Q 01/05

Which two rival branches of the House of Plantagenet fought the Wars of the Roses?

A) Neville and Percy

B) Tudor and Stuart

C) York and Lancaster

D) Beaufort and Mortimer

Answer · why

C) York and Lancaster

York's badge was a white rose; the red rose of Lancaster was only really adopted after Henry Tudor's victory in 1485.

Q 02/05

Between which years are the Wars of the Roses conventionally dated?

A) 1455 to 1487

B) 1399 to 1422

C) 1337 to 1453

D) 1485 to 1509

Answer · why

A) 1455 to 1487

They ran from the first pitched battle in 1455 to Henry VII's victory over the last Yorkist army in 1487.

Q 03/05

Which novelist's 1829 book Anne of Geierstein brought the name 'Wars of the Roses' into common use?

A) Jane Austen

B) Charles Dickens

C) Sir Walter Scott

D) William Makepeace Thackeray

Answer · why

C) Sir Walter Scott

He drew on Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1, where nobles pick red or white roses in the Temple Church garden; contemporaries just called them the civil...

Q 04/05

How old was Henry VI when he succeeded his father Henry V in 1422?

A) Nine months

B) Four years

C) Nine years

D) Fifteen years

Answer · why

A) Nine months

A weak and mentally unsound ruler, he was fought over by his Beaufort relatives and his queen on one side and his cousin the Duke of York on the other...

Q 05/05

What term did Charles Plummer coin in 1885 for the system of paid retinues that let magnates defy the crown?

A) Bastard feudalism

B) The affinity system

C) Manorialism

D) Livery and maintenance

Answer · why

A) Bastard feudalism

Lords paid retainers rather than owing feudal service, building private armies loyal to themselves rather than the king.