Sister of the King (or Queen) Trivia Quiz

Answer: King Edward II

Margaret of England - who held the title of Duchess of Brabant after her marriage in 1290 - was the tenth child of King Edward I and his first wife, Eleanor of Castile. When her father died in July 1307 she was his oldest surviving child, but thanks to the rules of male-preference primogeniture the crown passed to her younger brother, who then became King Edward II.

Like most medieval princesses, Margaret's role in life was to be married off to a member of another European royal family in order to create political links and alliances. She was betrothed to John II, Duke of Brabant when she was just three years old and the marriage took place when she was 15. The Duchy of Brabant was an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire in the medieval period, which mainly corresponded to areas of modern-day Belgium. Margaret remained in Brabant for the rest of her of life - with the exception of the odd trip, including one to her native England after her brother's wedding. She was the last of King Edward I's 19 children to die and was buried in a Brussels church in 1333.

Answer: King John

Eleanor was the second daughter of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, a younger sister of King Richard I and an elder sister of King John. She was the eldest surviving sibling on Richard's death in 1199, but by that time she had already been Queen of Castile as the wife of King Alfonso VIII for around 25 years. With their marriage, which took place when she was only 12 years old, Castile had gained English support in its dispute with neighbouring Navarre (another former Spanish kingdom), whilst Henry had achieved a more secure border for his territory in Aquitaine.

While Eleanor was never given the opportunity to wield any power in England, she was able to exert significant influence over her husband and had direct control of vast swathes of land in Castile. Despite having been in an arranged marriage, Eleanor was reportedly heartbroken on Alfonso's death in 1214 and died less than a month after him.

Answer: King Edward VII

Victoria - or "Vicky" as she was known to her family - was born in 1840 and was the eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. She was known as the Princess Royal until she assumed her husband's titles on her marriage in 1858. Her husband was Prince Frederick of Prussia, the future German Emperor and King of Prussia. However, at that time he was only second-in-line to the throne behind his father and as such Victoria had to wait quite a while - 30 years in fact - to assume the title of German Empress and Queen of Prussia. To add insult to injury she then held them for only three months as her husband was suffering from cancer and died shortly after his long-awaited accession. Her son Wilhelm then succeeded his father and later went on to take Germany into the First World War - on the opposing side from his mother's homeland.

Victoria had eight younger siblings - four brothers and four sisters. The oldest of her brothers succeeded as King Edward VII in 1901. If Britain had been using a system of absolute primogeniture in 1901 then Victoria might have become Queen Victoria II - however, if she had she would have only held that position for a very short time as well, as she died less than eight months after her mother.

Answer: King George III

Princess Augusta Frederica might have been the elder sister of a king (King George III to be precise) but she wasn't the daughter of a king. She was the eldest child of Frederick, Prince of Wales and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, but as her father died before he could inherit the throne, the British crown passed directly from her grandfather to her younger brother.

Augusta was born in 1737 and married Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick in 1764. He was her second cousin as they were both great-grandchildren of King George I. Despite the German heritage of her family, Augusta didn't particularly enjoy life at the Brunswick court (presumably not helped by her husband taking an official mistress) and attempted to recreate her English lifestyle as far as possible. She had seven children and was the mother of Caroline of Brunswick, the much-hated wife (and first cousin) of King George IV.

Answer: King Henry I

The exact details of the life of Cecilia of Normandy are shrouded in some mystery as she was the daughter of William the Conqueror and lived during the 10th and 11th centuries from which documentation - especially about the lives of women - is scarce. She may or may not have been called Cecilia (Cecily is a common alternative suggested), she was born before her father seized the English crown in 1066 (probably around 1056) and may (or may not) have been the eldest of the five (or maybe six) daughters of the king and his wife Matilda of Flanders. What can be said is that while she was probably younger than her brother King William II, she was more than likely an elder sister of King Henry I, who succeeded to the throne in 1100.

Cecilia spent the majority of her life as a nun in the French city of Caen and died there in 1126.

