Shady Ladies Trivia Quiz

Answer: Diana

There were six daughters born to David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale. These were Nancy (b.1904), Pamela (b.1907), Diana (b.1910), Unity (b.1914), Jessica (b.1917) and Deborah (b.1920). They were all in their own way celebrated people amongst the highest echelons of British society, but it was Diana who became the most notorious.

She was a lover to Sir Oswald Mosley who was leader of the British Union of Fascists. On the death of his wife, Mosley and Mitford married at a ceremony in Germany inside the home of Joseph Goebbels. The wedding was attended by Adolf Hitler. The married couple spent most of the war years either interned within the grounds of Holloway Prison due to their involvement in right-wing political causes, or were placed under house arrest.

They were shunned by society after the war ended and made a new home together in France where they became close friends with another shunned couple, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Diana spent the remainder of her years writing newspaper articles and her memoirs. She died in 2003 after suffering a stroke.

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by Plodd)

Answer: Young women

Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614), along with four "assistants", is believed to have tortured and murdered hundreds of young women over a period of twenty-five years. Her early life gave no indication of the monster into which she would develop. She had a more than comfortable upbringing as a child of the nobility, and was married at fifteen into another aristocratic Hungarian family. With her husband away for most of their marriage, either studying in Vienna, or at war against the Ottoman Empire, Elizabeth was left in charge of his lands and his business affairs. Absolute power to do as she willed ...

Following the death of her husband in 1604, strange and eerie rumours began to circulate throughout the land about Elizabeth Bathory, so much so that the authorities reluctantly assigned Gyorgy Thurzo, the highest official in the land, to investigate. The findings were shocking. Of the hundreds of young woman she had tortured and murdered, most had been young peasant girls seeking employment at her castle over the years, or daughters of the lesser gentry who had sought to improve their chances in life by staying and studying with her. I'll spare you the gory details.

When finally arrested in 1610, and because of her standing and position in the land, Bathory was not brought to trial for fear of the scandal and uproar that would have ensued. Her accomplices were executed - painfully - but Bathory herself was kept in solitary confinement for the rest of her life. Bricked up in a set of rooms, with only a small opening through which food and drink passed, she died four years later, mourned by nobody, and unloved by all. Elizabeth Bathory was no "shady lady". She was a total eclipse.

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by Creedy)

Answer: Ruth Ellis

Although there have been many others more evil than Ruth Ellis in the history of British crime, I chose this particular "shady lady" for this quiz, because she was the last woman to be executed in Britain.

During Ruth Ellis's trial, and after her execution, there was a great public outcry asking for clemency but when a petition, with 50,000 signatures was presented to the Home Office, the Home Secretary rejected it. Her hanging evoked a great deal of support from the press and the public for the abolition of the death penalty for murder. This did not happen in Britain until 1965.

All of the women, listed above, were hanged at Holloway Prison for the crime of murder. Amelia Sach and Annie Walters were baby farmers who murdered many babies and were hanged in 1903. Edith Thompson was convicted of murdering her husband.

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by Jomarion)

Answer: Belle Starr

Born in Missouri, Maybelle (Belle) Shirley attended finishing school and learned to play the piano, but during her teen years, the Civil War's violence uprooted her and brought her into the company of outlaws such as Cole Younger and Jesse and Frank James. She became very close to several of the outlaw gangs (if you get my drift) and married one named Sam Starr. In the 1880s, the two engaged in cattle rustling, horse thievery, and outlaw harboring, making their ranch a haven for bandits on the run. Sent to jail for horse theft, Belle Starr, as she was now known, upon release resumed her wicked ways. In 1889, she was ambushed by assailants unknown and killed two days before her 41st birthday. Married three times and the mother of one of each sex, she hardly fit the role of domestic goddess. Her daughter, Pearl, became a prostitute and brothel owner, becoming quite successful in the waning days of the Wild West. Mother would have been so proud!

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by obiwan04)

Answer: Mary Mallon

In the early 1900s typhoid fever was thought to be a disease found in the the crowded slums resulting from poverty and the lack of basic sanitation. That changed when members of Charles Warren's household and family contracted typhoid fever while vacationing in Oyster Bay, Long Island. "Doctor" George Soper, a sanitation engineer who had investigated other sources of typhoid fever outbreaks was hired. Soper's investigation ultimately led him to Mallon who had worked for the Warrens.

