Vive la Reine Trivia Quiz

Answer: He was a Viking.

Rollo was a Viking warlord, who became the ruler of Normandy. William I of England, famous as Willian the Conqueror, was a direct descendant of his.
Adelaide of Aquitaine was influential at the court of her husband and played a diplomatic role as well. All the following kings of France were her descendants. He died more than a century before the First Crusade, so wasn't involved in any way.

Answer: Kiev

Anne of Kiev was a daughter of the Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev, and a Swedish princess. By 1051, Henry I of France was in dire need for an heir, as his first wife and son had died. Anne married the much older Henry and they had three sons together. After he died, she acted as regent for their young son Philip.

Answer: She sucked the poison out of her husband's wound, inflicted by a would-be assassin.

The story about sucking poison from a wound was about Eleanor of Castile. This Eleanor was a later Queen of England and also joined her husband on crusade.
Eleanor of Castile was a great-great-granddaughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Eleanor of Aquitaine went on crusade with Louis VII of France. She was rumored to have slept with Raymond, Prince of Antioch during the journey to the Holy Land. Eleanor married Henry II of England after her marriage to Louis VII broke down and had several children with him. She teamed up with some of them in rebellion against her second husband and later raised ransom money to free her son Richard the Lionheart from captivity. After Richard died, the plan was to have her granddaughter Urracca of Castile marry Louis VIII of France, but she chose Urraca's younger sister Blanche after meeting her. Though herself of old age, Eleanor crossed the Pyrenees to accomplish this.

Blanche would become one of the most respected Queens of France in history. She acted as regent during the minority of her son and when he was absent. She was still referred to as a model of a good regent centuries later. Things were never boring when Eleanor or her family was around.

Answer: He put a wife on trial for treason and almost had her beheaded.

Philip's first Queen Isabella of Hainault was still in her teens when he thought of repudiating her because she had not given birth to any children yet. She went barefoot through the streets and received sympathy from the crowds. He didn't repudiate her, which might also have something to do with the fact that he would lose the county of Artois, which she ruled as countess.
In the end, she gave birth to the later Louis VIII. After a subsequent pregnancy, she died in childbirth. She was not yet twenty.

After his wedding night with his second wife, Ingeborg of Denmark, Philip immediately wanted to end the marriage. He married Agnes de Meran, but the pope declared his marriage to Ingeborg valid. When he refused to return to her, the pope placed France under an interdict. Philip finally gave in and later acknowledged Ingeborg as Queen, but they never had any children together. Agnes died in childbirth soon after she left Philip. Their two children were legitimized by the pope on Philip's request.

Answer: She was Queen of another country in her own right.

Jeanne I was Queen of Navarre. Several women after her would rule Navarre (located in the north of present day Spain) in their own right. The marriage was reportedly a happy one. Despite being known for his great looks and unlike some other French kings, Philip remained faithful to his wife.

Jeanne didn't lead a rebellion against her husband, but her daughter Isabella would do so against her husband Edward II of England. Witch hunts weren't a common thing during her lifetime, but her husband would go after the Knights Templar later during his reign.

Answer: Her sisters-in-law commited adultery and were imprisoned.

Jeanne, her sister Blanche and a cousin Marguerite were all married to the three sons of Philip IV of France. Both Marguerite and Blanche had affairs and were locked away. It was thought Jeanne knew about it, but both she and her husband Philip proclaimed her innocence. She was finally allowed back at court in 1315 and was crowned alongside her husband when he became king Philip V.
The other two ladies were not so fortunate.

Marguerite died in prison. Blanche lived longer, but her health had been affected by long imprisonment and she did not live long after she was released. Her husband Charles IV married twice more after Blanche had died, but he never had a son. The Capetian Dynasty was replaced by the Valois Dynasty at his death in 1328.

Answer: Charles became mad.

The marriage started nicely, but Charles descended into madness. He could be violent and lived in filth, not recognising his wife and family. He also believed he was made of glass at points. His madness had a severe effect on France, already threatened by England on the best of days during the Hundred Years War. His nobles fought each other for power and Henry V of England would win his famous battle against France at Azincourt during his reign.

Isabeau gave into English demands and this made her an enemy of her own son, the later Charles VII, who continued to resist.

Answer: Louis married her himself.

Louis XII had his marriage to Jeanne of France annulled to marry Anne. She had been the daughter of Louis XI and sister to Charles VIII. Jeanne would later be proclaimed a saint by the church.

Though Anne of Brittany married both Charles VIII and Louis XII, she wanted her duchy to retain a great amount of independence. She is still a popular historical figure there. None of her sons survived to inherit. Two daughters did survive her and her oldest daughter Claude inherited Brittany. Claude married Francis I, the next king of France, and had children with him. Thus Brittany finally remained connected to the Crown of France.

Answer: Mary, Queen of Scots

Mary, Queen of Scots was also Queen of France from 1559 to 1560, as the wife of Francis II. Like many at the French court, she was said to feel contempt for Catharine's comparatively lower class family. Catherine did have a pope as uncle, but the Medici family had started their rise to influence and fame as merchants in Florence. After several generations had married noble women, Catherine did have quite have some noble blood coursing through her veins, but it wouldn't have impressed a reigning Queen with close ties to the royal houses of several countries. After Francis II died, Mary left for Scotland and never returned to France, where she had grown up. She would die by the axe as the famous Mary Stuart.

Louise of Lorraine was the wife of Henry III. Unlike Catharine, she didn't have much political influence, but she was popular with the people.

Madeleine of France was a daughter of Francis I. She had married James V of Scotland, but was sickly and didn't live long after coming to Scotland. James V then married Marie de Guise, who became the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Anne, Countess of Holland, is a made up person. There was an 'Anne, Countess of Buren', in the sixteenth century Low Countries though. She married William of Orange, who would go on to lead the Dutch Revolt. "Van Buren" is still one of the titles of the Dutch royal house. King Willem-Alexander used the name "Van Buren" when he participated in an ice skating competition.

Answer: It destroyed what was left of her reputation.

Marie-Antoinette was innocent in the plot, but a lot of people thought she was behind it and were angry she wasn't punished. By the time this affair became known, she was already unpopular and seen as a spendthrift, so people easily believed anything evil of her. Her husband did defend her and the one good thing was that it brought them closer together.

Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, a descendant of an illegitimate son of Henry II, was really behind it. Once she got her hands on the necklace, it was cut in pieces and sold on the black market. As punishment, she was whipped and branded. Jeanne escaped from a French prison to London, where she died falling out of a hotel window while she fled from debt collectors. One cannot help but wonder what she would have been like as France's Queen.