Tudor Me This Trivia Quiz

Answer: Battle of Bosworth Field

On 22 August 1485, Henry Tudor, then the Earl of Richmond, led his people to Leicestershire, England to confront King Richard III on the field of battle. The Battle of Bosworth in Leicestershire, a significant turning point in the War of the Roses, led to the death of Richard III of the House of York. To secure his claim to the throne, following a coronation near the village of Stoke Golding, Henry VII promised to marry Elizabeth of York, daughter of King Edward IV.

Their marriage in 1486 united the houses of York and Lancaster, the two opposing sides in the War of the Roses.

Answer: Arthur

Arthur Tudor was born at the end of September in 1486, mere months after his father Henry VII took the throne. Arthur was betrothed to princess Catherine of Aragon, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain when he was just two years old, before he was even named the Prince of Wales. Catherine first arrived in England in 1501 and was wedded to Arthur on 14 November 1501 at St Paul's Cathedral. Catherine was given away at the ceremony by ten-year-old Henry Tudor, Duke of York. When a sweating sickness spread through England in the spring of 1502, Arthur fell ill and passed away on 2 April.

He was buried in Worcester Cathedral.

Answer: Greenwich

The Palace of Placentia, also called the Palace of Greenwich, was built by Duke Humphrey of Gloucester in 1443 along the banks of the River Thames in Greenwich, England. It was redesigned by King Henry VII around three large courtyards between 1498 and 1504.

The Palace of Placentia was the birthplace of Henry VIII and his two daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I, and was the location of his wedding to both Catherine of Aragon in 1509 and Anne of Cleves in 1540. The palace was demolished in 1660 by King Charles II and was eventually replaced by the Greenwich Hospital in 1694. An historic marker stone was placed on the site of the demolished palace that reads: "On this site stood the Tudor Palace of Greenwich - Built by King Henry VII - Birthplace of King Henry VIII in 1491 and his daughters Queen Mary I in 1516 and Queen Elizabeth I in 1533".

Answer: Cardinal Wolsey

Cardinal Wolsey, then Lord Chancellor of England, began construction on Hampton Court in the early 16th century, transforming it from a country manor into an extravagant palace. Wolsey was the son of a butcher, who used his influence in the church to become one of the most powerful men in England in the 1520s.

He invested large sums of money into renovating the palace, which was located about 13 miles (21 kilometers) southwest of London, on the north bank of the Thames River. King Henry VIII liked the palace so much that he decided to take it for himself, and began further renovations in 1529.

In the 1690s, William and Mary renovated again, transforming nearly half of the old Tudor palace to the point where today the original construction is nearly unrecognizable.

Answer: Elizabeth Blount

On 15 June 1519, Elizabeth Blount, mistress of King Henry VIII, gave birth to a son called Henry FitzRoy. He was the only illegitimate child that Henry VIII ever acknowledged as his own, and died shortly after his 17th birthday on 23 July 1536 as the 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset. Catherine of Aragon, Henry's first wife, gave birth to a few sons in the nearly 24 years she was married to King Henry VIII, but none survived infancy.

Her firstborn son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, died just seven and a half weeks after he was born. Catherine then had an unnamed son who died shortly after his birth on 17 September 1513, followed by a stillborn son on 8 January 1515. Only two of Henry's children survived into adulthood, both daughters, Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I.

Answer: Pilgrimage of Grace

The revolts against King Henry VIII in northern England lasted from late 1536 into early 1537, and strictly speaking, the "Pilgrimage of Grace" refers only to the Yorkshire Uprising from October to December 1536. The Yorkshire Uprising comprised mostly of commoners and was led by a lawyer named Robert Aske, who coined the term "Pilgrimage of Grace". Aske's goal in the uprising was to influence Henry VIII and force him to return to old religious policies and remove certain people from positions of power, most notably Thomas Cromwell. By 21 October 1536, more than 35,000 people had joined with Aske, but the uprising was ultimately unsuccessful and only served to prove who really held all the power in England - namely Henry VIII.

Answer: Protestant

King Henry VIII established the Church of England after the Catholic Church refused to recognize his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Mary I, a teenager when her parents divorced, remained a Catholic all her life, and Elizabeth, though older than Edward, succeeded him in reign, making her the second monarch to be raised Protestant.

The Church of England officially and permanently split from the Catholic Church during the reign of Elizabeth I by way of two acts, the Act of Supremacy of 1558 (establishing its independence) and the Act of Uniformity of 1559 (outlining the form the Church should take), which together formed the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. Every English monarch since Elizabeth I has been Protestant and held the title Supreme Governor of the Church of England, conferred on them by Parliament.

Answer: Guillotine

There were quite a few methods used for executions during the reigns of the Tudors, from boiling people alive in tar or acid to hangings and beheadings. Most beheadings that occurred during the reigns of the Tudor monarchs were carried out with an axe, with a few exceptions that included Anne Boleyn, who was famously beheaded with a sword. One method of beheading that the Tudors did not employ was that of the guillotine, which was not invented until the late 1700s, nearly 200 years after the death of Elizabeth I.

The first execution by guillotine was performed on 25 April 1792 in France. Boiling alive was soon discontinued.

Answer: Ridolfi Plot

The Ridolfi Plot was a plan hatched by Florentine banker Roberto Ridolfi to assassinate Elizabeth I and install Mary Stuart as the new Queen of England. Ridolfi was a Catholic who had begun plotting to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I in 1569. He travelled between Madrid and Rome trying to garner support for an invasion of England that was supposed to end in the death of Elizabeth and the marriage of the Duke of Norfolk (Elizabeth's cousin) to Mary, Queen of Scots.

In 1571, Elizabeth was alerted to the plot when John Hawkins learned the details from the Spanish ambassador to England and notified the English government. Ridolfi was abroad when the assassination plot was discovered and never did return to England.

He spent much of the remainder of his life as a senator in Florence, Italy.

Answer: Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey, located in the City of Westminster, London, was a Benedictine monastery until 1539. From 1540 to 1556, the church held the status of "cathedral", and since 1560 has been a "Royal Peculiar" in the Church of England, marking it as a church directly responsible to the sovereign of England. Since 1066, every official coronation of an English monarch has been held in the Abbey, along with more than a dozen royal weddings, and a number of notable burials.

More than 20 English monarchs and their consorts have been buried at the Abbey, including six Tudor kings and queens: King Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth, Edward VI, Anne of Cleves (wife of Henry VIII), Mary I, and Elizabeth I.