Chivalry is Deadly Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gareth and Gaheris

Gareth is best known for the story of his romance with Lynette, who mistook him for a mere kitchen boy, and constantly abused and ridiculed him. He had earlier been in the service of Arthur's boorish brother Kay, who had nicknamed him "Beaumains", or "Fairhands"; a reference to his white, smooth hands, which were obviously unused to manual labor. Eventually, Lynette recognized Gareth's noble and chivalrous nature, though it was her sister, Lyonesse, whom he eventually married.

After their deaths, Gareth and Gaheris' brother Gawain, who had also been a friend of Lancelot's, vowed to avenge their deaths and refused to accept Lancelot's quite sincere remorse over the tragic error. He allied himself with the evil Mordred and persuaded Arthur to go to war with Lancelot, which led to the destruction of the Round Table. During the final battle, Gawain was mortally wounded, and with his dying strength wrote a letter to Lancelot, finally offering his forgiveness.

Answer: Norway

Hallvard is one of two patrons of Norway, the other being St. Olaf, who was a distant relative of Hallvard's mother. According to his brief life story, he was about to set sail on the Baltic Sea when a desperate young woman begged to be allowed aboard his ship.

She was a slave and had been falsely accused of theft by her owners, from whom she was fleeing. Hallvard gallantly took her on board, just as the angry pursuers approached. When Hallvard refused to turn her over, both he and the woman died in a hail of arrows from the angry mob. Fearing retribution by Hallvard's noble family, they tried to conceal their crime by sinking the body with a millstone, but it eventually surfaced and the truth came out. Miracles were reported at the site of Hallvard's death; along with the story of his heroic defense of an innocent person, these led to his being venerated as a saint.

He is the principal patron of the city of Oslo, where a cathedral dedicated to him was built in the 13th century to house his remains.

He is also depicted on the seal of the city of Oslo, holding a millstone and arrows, with the body of the unfortunate slave girl lying at his feet.

Answer: James Barrie

Crichton was celebrated equally for his accomplishments in the arts, sciences, and languages, as for his good looks, grace, and charm, which earned him his famous sobriquet. In 1582, he entered the service of the Duke of Mantua, whose son, Vincenzo, came to resent his father's esteem for the talented Scot (who, additionally, won the affections of Vicenzo's former mistress). One evening, Crichton was attacked by a mob of masked ruffians, and bested them all. When he challenged the ringleader, however, the man removed his mask and revealed himself as Vincenzo. Gallantly, Crichton fell to his knees and presented his sword to Vincenzo, who promptly ran the gentleman and scholar through the heart. He was 22 years old.

Barrie's play does not actually deal with the historical James Crichton, but concerns a fictitious English butler who, after being shipwrecked along with the family he serves, reveals himself to possess natural leadership qualities which they themselves lack. James Crichton's sobriquet had, by this time, become synonymous with any prodigiously talented individual. Although the historical Crichton's accomplishments may have been exaggerated as his story became the stuff of legend (he was said by some to be fluent in twelve languages, and to have been an accomplished singer, fencer, and horseman) he was certainly an unusually gifted young man, and his brutal slaying aroused the indignation of the English-speaking world.

Answer: "'Tis a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries"

Raleigh had been under sentence of death since James ascended the throne, having been accused of complicity in the Treason at Maine, of which he is now believed to have been innocent. In part because of his skillful and intelligent defense, and likely also because of his tremendous popularity, James initially spared his life and sentenced him instead to imprisonment in the Tower. During this time, he and his wife produced a son, Carew. In 1616, he was released from prison in order to head an expedition to what is now Venezuela in search of the city of El Dorado. During this expedition, Raleigh led an attack on the Spanish outpost of San Tome, during which his older son Walter was killed. This aroused the ire of the Spanish ambassador, who demanded that James reinstate Raleigh's sentence of death. James complied, and Raleigh was executed at Whitehall on October 29, 1618. One of the judges at his trial was quoted as saying that "the justice of England has never been so degraded and injured as by the condemnation of the honorable Sir Walter Raleigh."

The wrong answers were made by, or have been attributed, to the following:

"I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be."- King Charles I

"Will you give me the sword and spare me the dull axe?"- Anne Boleyn

"I pray you Mr Lieutenant, see me safe up and for my coming down, I can shift for myself"- Sir Thomas More

Answer: Burr felt that Hamilton was slandering him.

Burr had just been defeated in the New York gubernatorial election by Morgan Lewis, who had considerable assistance from Hamilton. A subsequent letter printed in the Albany Register described Hamilton as having expressed vicious opinions regarding Burr's character. Burr felt that his honor and integrity were being attacked, and demanded a retraction and an apology, which Hamilton refused to give, claiming that he had no memory of having spoken thus. After numerous futile attempts at negotiation and conciliation, the two men agreed to settle their differences with the celebrated duel, which took place along the Hudson River in New Jersey. In a letter written before the fateful encounter, Hamilton wrote "I have resolved, if our interview is conducted in the usual manner, and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw away my first fire, and I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire". Whether he acted thus has been a matter of some conjecture, and neither of the seconds (who were the only witnesses to the incident) could remember who had fired the first shot. Some have speculated that Hamilton may have deliberately misled Burr; when presented with this theory, Burr is said to have made the pithy reply "Contemptible, if true."

