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Quiz about Out of Wedlock
Quiz about Out of Wedlock

Out of Wedlock Trivia Quiz


"Did you know that Napoleon was the illegitimate child of Louis XVI?" Yes, this quiz is about such juicy matters - whether based on facts or not - which will interest an overwhelming majority of mankind till the end of time ...

A multiple-choice quiz by Oblomov. Estimated time: 8 mins.
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Author
Oblomov
Time
8 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
126,043
Updated
Jul 23 22
# Qns
15
Difficulty
Difficult
Avg Score
7 / 15
Plays
1322
- -
Question 1 of 15
1. The famous Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was an illegitimate son of Anna, daughter of the Duke of Saxony and second wife of William the Silent, Prince of Orange.


Question 2 of 15
2. Perhaps you know that splendid and rightly famous painting of Velazquez, alternatively called "Las Lanzas" ("the lances") or "La rendición de Breda" ("The surrender of Breda"). It depicts the surrender in 1625 of the beleaguered Dutch city of Breda by its military commander Justinus of Nassau to the Spanish general Spinola. Now this Justinus of Nassau was - and everybody knew this at the time - the illegitimate son of: Hint


Question 3 of 15
3. In 0ctober 1571 a Turkish fleet was virtually destroyed off Lepanto by a son of Charles V, emperor of Germany, king of Spain, etc., etc. This son (a bastard in more than one sense by the way) was called: Hint


Question 4 of 15
4. On grounds of a rather complicated and messy family history with extra-marital affairs and events, Adolf Hitler's name should legally have been Adolf Schicklgruber ("Heil Schicklgruber!" Just try to pronounce that, or to shout it ...). Are there sufficient grounds to sustain this claim?


Question 5 of 15
5. Stalin: even when he was still alive rumours circulated in the Soviet Union, that the venerated and/of feared Great Leader of Mankind had not that drunken sod of a cobbler as his father, but a much more prominent individual, namely: Hint


Question 6 of 15
6. "monde des lettres": this man lived in the 19th century, and, despite the fact that he was not a legitimate son, he bore the name of his father, and exercized the same profession, in which both proved to be excellent craftsmen. His writings included one, which was entitled "Le fils naturel" ("The naturel son")! Not his most famous one, though. That was about a lady with flowers. Hint


Question 7 of 15
7. Catherine II, Empress of Russia, ascended the throne in 1762 after a coup d'état as a result of which the legitimate ruler, Czar Peter III, Catherine's husband, was deposed, put in a nasty jail, and after a short while was murdered, with or without the complicity of his lawful wife - we'll never know. She hated her son Paul, who was to succeed her as absolute ruler of the vast Russian empire.
Who, of the four persons presented here, stands the greatest chance of being the biological father of Paul? (There are at the very least 400 options open, but I can only give you a choice of four.)
Hint


Question 8 of 15
8. You might have seen that painting of Goya of the royal Spanish family (at the time of Napoleon). Goya depicted them as the sad degenerate lot they were, but they didn't seem to notice that. Only two of the youngest royal children on the picture look normal and even smart. Everyone in Spain at that time believed they were the children of Manuel Godoy, the Queen's lover. Was this wide-spread conviction justified?


Question 9 of 15
9. Who was the real father of the Swedish King Charles XIV (1763-1844)? Hint


Question 10 of 15
10. In Napoleonic times we are never short of tales about illicit relationships. Hortense de Beauharnais, wife of Napoleon's brother Louis, who was from 1806 to 1810 King of Holland, had a son, who in 1852 became the French emperor Napoleon III. The question is: was King Louis the real father of this second Bonaparte Emperor?


Question 11 of 15
11. Hortense had another son, who later on carried the title of Duke of Morny. Was this son an illegitimate son of the Queen of Holland?


