Q 01/05

Richard III's remains, lost since his death at Bosworth in 1485, were found in 2012 under what in Leicester?

A) A car park

B) A cathedral crypt

C) A supermarket

D) A railway station

Answer · why

A) A car park

A car park of Leicester City Council lay over the lost Greyfriars friary church where the king had been buried after the battle; the dig began on 25 A...

Q 02/05

Which noblewoman, heir under the dying boy king's 'Devise for the Succession', reigned nine days in July 1553?

A) Lady Katherine Grey

B) Lady Jane Grey

C) Lady Mary Grey

D) Frances Brandon

Answer · why

B) Lady Jane Grey

Lady Jane Grey, nicknamed the Nine Days Queen, was deposed by the Privy Council in favour of her cousin Mary and beheaded in February 1554, aged about...

Q 03/05

Which French port, English since 1347, fell in 1558 and, Mary I said, would be found lying in her heart?

A) Boulogne

B) Calais

C) Dunkirk

D) Le Havre

Answer · why

B) Calais

Calais had been England's last possession on the European mainland; French forces took it in January 1558, ten months before Mary died, and the loss h...

Q 04/05

Which of Henry VIII's queens was beheaded with a sword, not an axe, by a swordsman brought over from France?

A) Catherine of Aragon

B) Catherine Howard

C) Anne Boleyn

D) Catherine Parr

Answer · why

C) Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn was spared the axe by an expert swordsman from Saint-Omer after Henry commuted her sentence from burning, and she was beheaded inside the ...

Q 05/05

Which king, once Mary I's husband and so Elizabeth I's brother-in-law, sent the Armada against England in 1588?

A) Emperor Charles V

B) Francis I of France

C) Philip II of Spain

D) Ferdinand of Aragon

Answer · why

C) Philip II of Spain

Philip II of Spain had been king consort of England from 1554 until Mary's death; his 1588 Armada aimed to depose his former sister-in-law and restore...