After researching Mallon's employment history he found seven other families who had previously employed Mallon had indeed reported cases of typhoid. Theories suggested that Mallon likely passed along typhoid germs by failing to scrub her hands before handling food. Soper realized that elevated temperatures necessary to cook food would have likely have killed the bacteria and found the answer in one of Mallon's most popular dessert dishes--ice cream with raw peach slices frozen in it!

She was placed into the custody of the New York City Health Department in 1907 based on Soper's findings. In 1910 Health Commissioner, Ernst Lederle, agreed to release Mallon with her promise not to work as a cook again. In 1915 she was again apprehended after breaking her promise and working as a cook in Manhattan's Sloane Maternity Hospital.

Mary Mallon spent a total of 26 years of her life in forced isolation although she had never displayed any of the symptoms herself and insisted she was "in good health". It is believed that she infected 47 people resulting in three deaths. In December of 1932, Mallon suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed and died on November 11, 1938.

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by sally0malley)

Answer: Cooked it and served it up

Part of it, that is. Born into a completely dysfunctional family in 1955, in which she was sexually assaulted on a regular basis until she turned eleven, Katherine Knight grew up with an unstable personality that ranged between model behaviour and extreme violence, as the several men who later lived with her found out to their sorrow. They, however, managed to survive her continual assaults, being knocked unconscious with frying pans, and multiple stabbings. All but John Price, the last one.

Knight and Price moved in together in 1995, with their relationship marred right from the beginning by her bursts of rage and physical violence on a regular basis. Eventually, this culminated in Price kicking Knight out of the house and taking out a restraining order against her. Despite this, Price foolishly allowed Knight back into the home and his bed on the 29th February, 2000. When he didn't show up for work the next day, and the police were called in to investigate, they found what remained of Price's body propped up on the lounge, his left arm draped around a soft drink bottle, and his legs crossed.

After stabbing him at least 37 times, Knight had skinned him, and hung his skin from the doorway into the lounge room. She had then decapitated him and cut off several other parts of his body, which, along with his head, she began to cook. When parts of the meat had softened enough to eat, she arranged them on plates, along with baked potato, pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash and gravy, and added a final touch to this healthy meal with place names for his children beside each plate for when they returned home. Found guilty at the trial that followed, Katherine Knight's papers are marked "Never to be released".

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by Creedy)

Answer: Grace O'Malley

Coming from a seafaring family in the west of Ireland, Grace O'Malley smuggled herself aboard one of her father's boats while dressed as a boy to show that she was worthy of being a crew member. She eventually inherited the family shipping business and built a fleet of her own. She took to piracy against Turkish and Spanish ships, and English ships on occasion. When her sons and half-brother were arrested by the governor of Connacht county, Ireland, she went to Queen Elizabeth I to ask for their release, which she got. She possibly did not speak English but was fluent in Latin, and that is how she and the Queen conversed.

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by CmdrK)

Answer: Mata Hari

Born in the Netherlands and the eldest of four children, Margaretha Zelle enjoyed a relatively comfortable childhood until her father's business crashed and he became bankrupt. At the age of 19 she married a Dutch army officer and moved to live in the Dutch East Indies where they had two children. However the marriage didn't last and in 1903 she again moved, this time to Paris, where she initially posed as an artist's model. Within a few years she began to find fame as an exotic dancer and this continued until just before the onset of World War 1. During the war, as a Dutch citizen she was able to travel freely between France and the Netherlands, often via Britain, as the Netherlands had remained neutral. However, her movements began to be viewed with suspicion by both the French and British governments and eventually she was charged with spying for Germany. She was executed by firing squad in France in October 1917.

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by moonraker2)

Answer: Jezebel

Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, King of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. She was opposed by the prophet Elijah for her promotion of the worship of Baal. After the slaughter of the priests of Baal and the death of King Ahab she was killed by being pushed from a high window by her servants as the new king, Jehu, arrived in the city. Her name has become associated with the worship of false gods and with harlotry, though there seems to be no evidence that Jezebel was debauched. Rather, she advocated the worship of the gods of her own people, the Phoenicians.

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by fallingman)

Answer: She peacefully died in her sleep

Zhèng Shì (Mandarin pinyin meaning Zheng's widow) was one of a precious few pirates who lived to retire. In addition to keeping all of her pirated loot, she was allowed to return to south China to operate gambling, opium smuggling and brothels, where she died in her sleep at 69 in 1844. For more information about Zhèng Shì and other pirates of the South China coast, see Murray, Dian H. (1987). Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1810. Stanford University Press.)

(Question and Interesting Information supplied by Coach_in_China - who observed many pirated DVDs during her 10 years in China.)