Question 12 of 15
12. Richard Wagner's wife Cosima was as extreme a German nationalist as her husband - possibly even more so. Yet she was born out of wedlock as daughter of a French countess. Who was her father? Hint


Question 13 of 15
13. Ah! How I like that outstanding romantic painter Eugène Delacroix! His "Massacre of Chios"! His "Algerian" paintings! Have a look at them, if possible! Just one question, though: who was his real father? Hint


Question 14 of 15
14. Sally Hemings became, at the tender age of 14, his mistress. She bore him some children, amongst them a very gifted girl, but he has seemed to ignore her talents. Yet, this fighter in the cause of freedom believed in principle in the equality of all men. Did he not think of women? Come on, Americans! I think I gave you enough clues to guess the identity of: Hint


Question 15 of 15
15. As the rumour goes, there was this young talented man, called Nicholas Jenkinson, who at a tender age fell, alas, in battle in the Boer War, about 1900. And, again according to this rumour, he was the natural offspring of that dangerous liaison between Queen Victoria and Gladstone. Would you acknowledge at least the possibility of this rumour to be based on some facts, hardly to be refuted?



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. The famous Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was an illegitimate son of Anna, daughter of the Duke of Saxony and second wife of William the Silent, Prince of Orange.

Answer: False

In 1568 the Calvinist father of Rubens had fled from the Spanish-occupied Netherlands to Germany. Indeed his son Peter Paul Rubens was born in Siegen, Nassau, one of the possessions of the prince of Orange, where Anna had stayed for years. But the birth took place in 1577, when Anna, being really or allegedly mad, had already been locked up in a German castle far away for many years.

Another fact, however, is that Rubens' father indeed had been, in about 1570, the adviser and lover of Anna, which resulted in an embarrassing pregnancy, and probable miscarriage, of Anna. Quite a number of relatives and acquaintances of William the Silent criticized him for not having the culpable father Rubens hanged, and considered him "soft".

But William of Orange did not much fancy bloodshed, if he could avoid it.
2. Perhaps you know that splendid and rightly famous painting of Velazquez, alternatively called "Las Lanzas" ("the lances") or "La rendición de Breda" ("The surrender of Breda"). It depicts the surrender in 1625 of the beleaguered Dutch city of Breda by its military commander Justinus of Nassau to the Spanish general Spinola. Now this Justinus of Nassau was - and everybody knew this at the time - the illegitimate son of:

Answer: William of Orange

William of Orange was a man of great qualities, but conjugal fidelity was not the most outstanding of them. The mother of Justinus was a certain Eva Elinx, a daughter of a burgomaster of Emmerich in Germany, and hence Anna of Saxony was not Justinus' mother. Johan Maurits of Nassau was indeed a distant relative of the Orange family, but lived some three-quarters of a century later: he tried to establish a Dutch colony in Brazil. And I never heard of an Eberhard as Prince-Bishop of Nassau before I wrote these lines, because Nassau was a secular principality, and not like Liège or Trier or Cologne a prince-bishopric. By the way have a look at a representation of that painting of Velazquez, and observe, how courteous the defender and the conqueror of Breda behave, like old pals....
3. In 0ctober 1571 a Turkish fleet was virtually destroyed off Lepanto by a son of Charles V, emperor of Germany, king of Spain, etc., etc. This son (a bastard in more than one sense by the way) was called:

Answer: Don Juan

As an epithet the name was not quite beside the point, neither for him nor for his father, who had a liaison with a girl from Regensburg in Germany (well, after all he was the Emperor). In 1569-'70 he suppressed in a ferocious manner a revolt of people of Muslim origins in southern Spain.

Some years after his brilliant naval exploit near Lepanto his half-brother Philip II, King of Spain, appointed him vice-roy of the rebellious Netherlands, where Don Juan with his utter untruthworthiness managed to antagonize everybody, including King Philip. Alexander of Parma, who, after a sort of interregnum, took over the job, proved himself to be an able general and a smart politician. Don Fadrique was the son of the Duke of Alva. Don Carlos was the crownprince of Spain, slightly (or perhaps more than slightly) mad, and died prematurely.

The German poet and playwright Schiller made him famous.
4. On grounds of a rather complicated and messy family history with extra-marital affairs and events, Adolf Hitler's name should legally have been Adolf Schicklgruber ("Heil Schicklgruber!" Just try to pronounce that, or to shout it ...). Are there sufficient grounds to sustain this claim?

Answer: No

No, indeed not. The situation described applied to his father Alois, of doubtful parentage on his father's side, who indeed was born out of wedlock, but in 1876 his name, which originally was his mother's name Schicklgruber, was legally and formally changed to Alois Hitler.

