The House of Windsor - Extended Edition Quiz

Answer: Grenadier Guards

In 1907, at the age of thirteen, the then Prince Edward, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, entered the Royal Naval College, Osborne, the initial entry point for new officers, to begin training for a future career in the Royal Navy. However, although he moved to the next stage of his training at the age of 15 to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, in 1910, he was withdrawn from the course to serve as a midshipman aboard HMS Hindustan for three months, before being sent to Oxford University. This was as a result of his father having become king, and the need to begin the preparation for Edward's own succession.

Despite this, Edward remained enthusiastic at the idea of serving in uniform and, on the outbreak of the First World War, joined the Grenadier Guards. Although keen to serve on the front line, the prince was prevented from doing so, with the Minister of War, Lord Kitchener, stating that Edward's death or capture would prove to be a propaganda coup for the enemy. However, he was appointed to the staff of Major-General The Earl of Cavan, the commander of the Guards Division in France, and made a number of visits to the trenches in an effort to boost the morale of soldiers fighting. It was for this that he was awarded the Military Cross in 1916.

Answer: Australia

Prince Henry was the third son and fourth child of George V. Born in 1900, as a child he suffered from a number of different ailments until, at the age of nine, it was suggested to his father that Henry should be sent to school, which could be "good for his character". Henry thus became the first child of a reigning monarch to attend school, first at St Peter's Court School, before transferring to Eton College. By the time he left school, he had become robust in terms of health, having excelled at sport. He entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1919, being initially commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps, before transferring to the 10th Royal Hussars.

The prince had an active career in the army, eventually retiring from active service following the accession of his brother Albert as King George VI in 1937. However, he returned to service on the outbreak of the Second World War, serving as the Chief Liaison Officer to the British Expeditionary Force, seeing service in France during 1940, and undertaking various staff roles until 1942. In late 1944, he was unexpectedly appointed as Governor-General of Australia, the king's personal representative, a role that was originally planned for the prince's younger brother, George, who was killed before he could take it up. Henry served as Governor-General until 1947, when he was forced to return to the UK to act in his role as a Counsellor of State owing to the absence of both the King and his daughter, Princess Elizabeth, on a tour to South Africa.

Answer: Japan

Prince William was born in 1941, the eldest son of the Duke of Gloucester. As a boy, he attended Eton College, the same school as his father, where he excelled at sport. However, unlike his father he also achieved academically, and, having left school, read history at Magdalene College, Cambridge, gaining his degree in 1963, before spending a year at Stanford University in the United States. Although, on his return to the UK he initially worked for a merchant bank, he elected to eschew the traditional role for British princes of joining the armed forces, instead joining the civil service. In 1965, he joined the Commonwealth Office and was posted to the British High Commission in Nigeria, where he served for three years as Third Secretary.

In 1968, following the merger of the Commonwealth Office and the Foreign Office, the prince was posted to the British Embassy in Tokyo as Second Secretary. However, in 1970, William felt that he had to leave the diplomatic service and return to the UK to run his family estate and undertake more royal duties, owing to his father's increasing ill-health. William, a qualified pilot, died in a plane crash while competing in the Goodyear International Air Trophy in 1972, two years before the death of his father.

Answer: Architecture

Prince Richard, the second son of the Duke of Gloucester, was born in 1944, and followed the early path set by his elder brother by attending Wellesley House School and Eton College, before entering Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he gained a degree in architecture in 1966. Richard undertook a year of practice in the Ministry of Public Building and Works, before returning to Cambridge to complete his professional qualifications. Having qualified as an architect in 1969, he became one of the founding partners of the architectural practice, Hunt Thompson Associates, his status as a younger son allowing him a degree of freedom in his career choice.

In 1972, however, the prince's older brother, Prince William, was killed in a plane crash, which saw Richard forced to give up his career and take on more royal duties. Following his father's death in 1974, Richard succeeded to the dukedom and became a full-time member of the Royal Family. Despite this, he retained an interest in his profession, being elected as a Fellow of the Royal institute of British Architects, as well as serving as patron of a number of organisations related to architecture and construction.

Answer: Royal Navy

Prince George was born in 1902, the fourth son and fifth child of King George V. Like his elder brother, Henry, George attended St Peter's Court prep school in Broadstairs. But, rather than subsequently go to Eton College, George instead followed his elder brothers in attending the Royal Naval College, Osborne to prepare for a naval career. In 1920, he passed out of the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth and began a ten-year career in the Royal Navy, which included postings to the flagship of the Atlantic Fleet, HMS Nelson, and to Bermuda as an officer aboard HMS Durban.

