Some Things about Kings Trivia Quiz

Answer: The King of Misrule

Maybe someone somewhere is referred to as the King of Christmas, but I believe I made that up for the purpose of this quiz. The King of Peace, according to Christians, certainly made His appearance at the end of the year, but well before the mediaeval period, and while children believe Kringle is King, he's plain old Kris Kringle.

Also called the Abbot (in Scotland, the Abbot of Unreason) and the Lord of Misrule, the King of Misrule was the director of festive antics at the royal court during mediaeval and Tudor times. His 'reign' lasted for the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25 to January 5), and he and his henchmen got up to all sorts of silly tricks. In his 'Anatomie of Misuses' (1593), Philip Stubbes wrote that the King of Misrule could have anywhere from 20 to 100 underlings, each mounted on a hobby or a dragon, and went everywhere, including to church, accompanied by a raucous band of musicians.

Answer: The River Amazon

The Amazon is known as the King of Waters because it discharges a greater volume of fresh water into the ocean than any other river in the world, at the astonishing rate of 209,000 cubic metres per second. Its closest competitor is the Congo, which discharges a puny 41,200 cubic metres per second.

In short, the Amazon accounts for 20% of the fresh water that flows into the oceans of the world.

Answer: Napoleon II

Julius Caesar was an avowed Republican and refused the title of Roman Emperor, Caligula was a very bad Roman Emperor, and, according to legend, Romulus (and his brother Remus), founded Rome. None of them was ever King of Rome. That was the title conferred in 1811 on the newborn Napoleon Francis Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt. by his father Emperor Napoleon I of France.

The little King never actually lived or ruled in Rome; it was an honorific rather than an actual monarchy. After Napoleon was ultimately defeated at Waterloo in 1815, little Napoleon (who had briefly been Napoleon II when his father abdicated in his favour in 1814) lived with his mother Marie-Louise at the Viennese court of his grandfather, Emperor Francis I.

He died of tuberculosis when he was 21.

Answer: Henry VIII's 'Necessary Doctrine and Evolution for Any Christian Man'

King George III did indeed keep a diary (on July 4, 1776, for instance, he noted that it was an uneventful day!), but it is not known as the King's Book. Neither is the German/English phrase book used by George I or the rule book for British monarchs, both of which are figments of my imagination. The King's Book, 'The Necessary Doctrine and Evolution for Any Christian Man", was written in 1543, and Henry VIII is given credit for it although for many years scholars have suspected that it was actually written by Thomas Cranmer and Henry's only contribution was the preface.

"The King's Book" is based on "The Bishop's Book" (1537) in which a committee of English bishops and clergy propounded the newly-formed Church of England's stance on the Creeds, the Sacraments,the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Hail Mary and the differences between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in matters doctrinal. "The King's Book" emphasizes the supremacy of the monarch and is more Catholic in tone than its predecessor.

Answer: Robert the Bruce

Young David (before he became King of Israel) certainly had good reason to hide from King Saul, but there's no record of his having done so in the King's Cave. King Harold didn't hide from William the Conqueror but stood up to him at Hastings and was killed in battle. Prince Charles Stuart certainly hid out after various battles during the English Civil War but seems to have preferred oak trees to caves, judging by the number of royal oaks still standing in England. No, the cave in question is on the Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland, and in 1307 it sheltered Robert the Bruce and some of his men, before they ventured on to the mainland to soundly defeat their opposition at the Battle of Loudon Hill.

It was in the King's Cave, so the story goes, that The Bruce had his inspirational encounter with that spider.

Answer: Khorrum Shah

Since the declaration was made in the 17th century, we can forget Jack Dawson and Napoleon, who lived in the 19th/20th and 18th/19th centuries respectively (well, technically, Jack Dawson never really lived - sorry, 'Titanic' fans - because he was a fictitious person, but you know what I mean). Louis XIV did live in the 17th century, and while he reigned for a record of 72 years and 110 days, was known as the Sun King, and was prone to making such sweeping statements as "I am the state", and "After me, the flood!" (aka 'Nothing'), even he was not egotistical enough to proclaim himself King of the World. No, that distinction belongs to Khorrum Shah, the fifth of the Mogul Emperors of Delhi, who ruled from 1627-58.

He is better known as Shah Jehan, which is Hindi for 'King of the World'.

Answer: Cardinal Richelieu

While Otto von Bismarck (1815-1890) exercised great influence over the political landscape of Prussia - as its Prime Minister from 1862-1890, and, later, the German Empire as the first Chancellor of a united Germany (1871-1890), he was not known as the King of the King.

Although Tsarina Alexandra, wife of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, was devoted to Grigori Rasputin, (1869-1916), aka the Mad Monk, because of his supposed healing powers in dealing with her son's haemophilia, he wasn't known as the King of the King. Piers Gaveston wielded what most of Edward II's barons thought was too much influence over the king, but he was not the King of the King, either.

It was Cardinal Richelieu who had the dubious honour of being dubbed with that sobriquet because he was the power behind the throne of King Louis XIII of France. Fans of Alexandre Dumas' novel, 'The Three Musketeers' will be familiar with the Cardinal and his behind-the-throne machinations.

Answer: James II

At one time or another, Brits could have referred to all four of these gentlemen as "The King over the Water", but they didn't. Let's take the non-starters chronologically. William of Normandy is much better known as William the Conqueror, and he came over the water from Normandy to England in 1066 to defeat Harold, King of the Anglo-Saxons. He became King William I and founded the Norman dynasty. Richard John Seddon was Prime Minister of New Zealand, which is definitely "over the water" from the UK, from 1893 to 1906. He was known as King Dick because he was something of a benevolent despot. Elvis Presley, from over the water in the USA, was known to his devoted fans (of whom I was not one) as the King, but not as the King over the Water.

Which leaves us with James II, the son of King Charles I, brother of King Charles II. James II was deposed in 1688, in favour of his daughter Mary and her husband Prince William of Orange. James and his wife, Mary of Modena, fled with their infant son James over the water to France, and thereafter became the focus of Jacobite plots to restore the monarchy to James and his descendants. James was finally defeated by William and Mary's forces at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690. James died eleven years later, leaving his son James, aka the Old Pretender, who tried to wrest the throne from George I in 1715, and his grandson, Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, who tried to overthrow George II in 1745. The Jacobites, who rallied to the Stuart cause between 1688 and 1746 (when the horrendous Battle of Culloden finally crushed the hopes of the Stuarts and their adherents) would raise their glasses to toast "The King over the Water".

Answer: Scrofula

Although Lady Macbeth and Anne Boleyn were not highly esteemed by many of their contemporaries, neither one of them, to my knowledge, was ever described as "The King's Evil". Gout has certainly plagued many a monarch, but it, too, is not "The King's Evil".

The King's Evil is another name for a skin disease called scrofula in the Middle Ages and nowadays called mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis. It was thought that if one suffering the disease was touched by a duly anointed monarch, he or she would be cured. Scrofula, which is an airborne infection related to tuberculosis, was on the verge of dying out, but saw a resurgence with the onset of AIDS.

In the 21st century, scrofula can be cured by the use of antibiotics, which is a good thing because monarchs tend to be a bit thin on the ground these days.

Answer: Brighton

HMS King Alfred was the designation of the shore establishment in Brighton, UK, where R.N.V.R officers were trained during World War II. Somebody had a sense of history and a sense of humour, and combined the two to name the place after the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred (b.849, d.899, ruled 871-899) who is credited with founding the British navy.