Then there is that other rumour, that Hitler's maternal grandfather was in fact a Jewish merchant, in whose household Hitler's mother worked temporarily as a servant, and who later on behaved in a remarkably generous way to her.

This affair is not impossible, but the evidence is rather meager. That said, Hitler wasn't at all keen on reseach into his origins.
5. Stalin: even when he was still alive rumours circulated in the Soviet Union, that the venerated and/of feared Great Leader of Mankind had not that drunken sod of a cobbler as his father, but a much more prominent individual, namely:

Answer: The explorer Przhevalski

Yes, the man who discovered this little, but famous steppe horse (nearly extinct in the wild, I am afraid). In fact, Stalin's mother worked as a maid in the homes of rich people, and Przhevalski frequented just about the year of Stalin's birth those Georgian circles in or near Tiflis, and pictures of Przhevalski do indeed show a great resemblance with Stalin's countenance.

But that's about all the evidence there is. Note the striking resemblance with Hitler's mother! There are more similarities between Hitler and Stalin: a violent and more often than not drunken father, who regularily beat up his son; a mother who spoiled her son, after previously having lost other earlier-born children; and there are more important similarities I shall not dwell upon ...
6. "monde des lettres": this man lived in the 19th century, and, despite the fact that he was not a legitimate son, he bore the name of his father, and exercized the same profession, in which both proved to be excellent craftsmen. His writings included one, which was entitled "Le fils naturel" ("The naturel son")! Not his most famous one, though. That was about a lady with flowers.

Answer: Alexandre Dumas

Often called Alexandre Dumas fils (son), to mark him off his father, Alexandre Dumas père. (Interesting to note, that both took their surname from a female black slave, who had been the concubine of her owner, a French marquess.) The son's most famous book is "La dame aux camélias". Classics of his father: "The Three Musqueteers", "The Count of Monte Cristo". Both lack the intellectuality of Proust or Stendhal, but that can be quite refreshing.

When you are 10 years old, it really is fun to read "The Three Musqueteers" - but Proust's "À la recherche du temps perdu"? Heavens no! That is for a more advanced age, when you are indeed already searching for your lost years!
7. Catherine II, Empress of Russia, ascended the throne in 1762 after a coup d'état as a result of which the legitimate ruler, Czar Peter III, Catherine's husband, was deposed, put in a nasty jail, and after a short while was murdered, with or without the complicity of his lawful wife - we'll never know. She hated her son Paul, who was to succeed her as absolute ruler of the vast Russian empire. Who, of the four persons presented here, stands the greatest chance of being the biological father of Paul? (There are at the very least 400 options open, but I can only give you a choice of four.)

Answer: Czar Peter III

In all probability. Well, all.... Catherine was a man-eater, but there is indeed some evidence that Paul's legitimate father also was his real progenitor. They were physically much alike. Also mentally: both were a bit peculiar, not to say mad as hatters.
8. You might have seen that painting of Goya of the royal Spanish family (at the time of Napoleon). Goya depicted them as the sad degenerate lot they were, but they didn't seem to notice that. Only two of the youngest royal children on the picture look normal and even smart. Everyone in Spain at that time believed they were the children of Manuel Godoy, the Queen's lover. Was this wide-spread conviction justified?

Answer: Yes

Not only everyone inside or outside Spain believed they were Godoy's offspring - except for the King, Carlos IV, but perhaps the poor man did not want to believe it - but also all historians who have studied this period. Godoy was not only the favourite of the Queen, but also of the King, who trusted him unconditionally, with the result that Spain was ruled for many years by the Queen's lover.

In 1808 he was brought down by a combination of an local uprising against him, fomented by the Crown Prince Ferdinand - who understandably hated him - and machinations of Napoleon, who wanted to install one of his own brothers on the Spanish throne.
9. Who was the real father of the Swedish King Charles XIV (1763-1844)?

Answer: an obscure French lawyer

With the name of Bernadotte. His son Jean-Baptiste became a general of Napoleon, and was invited in 1810 to become the adoptive son and successor of the elderly and childless King Charles XIII of Sweden. Roman Freiherr von Ungern-Sternberg was a condottiere in the Russian civil war 1918-1921; I will treat this this noteworthy nobleman perhaps another time.

