Q 01/05

The 'Cavalier' in the breed's name recalls the nickname of which side in the English Civil War?

A) Royalists

B) Parliamentarians

C) Covenanters

D) Levellers

Answer · why

A) Royalists

Royalists. The word began as an insult, thrown by their Puritan opponents at the swaggering, long-haired followers of Charles I.

Q 02/05

Blenheim Palace, which gave the red-and-white Cavalier its name, was the birthplace of which prime minister?

A) Winston Churchill

B) Benjamin Disraeli

C) William Gladstone

D) Robert Walpole

Answer · why

A) Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill. He was born there in 1874, a grandson of the 7th duke, and in 1908 he proposed to his future wife Clementine in a little temple in ...

Q 03/05

Which duke developed the red-and-white hunting spaniels now called Blenheims at his Oxfordshire palace?

A) Wellington

B) Marlborough

C) Devonshire

D) Buccleuch

Answer · why

B) Marlborough

Marlborough. The first duke's little spaniels kept their sporting instincts and were worked at flushing game on the estate, which the nation had built...

Q 04/05

Legend says the chestnut 'Blenheim spot' on a Cavalier's forehead was pressed there by an anxious duchess's what?

A) Her thumb

B) Her signet ring

C) Her lips

D) Her fan

Answer · why

A) Her thumb

Her thumb. The story has her waiting for news of her husband at war and absently pressing a pregnant spaniel's head, so that the pups were born wearin...

Q 05/05

Which diarist grumbled that Charles II spent a council meeting playing with his dog instead of minding business?

A) Samuel Pepys

B) James Boswell

C) Daniel Defoe

D) Jonathan Swift

Answer · why

A) Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys. In 1667 he noted 'the silliness of the King, playing with his dog all the while', and the little spaniels that had the run of Whitehall ...