The Wives of Kings James Trivia Quiz

Answer: Beaufort

Joan Beaufort married King James I of Scotland in 1424, shortly before his release from his lengthy captivity in England. He had been captured by pirates and turned over to King Henry IV of England in 1406 while en route from Scotland to France at the age of just 11. His uncle, the Duke of Albany, assumed leadership of Scotland in his nephew's absence. Albany was, unsurprisingly, unwilling to relinquish this power and therefore refused to pay the demanded ransom and James ended up remaining in England for 18 years.

Joan Beaufort was a (half) first cousin of King Henry V of England, both of them being grandchildren of John of Gaunt, the fourth son of King Edward III. She was therefore of royal blood, and a good match for the Scottish king. Katherine Swynford had been John of Gaunt's mistress for many years before their marriage and their children had all been born out of wedlock. As a result, King Henry IV had declared that all of their descendants were excluded from the line of succession to the English throne. However, Henry Tudor (the son of Margaret Beaufort) became king of England in 1485, while Joan's great-great-great-great grandson became James I of England in 1603.

Edmund of Langley and Thomas of Woodstock were younger brothers of John of Gaunt. King Henry IV was known by the name Henry Bolingbroke until he seized the throne in 1399.

Answer: Netherlands

Mary of Guelders was (rather ironically) born in Grave, in the Netherlands, in around 1434. She was the daughter of Arnold, Duke of Guelders and Catherine of Cleves, making her a distant relation of Anne of Cleves, the fourth wife of King Henry VIII of England. Guelders was a Duchy of the Holy Roman Empire until it was subsumed into the Habsburg Netherlands in 1543. Its territory now lies mainly within the modern day Netherlands, although parts of it have also ended up in Germany.

Mary and James's wedding took place at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh in 1449. The marriage lasted for 11 years until James was killed by an exploding cannon whilst besieging Roxburgh Castle. Mary then became regent for her eldest son, the new King James III, until her own death just three years later.

Answer: Orkney and Shetland

The Orkney and Shetland Islands are two archipelagos located off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The Orkneys lie between about 10 and 60 miles off the coast, while the Shetlands are more remote at about 80 to 170 miles from the mainland. Both sets of islands were originally handed over by King Christian I of Denmark and Norway as a surety for the large dowry he had promised for his daughter. However, the king never paid the money and the islands officially became part of Scotland.

Margaret was originally betrothed to James in 1460, when she was just four years old, as part of the King of France's plan to end an argument between Scotland and Denmark over the Hebrides (islands off the west coast of Scotland). The arranged marriage was reasonably successful to begin with as Margaret was popular in Scotland and gave birth to three sons, the eldest of whom went on to become King James IV. However, she later became estranged from her husband and died in 1486 at the age of just 30 - unproven rumours suggested she may have been poisoned.

Lewis and Harris is in fact one single island located in the Outer Hebrides. North Uist, South Uist and Benbecula are also in the Outer Hebrides, while Skye, Rum and Eigg are islands of the Inner Hebrides.

Answer: She was granted a divorce by the pope

Margaret Tudor was the eldest daughter of King Henry VII of England and his wife, Elizabeth of York, who was the daughter of King Edward IV of England. The marriage between the English princess and the Scottish king was agreed under the terms of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace of 1502 and took place a year later when Margaret was just 14 years old (although that, frankly, was quite old for a royal bride in medieval times). Ironically, both the marriage and the 'perpetual peace' lasted just ten years.

Margaret went on to marry Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, in 1514. This move cost her both the regency and custody of her young son, King James V. Although Margaret and Angus had a daughter together in 1515, the marriage soon fell apart - at one point Margaret even threatened him with a cannon! She eventually got Pope Clement VII to grant her a divorce in 1527, despite the (distinctly hypocritical) protests of her brother, King Henry VIII. She also tried and failed to divorce her third husband, Henry Stewart.

Margaret was the grandmother of both Mary, Queen of Scots (via her son King James V) and of Mary's husband, Lord Darnley (via her daughter Lady Margaret Douglas).

Answer: Tuberculosis

In 1537 Madeleine of Valois was the eldest surviving daughter of (the imaginatively named) King Francis I of France. Her betrothal to King James V of Scotland should have been a foregone conclusion, since a marriage between a French princess and the Scottish king had been planned since before her birth. However, Madeleine's health had been extremely frail since babyhood and her father believed that she would not be able to survive in the 'harsh' climate of Scotland. Instead Francis proposed that James marry Mary de Bourbon, a minor French royal.

James agreed to marry Mary but changed his mind after meeting Madeleine. Francis gave in as his daughter was also equally keen on marrying James. The wedding was held in January 1537 by which time Madeleine was already suffering with tuberculosis (or consumption as it was then known). The couple arrived in Scotland in May and the young queen was dead by July. She was just 16 years old.

Answer: King Henry VIII of England

Mary of Guise's first husband was Louis II d'Orleans, Duke of Longueville - a French aristocrat. After his death in 1534 she was left with two young sons and the problem of being married off a second time for political purposes.