Answer: King James II

Mary, Princess of Orange was also known by her British title of Princess Royal. She was the eldest daughter of the ill-fated King Charles I and his wife Henrietta Maria of France. Her elder brother was restored to the throne as King Charles II in 1660 and Mary died shortly afterwards of smallpox. Her younger brother later succeeded Charles as King James II. The title of Princess Royal derived from her mother's desire to emulate the French court's use of the term 'Madame Royale' for the eldest daughter of the king and Mary was the inaugural holder of it.

Mary was only nine years old when she married the future William II, Prince of Orange in 1641 and she moved to Holland a year later. Therefore, she was safely out of the country when her father was deposed and executed. Mary's husband died shortly before the birth of their only child in 1650 - the child was William III, Prince of Orange from birth and King William III of England, Scotland and Ireland after he was offered the throne following the deposition of his uncle, James II, in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Answer: King David II

Marjorie Bruce, born around 1296, was the only child of King Robert I of Scotland (better known as Robert the Bruce) by his first wife, Isabella of Mar. She was named after her paternal grandmother, Marjorie, Countess of Carrick. During her early years, her father was at war with England's King Edward I and Marjorie spent seven years of her childhood as a prisoner in England. She eventually married Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland, but died in childbirth following a riding accident at the age of just 19.

One of Marjorie's younger half-brothers became King David II of Scotland after the death of their father in 1329, but died childless in 1371. This meant that the throne passed to Marjorie's only child, who duly became King Robert II - the first king of the Stuart dynasty that held the Scottish throne (with a few interruptions) until the death of Queen Anne in 1714.

Answer: King Charles I

Elizabeth was born in Fife, Scotland in 1596 as the eldest daughter (and second child) of King James VI of Scotland and his wife Anne of Denmark. She was seven years old when her father succeeded to the English and Irish thrones. Two years later her father was the target of the Gunpowder Plot, whose conspirators aimed to blow up Parliament along with King James and the Prince of Wales and place Elizabeth on the throne as a puppet Catholic monarch. Obviously, the plot failed (a circumstance that is still celebrated annually on November 5th, aka Bonfire Night) and Elizabeth was instead left to follow the traditional route for a young princess and marry a member of another European royal house. In her case she was married to Frederick V, Elector of the Palatinate - an area of modern day Germany based around the city of Heidelberg - in 1613.

In November 1619, Frederick accepted the position of King of Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic) and Elizabeth became Queen of Bohemia. However, their rule only lasted for a single year before they were overthrown and forced into exile. As a result Elizabeth is often known as "The Winter Queen".

Since her beloved elder brother, Henry, Prince of Wales, had died in 1612, the death of her father in 1625 made Elizabeth the elder sister of King Charles I.

Answer: Queen Anne

Mary II, born in 1662, was the eldest daughter of King James II and his first wife, Anne Hyde. She married her first cousin William III of Orange in 1677 and the couple lived in Holland until the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when they took the throne in Britain as the country's first married couple to rule as true joint monarchs. However, Mary died childless in 1694, so on her husband's death in 1702 the throne passed to her younger sister, Queen Anne.

Mary was an acceptable monarch in place of her father because she had been brought up as a Protestant, while her half-brother James - later known as the Old Pretender - was a Catholic.

Answer: King Henry VIII

Margaret Tudor, born 1489, was the elder sister of the infamous King Henry VIII of England. She was the eldest daughter of King Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York, the daughter of King Edward IV. With this royal pedigree on both sides of her family, it is perhaps unsurprising that she herself became a British queen; her marriage in 1503 to King James IV of Scotland made her the Queen of Scots. However, she held onto that role for only 10 years as her husband was killed by English forces at the Battle of Flodden. The throne then passed to James's and Margaret's only surviving child (out of five) who became King James V at just one year of age. Margaret later gave birth to a sixth child, seven months after her husband's death, but this child also died in infancy.

Under the terms of James's will, Margaret was only allowed to act as regent for her son if she remained a widow. Despite this fact, Margaret remarried twice - firstly to Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus and secondly to Henry Stewart, Lord Methven. As she became unhappy in both marriages, Margaret sought divorce in each case, although only the appeal related to her second husband was successful. Rather ironically given his later dedication to getting rid of his wives, her brother Henry berated her for her lack of piety in choosing to end a "divinely ordained" marriage.