Ancient Ink Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1215

King John (1199-1216) had lost most of his of his holdings on mainland Europe to the French, but managed to keep his authority in England through being very cruel and by hiring mercenaries to show force. In 1214, after suffering a bitter defeat at the hands of his French enemies at Bouvines, King John came home to angry barons, who vowed to end his royal despotism.

In January of 1215, the barons presented the king with a series of demands for reform. John delayed his reply as he looked in vain for supporters to help against his angry adversaries. John met the barons in a field at Runnymede on June, 15 1215 and placed his royal seal on their demands.

The petition was redrafted and issued as "The Great Charter". The document is referred to largely by its Latin name, "The Magna Carta", because the document was written in Latin.

Some of the highlights of this rather lengthy document include Chapter fourteen which set the composition of the general council along with the procedures for summoning it, Chapter fifteen which set limits on the barons in collecting feudal dues from their vassals, Chapter Thirty six which set forth rules for what is now known as Habeas Corpus and required the King to issue writs without charging high fees.

Answer: 1649

King Charles I (1625-49), the son of King James I, was no less devoted to the idea of principles of divine right than his father. Popular at first, Charles quickly became unpopular with both the people and parliament through financial demands. King Charles took the position that it was the parliament's duty to provide him with money to fight his wars, and rejected the notion that parliament ruled equally with him. Charles dissolved four parliaments in total and ruled from 1629 to 1640 without any parliament.

He re-established old taxes and came up with new ones to raise money. In 1639 Scotland rose up, provoking the crisis that would lead to civil war. Charles once again summoned parliament session, but after three weeks of fruitless talks, Charles dissolved the parliament for the fourth time.

The next parliament, which was called into session in 1640 and officially sat until 1660, met the challenge of quelling the threat of the Scots. Parliament then passed a series of laws to prevent the king from ruling despotically.

Much like King John before him, Charles had no alternative but to ratify the statues. Soon the anti-monarchical unity displayed by parliament would fade. In December of 1641 the radicals in parliament proposed the enactment of the Grand Remonstrance, a censure of the king. The proposal passed by the slimmest of margins, but it was clear that King Charles had some allies among the nobles, High Church Anglicans, Roman Catholics, many country squires and a variety of traditionalists. Within a few months, civil war began. After some years of fighting the Parliamentary army beat the royalist in 1645. The royalists' biggest defeat came at the battle of Naseby. Emerging dominant out the dispute was the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell purged the moderates out of Parliament and began ruling with a "rump" Parliament. It was the rump Parliament that brought Charles I to trail on a charge of treason. The reasoning behind Parliament's charge was the revolutionary constitutional doctrine that the House of Commons alone as representatives of the people make law. On January 30, 1649, Charles I was beheaded at Whitehall.

Answer: 1713

The War of the Spanish Succession lasted more than ten years. In one encounter after another the French were defeated. By 1709, France was completely exhausted. Louis XIV opened negotiations to end the fighting. Outraged by the terms proposed to him, Louis managed to rally his nation for another round of fighting.

The British government fell and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire died during this second phase of the war, changing the situation. Finally tired of fighting, all sides agreed on a peace in Utrecht, Holland in 1713.

The Treaty of Utrecht satisfied all sides and in doing so, paved the way for the shaping of contemporary Europe. Through The Treaty of Utrecht, France salvaged the right of the Bourbon dynasty to hold the Spanish crown, which was the reason behind the war in the first place. England obtained Gibraltar and most of France's American possessions thus becoming the world's foremost maritime and colonial power. Savoy graduated from dutchy to kingdom, and obtain the island of Sicily in exchange for the island of Sardinia.

The new territory, added to its substantial holdings in Piedmont, laid the frame work for Savoy's contribution a century later to Italian unification. The elector of Brandenburg was recognized by his new title of King of Prussia. It marked the beginning of a new power in the north changing the face of the German region.

Answer: 1620

Aside from Virginia, New England was the other place of early English settlement. The Virginia Company granted some land to a group of puritans seeking religious freedom. Outside of the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company in the new world, the pilgrims, as they are known, drafted and singed the Mayflower Compact on November 11, 1620.

The compact is one of the first signs of constitutional government in America.

