Brother of the King (or Queen) Quiz

Answer: King Edward III

Fitzroy was the surname commonly given to the illegitimate offspring of medieval kings - it translates into English as "son of the king". Adam Fitzroy was the son of King Edward II by an unknown mother, who accompanied his father on his ill-fated invasion of Scotland in 1322. Since very little documentary evidence exists for Adam's life in the early 14th century, it is unsurprising that no record of his birth has survived - however, it is likely that he wasn't much more than a teenager when he died at some point during the Scottish campaign, presumably during Edward's embarrassing retreat back to England after having failed to even instigate battle against King Robert I of Scotland (better known as Robert the Bruce). Adam was buried at Tynemouth Abbey in Northumberland.

A lot of people might be surprised to learn that King Edward III had any illegitimate paternal half-siblings given the persistent rumours about Edward II having had a homosexual relationship with his "favourite" Piers Gaveston.

Answer: King Edward VI

King Henry VIII's desire to father a son to succeed him on the throne was at least partly responsible for his infamous treatment of his various wives and directly led to his break with the Roman Catholic Church and the establishment of the Church of England. Henry, Duke of Cornwall - his only son by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon - had died in early infancy in 1511 and King Henry only had two daughters (the future Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I) until his third wife, Jane Seymour, gave birth to the future King Edward VI in 1537.

However, King Henry did have another son, named Henry Fitzroy, of whom he was extremely proud, despite the fact that his illegitimate birth excluded him from the line of succession. Henry Fitzroy's mother was King Henry's mistress Elizabeth Blount and he was born in 1519. The boy was raised to the peerage as Duke of Richmond and Somerset when he was just six years old and also given titular control of the government of the north of England, followed by the role of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. It was even suggested that King Henry intended to try and leave his throne to Fitzroy despite his illegitimate status - however, this speculation became void when Fitzroy died of consumption at the age of 17.

Answer: King Edward V

King Edward IV was known to have many mistresses during his lifetime and as a result the question of which illegitimate child belonged to which mother is somewhat confused. Elizabeth Wayte, Elizabeth Shore and Elizabeth Lucy have all been put forward as possible mothers for Arthur Plantagenet, who - despite his illegitimate status - was a prominent figure at the court of his father, before joining the household of his brother-in-law, King Henry VII, and then his nephew, King Henry VIII. Plantagenet was the name of the various ruling houses of England from the time of King Henry II until the start of the Tudor era in 1485.

Arthur became Viscount Lisle in 1523 after being granted the title that had previously belonged to his first wife's father. Under King Henry VIII, he held several trusted positions including a place on the privy council, Lord-Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Calais (then an English possession). However, like many other relatives of Henry VIII, he came unstuck when his position in Calais led to him being accused of treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Poor old Arthur then died of a heart attack shortly after being told that he would be released - presumably being told that Henry wasn't going to have him executed would have been a major shock!

Answer: King Richard II

John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter was the second son of Thomas Holland and his wife Joan of Kent - who later married Edward, the Black Prince (the eldest son of King Edward III). The younger of Joan and Edward's two sons eventually succeeded to the throne as King Richard II. As Joan of Kent was a great-granddaughter of King Edward I, John Holland was technically in line to the throne, but much, much further down it than his younger half-sibling. Richard granted his elder half-brother the title of Duke of Exeter as a reward for his loyalty in helping Richard to arrest Thomas of Woodstock, the leader of the Lords Appellant who had sought to oust the king from his throne. However, in the end Richard was deposed just two years later by his cousin, King Henry IV, and John's dukedom was summarily revoked.

Holland is noted for his leading role in the Epiphany Rising. It involved several high profile noblemen who spent the period from December 1399 to January 1400 plotting to kidnap and murder King Henry and restore Richard to the throne. The plot failed and Holland was executed on January 16th.

Answer: King Henry IV

Henry Beaufort was the second of the three sons and one daughter born to Katherine Swynford, who was then the mistress of John of Gaunt, the third surviving son of King Edward III. He and his siblings were legitimised when their parents eventually married when he was around 21 years old. Henry Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt's only surviving son by his first wife, seized the throne from his cousin King Richard II in 1399 to become King Henry IV. Despite his new legitimate status, Henry Beaufort was never in line to inherit his half-brother's throne as all of John of Gaunt's Beaufort descendants were deliberately barred from the line of succession.