Although Burr is generally depicted as having been the aggressor and the villain in the affair, Hamilton was known to have possessed a vicious temper, and had instigated a number of duels in his lifetime. On one occasion, Burr actually interceded on behalf of one of Hamilton's adversaries: When Hamilton publicly acknowledged his affair with a married woman- Maria Reynolds- he falsely accused James Monroe of having spread rumors about the affair, and challenged him to a duel. Burr interposed, and managed to convince Hamilton of the falseness of the charge. Ironically, Hamilton's son Philip had himself been killed in a duel three years before Hamilton's death on the same spot where Hamilton himself was fatally shot.

Answer: Andrew Jackson

Throughout his marriage to the former Rachel Donelson Robards, Jackson and his wife were plagued by allegations of bigamy, due to questions about Rachel's divorce from her first husband, Lewis Robards. Robards was a violent man, given to fits of irrational rage, and Rachel's marriage to him was a miserable one. He had supposedly obtained a divorce from her in 1790, whereupon she and Jackson married. However it developed that the divorce had not been finalized, meaning that Andrew and Rachel had unwittingly committed bigamy. The divorce was finally made official in 1794, whereupon the two married once again, but the scandal regarding their first, unlawful marriage was to dog Rachel throughout her short life.

Jackson fought about 13 duels over his wife's honor, all but one of which were mere formalities in which there were no fatalities, However in 1806, one Charles Dickinson, an expert marksman whose dueling career boasted 26 kills, goaded Jackson into a duel at the urging of his political rivals. Dickenson's shot came perilously close to Jackson's heart, having been deflected by his ribs. Jackson's own gun misfired, however he requested a reload. His second shot found its mark and ended Dickinson's dueling career and his life. Jackson carried Dickinson's bullet, along with others from the various duels he had fought, for the remainder of his life; it was said that he "rattled like a bag of marbles", and he suffered continual pain: In 1828, he won the presidency, after two hard-fought campaigns. Sadly, Rachel was not destined to enjoy her husband's victory for long; she died of a heart attack just two weeks after the election, and was buried on Christmas Eve. For the rest of his life, Jackson blamed the scandal-mongering over his and Rachel's marriage during his political campaigns for Rachel's sudden and tragic death.

Answer: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Ingres remained active even in the last years of his long life, and not only artistically. In 1852, at the age of 61, he married for a second time to 20 year-old Delphine Ramel. He subsequently painted her portrait, in which she is richly dressed and resplendant with jewelry, in sharp contrast to his 1815 portrait of the first Mme Ingres (the former Madeleine Chappelle), who is simply dressed in shades of brown and devoid of adornements. Among Ingres' numerous and celebrated portraits of female subjects are "Madame Riviere" (1806), "The Bather of Valpincon" (1808),"La Grand Odalisque" (1814), "Madame LeBlanc" (1823), and "La Source" (1856).

Answer: Joseph Pulitzer

Phillips' work is largely forgotten today, but he was highly regarded in his time, particularly by H.L. Mencken (whose autobiography contains a pithy and wry account of Phillips' tragic end). His journalistic tactics inspired President Theodore Roosevelt to coin the term "muckraker", which has long since become part of the lexicon. His other enduring contribution was the posthumous novel "Susan Lenox, Her Rise and Fall" which was the basis for the motion picture "Susan Lenox" starring Greta Garbo and Clark Gable (it was this film that was advertised with the legendary phrase "Garbo's Back and Gable's got her!"). One of his chief mentors was Joseph Pulitzer; however the two men eventually had a falling out, and Phillips' 1901 novel "The Great God Success" presented a decidedly unflattering portrait of the senior journalist. Ironically, Pulitzer would not long outlive Phillips, dying in September of 1911.

As for Goldsborough, he was known to have been fanatically protective of his silly, vain sister Addie, even threatening to attack his own father when the latter mildly chided his daughter. Goldsborough's conviction that the "noddle-headed" debutante Margaret Severance in Phillips' 1909 novel was based on Addie seems to have been a paranoid delusion; Phillips had never met Addie and didn't know the Goldsborough family.

Answer: W.S. Gilbert

William Schwenke Gilbert was a highly regarded dramatist in his time (his comic play "Engaged" was the inspiration for Oscar Wilde's classic drawing room comedy "The Importance of Being Earnest"), but his plays have largely fallen into obscurity. Not so the numerous operettas he wrote in collaboration with Sir Arthur Sullivan, which are still widely performed today- "H.M.S. Pinafore", "The Mikado", "The Pirates of Penzance", "Patience", "Gondoliers" and others have lost none of their popularity after more than a century. Gilbert's witty jabs at the aristocracy, the monarchy, however, did not endear him to Queen Victoria, and although she knighted Sullivan in 1883, Gilbert had to wait until after her death to receive his knighthood at the hands of Edward VII, in 1907. Sir William's valorous end, coming to the aid of a damsel in distress, perfectly embodied the ideals of the Edwardian era.

Answer: Benjamin Guggenheim

It might be said of Benjamin Guggenheim what Shakespeare said in "Macbeth" of the Thane of Cawdor: "Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it". The son of wealthy mining magnate Meyer Guggenheim, Benjamin showed little of his father's aptitude for investments, and by the time of his death had lost much of his considerable inheritance. Likewise, his marriage to the former Florette Seligman, with whom he had three daughters, had grown distant; he was frequently away from home to visit his mistress, French chanteuse Leontine Aubert, who was his companion on the fateful voyage. Apart from his legendary behavior on board the Titanic, Guggenheim's greatest legacy was his daughter, the celebrated art collector and patron Marguerite (Peggy) Guggenheim.