Answer: 1823

Since its founding, it had been the policy of a young United States government not to become entangled in foreign affairs, especially wars. That policy extended to its neighbors in Latin America, who were staging their own revolutions for freedom in the 1800's as America did five decades before them. Fearing European powers crossing the seas to get involved in Latin America's revolutions, President James Monroe issued the Monroe doctrine during his annual speech to congress on December 2, 1823. Monroe warned all European powers that intrusion into the new world would not be tolerated.

Despite the strong language, it was the British Navy that enforced the doctrine for over a century. Still, the Monroe Doctrine served notice that United States was becoming of age.

The document was not written by Monroe himself, but by a future president, John Quincy Adams, who was representing the state of Massachusetts in congress at the time.

Answer: 1814

In October 1813, Napoleon lost a key battle at Leipzig against Austrian, Russian and Prussian forces. That marked the end of Napoleon's power outside of France. Napoleon desperately tried to hold his decimated forces together to defend his French borders, but his enemies where too strong. Paris surrendered on March 31, 1814.

At Fontainebleau, Napoleon finished his personal treaty with the sovereign nations of Europe. Napoleon renounced his and his family's thrones in France and elsewhere. In return, the European nations gave Napoleon sovereignty over the Mediterranean island of Elba, where he was supposed to spend to the rest of his life in exile.

The Treaty of Fontainebleau is dated April 11, 1814, the date of Napoleon's abdication.

Answer: 1825

Revolutionaries saw an opportunity for action when on November 19, 1825, Tsar Alexander died childless, leaving his two brothers, Nicholas and Constantine to dispute over the throne. A group of conspirators led by Prince Trubetskoi prepared a manifesto declaring the old regime to be at an end and a provisional government established. On December 14, 1825, the day the manifesto was issued, a mass of Russians gathered in the Senate Square at St. Petersburg to protest the proclamation of Nicholas as Tsar.

The revolutionaries were not prepared to seize power as Nicholas crushed their rebellion firing cannons upon the rebels. The rebels were tried and either executed or sent into exile in Siberia. The Decembrist Manifesto brought forth the conditions in Russia in the nineteenth century and ideas imported from France that where meant to correct them.

For example, Article 5 of the manifesto abolished serfdom, Article 10 the quartering of troops in homes all over Russia. The Decembrist revolt created a legacy which other Russian revolts fed on for nearly a century.

Answer: 1919

In November of 1918, an exhausted Germany requested an armistice. Two months later the representatives of twenty seven victorious nations met at the Palace of Louis XIV's at Versailles in France to decide the fate of Germany. United States president Woodrow Wilson was in between two veangeful leaders British prime Minster, David Lloyd George, French premier Georges Clemenceau, both of whom promised their people the toughest penalties they could exercise on Germany.

The end result was the Treaty of Versailles, a document that suited the vindictive nature of the victors and would sow the seeds that would lead to WWII.

Answer: 1941

The United States president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and British prime minister, Winston Churchill, issued the Atlantic Charter on August 14, 1941. It is chuck full of the principles and ideals that Woodrow Wilson sought to place in the Versailles Treaty in the being of the century.

The Soviet Union, China and other nations that fought the Nazis along side the British, and eventually the Americans, subscribed to the charter.

Answer: 1302

King Philip IV of France got into a dispute with Pope Boniface over taxing the church to help fund his war with England, Philip provoked Boniface again by arresting the Bishop of Pamiers, Bernard Saisset, on a charge of treason. Pope Boniface claimed his authority over state matters by reinstating a past papal bull, "Clericis Laicos", and issued a second "Ausculta Fili" in which he censured Philip. King Philip then called the Estates-General to order for the first time, and ordered them to send a protest to Rome.

This action provoked Boniface to issue the bull "Unam Sanctam", which announced in terms never surpassed the papal claims to temporal supremacy. Philip decided to counter Boniface by deposing him. Philip sent William of Nogarget,Philip's chief officer, to Italy to seize the Pope and return him to France as prisoner, after which Philip would select a new Pope. Nogaret captured Boniface in his home town of Agnani, but the next day the townspeople chased the French off. Pope Boniface died a few days later as a result of strain from all of the events of the previous days. King Philip IV, the winner of the dispute by default, selected a French Archbishop as the new Pope.

The new Pope, Clement V, took up residence not in Rome but in Avignon, France thus beginning what is known as the "Babylonian Captivity".