There was nothing extra-marital with Bernadotte. He just was the son of his lawful father, and there were never any doubts or rumours about this fact. Well, I didn't suggest the contrary, did I?
10. In Napoleonic times we are never short of tales about illicit relationships. Hortense de Beauharnais, wife of Napoleon's brother Louis, who was from 1806 to 1810 King of Holland, had a son, who in 1852 became the French emperor Napoleon III. The question is: was King Louis the real father of this second Bonaparte Emperor?

Answer: Yes

For a long time the Dutch admiral Verhuell was considered to be the real father of Napoleon III, but already nearly a century ago a Dutch historian proved conclusively that this was not the case. It must be said, however, that Hortense, daughter of Josephine de Beauharnais, and hence a step-daughter of Napoleon, showed like her mother a style of living, which was apt to generate some gossiping.

By the way, I once happened to see a painting by her own hand. In my opinion she was rather good at painting too.
11. Hortense had another son, who later on carried the title of Duke of Morny. Was this son an illegitimate son of the Queen of Holland?

Answer: Yes

His real father was a certain Comte de Flahaut de la Billarderie. Well, King Louis was a nice, modest and benevolent man, and still hold in high esteem by the Dutch, but as a husband perhaps a bit boring. Auguste de Morny was instrumental in the coup d'état which brought in 1851 his half-brother to power and in the next year on the throne of France under the name Napoleon III.

As a reward for his many services Napoleon III created him Duc de Morny. He exercised, until his death in 1865, a great political influence in the Second Empire.
12. Richard Wagner's wife Cosima was as extreme a German nationalist as her husband - possibly even more so. Yet she was born out of wedlock as daughter of a French countess. Who was her father?

Answer: Franz Liszt

The only man out of these four who was not German. He was Hungarian, and I never have heard of read about any sympathy of his for the German national cause. (For the others see my quiz: Some Facts about Classical Composers.)
13. Ah! How I like that outstanding romantic painter Eugène Delacroix! His "Massacre of Chios"! His "Algerian" paintings! Have a look at them, if possible! Just one question, though: who was his real father?

Answer: Napoleon's minister of foreign affairs ,Talleyrand

The evidence in this case is very, very strong indeed. Were it only for the very clumsy and stupid actions "father" Delacroix undertook to make the world believe that Eugène really was his son, which made him hopelessly ridiculous. And dexterous Talleyrand not only stole his wife, but also his portfolio of Foreign Affairs. And in case you are not wholly convinced: have a look at the sketches of Talleyrand, made, as I think, by David. Then have a look at the self-portrait of Eugène Delacroix, think his little moustache away, and you will see a striking resemblance with the great statesman, that the venal and amoral Talleyrand indeed was.

General Hugo, who fought mainly in Spain, was the father of which famous French poet? Well, this question seems to me to be too easy for Funtrivia players.
14. Sally Hemings became, at the tender age of 14, his mistress. She bore him some children, amongst them a very gifted girl, but he has seemed to ignore her talents. Yet, this fighter in the cause of freedom believed in principle in the equality of all men. Did he not think of women? Come on, Americans! I think I gave you enough clues to guess the identity of:

Answer: Thomas Jefferson

Sally Hemings was one of his female slaves. There is an interesting discussion about Jefferson's stance on liberty amongst American historians and publicists. He owned slaves (about 500, if I am not mistaken, or falsely informed by Jefferson's many enemies in past and present), yet he wrote those immortal words: "all men are born equal ..." or words to that effect; as a European I never can remember the exact wording.

At any rate, Jefferson was a man with inherent contradictions.
15. As the rumour goes, there was this young talented man, called Nicholas Jenkinson, who at a tender age fell, alas, in battle in the Boer War, about 1900. And, again according to this rumour, he was the natural offspring of that dangerous liaison between Queen Victoria and Gladstone. Would you acknowledge at least the possibility of this rumour to be based on some facts, hardly to be refuted?

Answer: No

The 'nays' have it! If you are British, and had this question wrong, you should be ashamed for yourself! If I has asked whether Victoria had entertained an intimate relationship with Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) or with her footman John Brown, or with Lord Palmerston, I should have forgiven you.

But with Gladstone, of all people! That makes about as much sense as saying that Winston Churchill was homo-erotically involved with Adolf Hitler.
Source: Author Oblomov

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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