George eventually left the Royal Navy as a Lieutenant in 1929, having detested his time in the service due to suffering from seasickness. Having left the armed forces, he became the first member of the Royal Family to be employed as a civil servant, when he undertook brief periods working in first the Foreign Office, then the Home Office. During the 1930s, he was a full-time member of the Royal Family, before, in October 1938, he was appointed as Governor-General of Australia, effective from November 1939. Owing to the Second World War, this appointment was postponed, and instead George returned to active service in the Royal Navy, serving in Naval Intelligence. In April 1940, he transferred to the Royal Air Force as a staff officer in Training Command, before taking a post on the staff of the RAF Inspector-General, undertaking visits to RAF stations. It was in this role that he was serving when he was killed in a plane crash in August 1942.

Answer: Royal Scots Greys

Prince Edward was born in 1935 as the eldest child of the Duke of Kent. In 1942, at the age of six, he succeeded to the dukedom following the death of his father in a plane crash. Having completed his school education in 1954, when he attended Eton College, as well as the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst to train as an army officer.

The following year, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Scots Greys, one of the British Army's senior line cavalry regiments, the start of a career that lasted twenty years, and saw the him serve in various locations around the world, including in Hong Kong, Cyprus, West Germany and Northern Ireland. In 1971, Edward was in command of one of the Guards during the formation parade of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, a new regiment created through the amalgamation of the Royal Scots Greys and the 3rd Carabiniers. The prince retired from the army as a Lieutenant-Colonel in 1976.

Answer: Russian

Prince Michael of Kent was born in 1942, the second son and third child of the Duke of Kent. Just seven weeks after his birth, his father was killed in a plane crash, which saw Michael's six-year old elder brother succeed to the dukedom. Like his elder brother, Michael attended Eton College and had a career in the army, primarily serving in the Royal Hussars, seeing service in Germany, Hong Kong, and Cyprus before retiring in 1981.

During his time in the army, the prince attended a Russian language course at the Defence School of Languages, which led to his qualifying as a military interpreter in the language in 1968. Since leaving the army, Michael has forged links with Russia, and, in 1991, provided DNA samples that were used to identify the remains of Tsar Nicholas II that had been discovered that year.

Answer: Heathfield

Princess Alexandra was born in 1936, the second child and only daughter of the Duke of Kent. Having spent a considerable amount of the Second World War living with her grandmother, Queen Mary, at the age of eleven she became the first British princess to go to school when she was enrolled at Heathfield, an independent boarding school in Ascot.

Having been at Heathfield for six years, in 1953 she went to Paris for a year to attend Mademoiselle Anita's finishing school, before returning to London where she trained as a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital, before beginning to take on royal duties. Alexandra retained an interest in health care, serving as the patron of a number of medicine and health related charities, including the Florence Nightingale Foundation.

Answer: British Red Cross

Princess Mary was born in 1897, the third child and only daughter of George, Prince of Wales (later George V). On the outbreak of the First World War, she began visiting hospitals and welfare organisations with her mother, Queen Mary, and took an interest in the comfort and welfare of servicemen and their families, with one of her first major projects being the establishment of the Princess Mary's Christmas Gift Fund, intended to provide Christmas gifts to servicemen beginning at Christmas 1914.

In June 1918, at the age of 21, she trained as a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, working there two days a week as part of the Voluntary Aid Detachment. This began a lifelong connection with nursing, as, in 1923, she gave her name to the Royal Air Force's nursing branch, while three years later she took on the honorary position of commandant-in-chief of the British Red Cross's detachments across the United Kingdom.

Answer: Leeds United

George Lascelles was the eldest child of Princess Mary and her husband, Viscount Lascelles (later the Earl of Harewood). Born in 1923, he was also the eldest grandchild of King George V. During the Second World War, he served as an officer in the Grenadier Guards, and was captured in June 1944, after which he became a prisoner at the infamous Colditz Castle POW camp. He succeeded his father as the 7th Earl of Harewood in 1947, after which he served in senior roles in a number of organisations reflecting his interests - he served two periods as a director of the Royal Opera House, as well as serving as both managing director and then chairman of the English National Opera between 1972 and 1995, while he also spent a decade as president of the British Board of Film Classification.

In 1961 he became the president of Leeds United, the football club he had supported since he was a boy, a role he served in until his death in 2011 (and which was continued by his son David Lascelles in 2019), while in 1963 he became the president of the Football Association, serving until 1971.