Royal English Deaths Trivia Quiz

Answer: William II

William 'Rufus' II was the third son of William The Conqueror and ruled from 1087 until 1090, succeeding his father as King of England. His oldest brother, Robert, received the main prize: the Duchy of Normandy. His second older brother, Richard, had died as a teenager while hunting in The New Forest.

William was hit by an arrow, and it is unclear if this was an accident, or a murder. He was left by his hunting partners where he fell. In case it was a murder, a likely suspect would be the youngest brother, Henry, who succeeded William II as Henry I of England. Henry had a single track mind when he heard of his brother's death: to take hold of the royal treasury.

The New Forest was a massive forest in the south of England, which was turned into the personal forest of the English king by William The Conqueror.

Answer: Richard III

Richard III has been turned into a monster by Tudor propaganda because of the Tudors' weak claim on the throne. Therefore, it was important for them to represent the king they deposed as a devilish man.

Richard III did show courage on the battlefield facing his enemy, Henry Tudor, in 1485. Although cannons were already used, this battle could be seen as the last major medieval English battle. The battle turned to Henry's favour when the army of Lord Stanley finally decided to join the battle on his side, and all Richard could do was lead one last charge of his knights toward Henry. He fell as the last English monarch to die on the battlefield.

In 2012, his remains were recovered in Leicester. Now we know that Shakespeare's depiction of a hunchback wasn't entirely incorrect; Richard suffered from severe scoliosis.

Answer: Harold II

Harold Godwinson, as largest land owner in England, was chosen by the Witan to succeed Edward The Confessor in January 1066. It would turn out to be the year which would change the world. First, the Viking ruler, Harald Hardrada, invaded England from the north in September. Harold surprised Harald by showing up early for the party, and he defeated the Norwegian army.

When he tried to repeat the trick as William of Normandy invaded the south a few days later, he marched his army south again at the incredible speed of 43 km (27 miles) a day, and arrived in London after only a week.

The Bayeux Tapestry shows what happened at the Battle of Hastings between the Anglo-Saxon army of Harold and the Norman army of William. It is, however, still unclear how Harold died on the battlefield, as the part which reads "Harold Rex Interfectus Est" (King Harold is slain) shows us multiple figures, and debate continues over which one represents Harold.

Answer: Edward II

Edward II ruled from 1307 to 1327. Because of his close bond with people like Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser The Younger, he had a lot of struggles with the nobles. The nobles felt threatened by the power and castles which were given to these people. This culminated in a coup led by his wife, Isabella, "the She-Wolf of France", aided by her lover, Roger Mortimer.

The legend of the red-hot poker probably was invented because Edward II was possibly homosexual. It is unclear how he really died, but it is clear he was murdered to make place for his son, Edward III, as a puppet ruler for Isabella and Mortimer. However, Edward III did not turn out to be a puppet ruler. After only 3 years, he had Mortimer arrested and executed.

Answer: Edmund I

Edmund was a Saxon king who ruled from 939 until 946. His father was Edward the Elder, and he succeeded his half-brother, Aethelstan. A source writing two centuries after the event, tells us how Edmund was stabbed to death by an outlaw.

Recent historians, however, believe this might have been a political assassination rather than a fight with a thief. They believe this because different aspects of the "murdered by thief" story don't make sense, such as the name of the thief (Leofa, or "the beloved"), and the fact that a thief returning from exile could attend a royal feast and sit next to a guest of honour.

Some historians propose therefore that it was actually Edgar's brother, Eadred, who orchestrated the murder before Edmund's sons, Eadwig and Edgar, who were born out of wedlock, would reach maturity.

Answer: Charles I

Being a king who believed in the divine right of kings, Charles found an enemy in both the English and the Scottish Parliament. He was not trusted by various religious groups because of his policies towards Catholicism, which were quite tolerant.

Under leadership of Oliver Cromwell, the anti-royalist side eventually won the English Civil War, and Charles was executed by decapitation in 1649.

In true divine right-style, he claimed during his trial that no earthly person could judge him. The morning of his beheading, he requested two shirts, because he didn't want his possible shivering from the January cold to be mistaken for fear.

Answer: Edward V

Edward V was one of the two princes in the Tower, imprisoned by his uncle, Richard III, while he was on his way to London for his coronation. He was last seen alive in 1483, and although it would make sense that he and his brother were murdered on the orders of Richard III, it isn't entirely impossible that it was actually Henry Tudor giving the order, to whom Edward posed an even bigger threat for the line of succession.

In the centuries following 1483, the bones of a few children were found in The Tower. On one occasion in 1674, two incomplete sets of bones were found in a wooden box, and they were identified in 1933 as bones of two children around the same age the two princes had when they disappeared from public view.

If the bones were to be carbon-dated to the late 15th century, and DNA research would prove they were indeed Edward and Richard, then at least one mystery can be solved: the people claiming during Henry Tudor's reign to be Edward or Richard, would have been imposters. However, the mystery of who had them killed would remain.

Answer: Richard II

Richard was only 10 years old when he succeeded his grandfather, Edward III, in 1377. As a 14-year old, he faced the anger of the Peasant's Revolt, which was mainly directed at Richard's advisors such as his uncle, John of Gaunt.

He probably suffered from a personality disorder in later life, though it is unclear what it was. 20th century historians have called it schizophrenia or extreme narcissism. Though threat of a French invasion was always around the corner, Richard struggled most with some English nobles, in particular the Lord Appellants.

One of these Lord Appellants, Henry Bolingbroke, who was John of Gaunt's son and, therefore, Richard's cousin, would eventually stage a coup in 1399, become King Henry IV, imprison his cousin Richard, and let him starve to death.

Answer: Henry V

If any English king deserves to be called The Lionheart, it should be Henry V. After winning many battles in France, one of which at Agincourt in 1415, Henry V reached a peace deal with the French king Charles VI. Henry would become Charles's heir as king of France.

When Charles eventually died in October 1422 Henry V would have been king of England and France... if only he hadn't died himself of dysentery in August 1422.

Because a lethal version of dysentery wouldn't have him die so suddenly without a period of illness, some historians proposed that he might have died of a heat stroke instead.

Answer: Victoria

Queen Victoria ruled for the most part of the 19th century, lending her name to the term, Victorian Era. She barely made it into the 20th century, witnessing it for three weeks before dying of old age on January 22th 1901.

She was a grandmother or other relative to many of the heads of European monarchies, and the German Kaiser once joked that if Victoria still had been alive, she wouldn't have allowed the first World War to have happened.