Like many younger sons of noble and royal blood, Henry Beaufort was destined by his father for a career in the church and educated accordingly. He initially became the Bishop of Lincoln, before accepting the prestigious position of Bishop of Winchester in 1404. He was a noted supporter of his nephew, King Henry V, and was active in the Regency government formed for the infant King Henry VI. Beaufort was made a Cardinal in 1426 and took on the role of Papal Legate (a representative of the pope) to Germany. While on the continent he also attended the trial and execution of Joan of Arc. He died in 1447 when he was about 72 years of age.

Answer: King William I

Odo's somewhat odd name is a big hint that he lived a very long time ago. In fact he was probably born at some point between 1030 and 1035 and was the half-brother of William the Conqueror, otherwise known as King William I of England. The two men shared a mother, but while William was the illegitimate son of Robert I, Duke of Normandy, Odo was a product of her marriage to a nobleman named Herluin de Conteville.

Despite being an ordained member of the clergy, Odo was a key supporter of his half-brother's aim to conquer England, accompanied him across the channel and fought with him at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. For his loyal service, Odo was granted the Earldom of Kent and installed as the Bishop of Bayeux. However, his biggest claim to fame - at around 70 metres (230 feet) in length - is probably the Bayeux Tapestry. Although the exact provenance of this famous artefact isn't known for certain, it is generally believed that Odo was responsible for commissioning it as a decoration for his cathedral in Bayeux.

Answer: Queen Victoria

Carl, Prince of Leiningen was the third man to hold that title after it was created for his grandfather by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1779. From 1803 the lands associated with the title were based around the former Amorbach Abbey in Bavaria. He was the son of Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. His widowed mother later married Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of Britain's King George III, and had his half-sister Queen Victoria. Prince Carl was active in German politics around the time that various revolutions took place across central Europe in 1848-49; he even spent around a month in 1848 as the Prime Minister of Revolutionary Germany.

Since Prince Carl was 14 years old when Queen Victoria was born and spent most of his adult life in Germany, there is little evidence that he had a particularly close relationship with his half-sibling. However, his younger sister Feodora was very close to Victoria - although their relationship was mostly maintained by correspondence and occasional visits as Feodora was married to another German prince and resided at Langenburg in south-west Germany.

Answer: King Henry III

Hugh XI of Lusignan, born in 1221, had several names depending on which of his territories people choose to reference. Hugh was also Count Hugh VI of La Marche and Count Hugh II of Angoulême. The reference to Angoulême is the key to his connection with English royalty. His mother, Isabella of Angoulême, had previously been the wife of England's King John (of Magna Carta fame) and was the mother of King Henry III (who had been born in 1207).

Although titled, Hugh's sphere of influence was much smaller than his elder half-brother's. Lusignan (an area near the city of Poitiers in western France), La Marche (an area largely corresponding to the modern French department of Creuse) and Angoulême (also in western France) were all under the ultimate control of the French king. Hugh married a daughter of the Duke of Brittany at the age of 15 and the couple had seven children before his death at the age of just 29 whilst taking part in the Seventh Crusade.

Answer: King Henry VI

Edmund Tudor is probably more famous for being the father of the first Tudor monarch, King Henry VII, than for being the half-brother of King Henry VI. The latter king was the son of King Henry V and his wife, Catherine of Valois, and came to throne when his father died when he was just eight months old. His mother than created a medieval scandal when she had an affair with a member of her household staff named Owen Tudor, possibly entered into a secret marriage with him, and went on to bear him several children (the exact number of whom is unknown). The two Tudor sons whose lives have been well documented were Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond and Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke.

Edmund married Margaret Beaufort and the couple were important members of the Lancastrian side during the Wars of the Roses. However, he was imprisoned by the Yorkists and died in captivity before the birth of his only child. Jasper Tudor was largely responsible for raising Edmund's son and the pair spent many years in exile before Henry was able to return to England, defeat King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, and claim the throne for himself.

Answer: King John

William Longespée, the 3rd Earl of Salisbury, died in 1226 and is buried in Salisbury Cathedral. He was an illegitimate son of King Henry II and as such was an older half-brother of two kings: King Richard I and King John. However, Salisbury is more noted for his military service for the latter; in 1213 he led a successful campaign to destroy a French invasion fleet moored off Flanders, but the following year he ended up being captured by the French at the Battle of Bouvines. He also initially supported his brother when most of the country's noblemen (known as the Barons) became so annoyed with the king's failure to live up to the promises he made in the Magna Carta that they allied themselves with a French invasion force in the First Barons' War of 1215-17 in an attempt to remove him. However, Salisbury's loyalty was limited and he eventually defected to the French side prior to John's death in 1216.

His nickname, Longespée, translates to "long sword" and is believed to relate to the fact that he was a tall man capable of wielding a large sword.