mother, the Duchess of York

The Duchess of York has suffered much on Richard's account, including the loss of her son Clarence (which may have hastened the death of her other son, King Edward) and of her two grandsons, the princes. Actually, her troubles with Richard (as she reminds him in this scene) began with his birth; Richard was born by Caesarean section and, according to legend (as recounted by Henry VI in the penultimate scene of "Henry VI, Part III"), came out feet first and with a full set of teeth (which cannot have made breast-feeding easy). To put it in the Duchess' own words: "Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell. A greivous burden was thy birth to me; Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy; thy schooldays frightful, wild, and furious; Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous; Thy age confirmed, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody, more mild, but yet more harmful- kind in hatred." She gives him her curse to take into battle, and prophesies: "Bloody thou art, bloody will be thine end."

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: That she give him her daughter in marriage.

At his coronation, when he begins hatching his plot to marry the young Elizabeth to secure his position, Richard realizes the degree of sheer gall this will take: "Murder her brothers and then marry her- Uncertain way of gain! But I am in so far in blood that sin will pluck on sin." When Richard, fresh from being cursed by his mother, first mentions Elizabeth to the Queen, she believes that he is threatening to remove her as yet another threat to his security (as Edward's offspring, she had some claim to the throne) and promises to disavow her daughter's legitimacy in order to save her life. When Richard reveals his true intentions, however, the Queen is even more appalled and can barely conceal her disgust when Richard suggests that the grandchildren she will reap from this union will take the place of her dead sons. Though the Queen leaves Richard on a non-committal note, she clearly has no desire to entertain Richard's proposal.

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: All Souls' Day

All Souls' Day is celebrated on November 2 (the day after All Saints' Day) and commemorates the souls in Purgatory. According to tradition, the dead were able to communicate with the living on this day. Upon verifying the date with the sheriff, Buckingham reflects: "Why then All Souls' Day is my body's doomsday. This is the day which in King Edward's time I wished might fall on me when I was found false to his children and to his wife's allies. This is the day wherein I wished to fall by the false faith of him whom most I trusted. This, this All Souls' Day to my fearful soul is the determin'd respite of my wrongs. That All-seer which I dallied with hath turned my feigned prayer on my head and given in earnest what I begged in jest."

From Quiz King Richard III

Answer: Clarence

Imprisoned in the Tower in Act I, Clarence related to his jailer his terrifying dream about being drowned. His dream ended with the appearance of Edward, who cried. "Clarence is come- false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence that stabb'd me in the field by Tewkesbury. Seize on him, furies, take him unto torment!" Clarence found himself surrounded by tormenting fiends, upon which he woke.

This is category 13497

= Top 5% Rated Quiz, Top 10% Rated Quiz, Top 20% Rated Quiz, A Well Rated Quiz
= added recently, = Editor's Pick = FunTrivia Editor = Gold Member
Teachers / educators: FunTrivia welcomes the use of our website and quizzes in the classroom as a teaching aid or for preparing and testing students. See our education section. Our quizzes are printable and may be used as question sheets by k-12 teachers, parents, and home schoolers.

 ·  All questions, answers, and quiz content on this website is copyright FunTrivia, Inc and may not be reproduced without permission. Any images from TV shows and movies are copyright their studios, and are being used under "fair use" for commentary and education.