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Quiz about Reign of Love
Quiz about Reign of Love

Reign of Love Trivia Quiz


Throughout history, royals often married for political reasons instead of for love, but there were exceptions. Here are ten couples who managed to pull off a romance, even if they didn't all make it to a happy ending.

A multiple-choice quiz by CellarDoor. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
CellarDoor
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
330,106
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
8 / 10
Plays
2002
Awards
Top 5% quiz!
Last 3 plays: ChrisUSMC (5/10), DeepHistory (8/10), lfranich90 (7/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. He was the nephew of the Byzantine Emperor. She was a reformed actress and courtesan. The law forbade their marriage, so he changed the law, and thus began a historic partnership during which the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire were briefly reunited. Who were they? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. He was a Mughal emperor with three wives; she, the "jewel of the palace," was his favorite. After her death in childbirth, he built a tomb for her that is famous the world over as a symbol of love. Who were they? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Love isn't always enough, even for royalty. She was a widow, daughter of a sugar planter in the Caribbean; he was a French military officer who saw an opening for something grander. Together they became Emperor and Empress, but their marriage was doomed by affairs and dynastic ambitions, and they divorced five years later. His last word was her name. Who were they? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. She was a Spanish princess, distrusted by the people she had come to rule, who endured civil war and crusade at the side of her husband. He was a longlegged English king whose life was marked by war with nobles and neighbors. Their love endured her death; the crosses he built to honor her burial procession have made their mark on English geography. Who were they? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. She was a German princess, fiercely devout; he was a Russian prince in an authoritarian family. When they met as teenaged cousins they fell for each other at once, and they spent years lobbying their parents to make the match. Though they were happy in their marriage and named saints after their deaths, their story had a horrific ending. Who were they? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Here's another case where even royal love couldn't make a happy ending. She was a young Bavarian duchess; he, her cousin, was an emperor who was supposed to make a match with her sister. They fell for each other at once, but their marriage suffered from intrusive in-laws and the loss of a child. When she was assassinated, he was devastated by words unsaid and things undone. Who were they? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. He was a Biblical king with many wives and concubines; she was the wife of one of his officers. He fell hopelessly in love with her when he first saw her. Their marriage began with adultery and murder, but at the end of his life, it was her counsel and her son that the king honored. Who were they? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. He wasn't one for true love, but one of his six queens saw more enduring tenderness from him than the rest combined. He was an absolute monarch and a religious reformer who was desperate for a son. She was a quiet English noblewoman who died soon after childbirth and is buried next to her husband. Who were they? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. He was Pharaoh of all Egypt, a religious reformer who continues to fascinate people today. She was his Great Royal Wife, and her very name proclaimed her beauty. The art of their day shows them as affectionate partners, a sharp departure from depictions of other ancient Egyptian marriages. Who were they? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. She was a British princess, destined to lend her name to an era. He was the son of a German duke. When they wed, she was queen and they launched a great partnership; their grandchildren ruled much of Europe. Who were they? Hint



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Score Distribution

quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. He was the nephew of the Byzantine Emperor. She was a reformed actress and courtesan. The law forbade their marriage, so he changed the law, and thus began a historic partnership during which the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire were briefly reunited. Who were they?

Answer: Theodora and Justinian

Theodora (circa 500-548) was probably born in Cyprus; as a teenager, she worked as an actress in Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Byzantine Empire. At that time, acting was not a respectable profession, and actresses were expected to put on obscene performances both on and off the stage. She'd already given up that life, though, when she met Justinian (483-565), and they soon fell in love. The law forbade a match between people of two such different social classes, but that law didn't long survive after Justinian laid eyes on Theodora. They married in 525, two years before Justinian became emperor.

Theodora was brilliant and decisive, and Justinian owed much of his success to her -- including even his survival of the Nika riots in 532. Together, they worked against corruption, for the reunification of the Roman Empire, and for a few basic rights for women. They disagreed explosively on religion, and backed different Christian factions in a struggle for spiritual and temporal power, but in all other areas they relied on each other's counsel. He was heartbroken when she died of cancer, and his desolation has been blamed for the rapid way in which his earlier victories dissolved.
2. He was a Mughal emperor with three wives; she, the "jewel of the palace," was his favorite. After her death in childbirth, he built a tomb for her that is famous the world over as a symbol of love. Who were they?

Answer: Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan

Shah Jahan (1592-1666), born a prince named Shihab-ud-din Muhammad Khurram, was the fifth Mughal emperor of India. He and the Persian noblewoman Arjumand Banu Begum (1593-1631) married as teenagers; stunned by her beauty, he called her Mumtaz Mahal, "Jewel of the Palace." He had two wives before her, but she was his friend, confidante and true love, and they traveled together on military campaigns and imperial visits. The court chronicler wrote that "the intimacy, deep affection and favor which His Majesty had for [Mumtaz] exceeded by a thousand times what he felt for any other."