King Henry VIII of England and King James V of Scotland had both been widowed during 1537 (Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, had died following the birth of the future King Edward VI). They both proposed marriage to Mary, although Henry's main aim may have been to thwart James rather than any particular desire for Mary as a bride. Predictably for the times, Mary wasn't allowed to make her own decision - King Francis I accepted James's proposal and knocked back Henry's. The fact that Francis was James's former father-in-law, as well as the friendliness between their two nations under the 'Auld Alliance', rather stacked the odds in James's favour. Henry of course went on to marry a further three times, adding an annulment and another execution to the tally of how his marriages ended.

King Gustav I of Sweden married his second wife, Margareta Leijonhuvfud, in 1536. King John III of Portugal was married to Catherine of Austria from 1525 to his death in 1557. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, lost his wife, Isabella of Portugal, in 1539.

Answer: Anne of Denmark

The Palladian style is based on the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio. It is noted for its symmetry as well as its use of Corinthian style columns and scallop shell motifs. Anne of Denmark was a noted patron of the arts so it isn't surprising that she commissioned Inigo Jones to design and start work on Queen's House in 1616. Work stopped following her death in 1619, but the house was finally completed about 15 years later on the orders of Anne's daughter-in-law, Queen Henrietta Maria (the wife of King Charles I).

Queen's House has had a myriad of uses over its 400 year history. Although it started out life as the home for two queens (Anne and Henrietta Maria), it was subsequently used as general royal apartments, an art school and a school for the orphaned sons of sailors. In 1934 it became an art gallery within the National Maritime Museum. In 2012 the equestrian events of the London Olympic Games were hosted in its grounds.

Anne of Bohemia, Anne Neville and Anne of Cleves were also all queen consorts of England. Anne of Bohemia was the first wife of King Richard II, Anne Neville was the wife of King Richard III and Anne of Cleves was the fourth wife of King Henry VIII.

Answer: While Anne was living in the household of James's sister, the Princess of Orange

Anne Hyde (1637-1671) was the daughter of Edward Hyde, a minister and adviser to both King Charles I and King Charles II. As a result of his support for the royalist side, Hyde was forced into exile during the English Civil War and his daughter was therefore brought up in the Netherlands. Anne became a member of the household of the Princess of Orange (James's sister Mary) and met James there at some point in the mid-1650s. James and Anne's wedding took place in 1660 following the restoration of the monarchy and when she was about seven months pregnant. The marriage was not universally popular as James, as his brother's heir-presumptive, was expected to marry a European princess (or at the very least a member of the nobility). However, the marriage did have the support of King Charles II.

Anne and James had eight children but only two daughters survived to adulthood - the future Queen Mary II and Queen Anne.

Although Anne and James were married at her father's house in London, he was not responsible for introducing them. Anne was not an actress - that was the occupation of Charles II's mistress, Nell Gwyn. Lady Chesterfield was not Anne's best friend; in fact Anne had her removed from London when she discovered she was having an affair with her husband.

Answer: Roman Catholicism

In the late 17th century, England was a militantly Protestant nation and the people and government only tolerated the succession of the Roman Catholic King James II because both of his direct heirs, his daughters by his first marriage, had been brought up in the Protestant faith. However, in 1688 his Catholic second wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son and heir who would clearly continue the line of Catholic monarchs. This was the last straw for the government, who promptly stepped in and invited James's nephew and son-in-law, Prince William of Orange (the husband of his daughter Mary), to invade England. This event became known as the Glorious Revolution - William and Mary were installed as joint monarchs and the former King James II and Queen Mary ended up living out their lives in exile in France.

In 1689, parliament passed an Act known as the Bill of Rights which, among many other things, barred Catholics from the then throne of England, Scotland and Ireland. This act cemented Protestantism as the religion of the Royal Family and weakened the position of James Francis Edward Stuart - the son of James and Mary whose birth caused all the fuss in the first place. In 1701, this aspect of the Bill of Rights was followed up by the Act of Settlement, which also barred the monarch from marrying a Catholic and excluded any member of the Royal Family who did so from the line of succession. These last two points remained law for over 300 years before being repealed by the Succession to the Crown Act, 2013. However, the law barring the monarch themselves from being Roman Catholic was not changed.

Answer: She was arrested in Austria and imprisoned in a castle

James Francis Edward Stuart, who became known as the 'Old Pretender', declared himself King James III on the death of his father King James II in 1701. This claim was not upheld in Britain, but several countries including France, Spain and the Papal States recognised him as the rightful monarch and the revolutionary Jacobite movement built up with 'James III' as the figurehead.

James's proposed marriage to Maria Clementina Sobieska upset King George I of Great Britain who feared the event would strengthen the Jacobite cause against him, both because Maria was one of the wealthiest single women in Europe at the time and the improved chances of James gaining a son and heir. George's fears influenced the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, to attempt to prevent the marriage from taking place by arresting Maria as she passed through Austria. However, Maria successfully escaped from imprisonment in Innsbruck Castle, continued on her journey to Italy and married James as planned - although a proxy wedding was held as soon as possible in order to head off any further attempts at preventing the marriage.

James and Maria spent their married life in Italy being treated as the rightful British king and queen, at a home provided for them by Pope Clement XI. However, the marriage was not a happy one - James had affairs and Maria retreated to a convent before dying at the age of just 32.