She died in childbirth with their fourteenth child, and Shah Jahan was inconsolable. He spent twenty-two years designing and building the glorious Taj Mahal, in Agra, as her mausoleum. Their son, Aurangzeb, deposed him soon after the building's completion, and buried him there upon his death.
3. Love isn't always enough, even for royalty. She was a widow, daughter of a sugar planter in the Caribbean; he was a French military officer who saw an opening for something grander. Together they became Emperor and Empress, but their marriage was doomed by affairs and dynastic ambitions, and they divorced five years later. His last word was her name. Who were they?

Answer: Josephine and Napoleon

Joséphine was born in Martinique in 1763; in 1779, her family found her a husband in France, Alexandre de Beauharnais. They had two children before Alexandre's execution in the Reign of Terror in 1794, which his wife narrowly escaped. Meanwhile, Napoléon Bonaparte (born in 1769 in Corsica) was rising through the ranks of the army. Soon after the two met and married in 1796, he invaded Italy and Egypt. By 1800 he was the most powerful man in France; in 1804 he crowned himself and Joséphine Emperor and Empress.

Joséphine and Napoléon loved each other deeply and exchanged love letters when apart; in one, written in 1797, he called her "you who alone can move and rule my heart." But it wasn't enough. They both had affairs. Joséphine had debts. Their lack of a child frustrated Napoléon's dream of founding an imperial dynasty. In 1810 they divorced so that he could wed Marie-Louise of Austria, an event he ungallantly described as "marry[ing] a womb." (They did have a son, but Napoléon failed to keep the throne for him.) Joséphine died in 1814, the same year Napoléon went into exile for the first time. He died in 1821, during his second exile, having spent some twelve years tearing Europe apart. His last words, translated, were "France, army, head of the army, Joséphine."
4. She was a Spanish princess, distrusted by the people she had come to rule, who endured civil war and crusade at the side of her husband. He was a longlegged English king whose life was marked by war with nobles and neighbors. Their love endured her death; the crosses he built to honor her burial procession have made their mark on English geography. Who were they?

Answer: Eleanor of Castile and Edward I of England

Eleanor of Castile (1241-1290) was married to her prince at the tender age of thirteen; her groom, Edward (1239-1307), the heir to the English throne, was not much older at 15, but they were fortunate enough to become sweethearts as well as dynastic partners. Unusually for a king of his era, Edward I -- popularly called "Longshanks" for his height -- did not have any known mistresses or illegitimate children, and they strove so hard not to be apart that Eleanor gave birth to two children while on travels for military campaigns. (Despite his virtues as a husband, Edward was not a gentle man; his other nickname is "Hammer of the Scots", and he expelled the entire Jewish population from England in 1290.)

Eleanor died of a fever on November 28, 1290, in Harby (near Lincoln). Her funeral procession stopped each night on its slow way to Westminster Abbey in London, and her grieving husband commissioned an elaborately carved stone cross to mark each of these twelve resting places. Of these medieval masterpieces, only three remain mostly intact; Charing Cross, the famous London railway station, takes its name from the now-gone cross that was erected there. The bereaved Edward wrote of her two months later as the lady "whom living we dearly cherished, and whom dead we cannot cease to love".
5. She was a German princess, fiercely devout; he was a Russian prince in an authoritarian family. When they met as teenaged cousins they fell for each other at once, and they spent years lobbying their parents to make the match. Though they were happy in their marriage and named saints after their deaths, their story had a horrific ending. Who were they?

Answer: Alexandra and Nicholas II

Alix of Hesse, a granddaughter of the UK's Queen Victoria, was born in 1872. She was 12 when she first met Nicholas, who was four years older and heir to the Russian throne; five years later, on a longer visit, they fell in love. It took another five years for the couple to persuade their families to agree to the match, and the political requirement that Alix become Russian Orthodox instead of Lutheran was another stumbling block. "I have loved [Alix] for a long time," Nicholas wrote during negotiations, but "... I have resisted my feeling that my dearest dream will come true." Yet it did, and they married shortly after he became tsar in 1894.

Privately, their marriage was happy; they advised each other and rejoiced in their four daughters and their son, who suffered from the life-threatening illness of hemophilia. But their ruling style was ill-suited to the times, and the revolution of 1917 cut short their reign. In the early morning of July 17, 1918, the entire family was murdered by their Bolshevik guards. They are now venerated in the Russian Orthodox Church as passion bearers, saints who met death with the same spirit that Jesus Christ did.
6. Here's another case where even royal love couldn't make a happy ending. She was a young Bavarian duchess; he, her cousin, was an emperor who was supposed to make a match with her sister. They fell for each other at once, but their marriage suffered from intrusive in-laws and the loss of a child. When she was assassinated, he was devastated by words unsaid and things undone. Who were they?

Answer: Elisabeth and Franz Josef

Franz Josef (1830-1916) became Emperor of Austria at the tender age of 18, in the aftermath of the 1848 wave of revolutions. His mother urged him to marry her niece, the Bavarian duchess Helene, but he fell hard for Helene's younger sister, Elisabeth (1837-1898). They wed in 1854 and soon had three children.

But Elisabeth chafed under her domineering mother-in-law, and the death at age two of the couple's oldest daughter, Sophie, tore them apart. Franz Josef had affairs; Elisabeth found escape in travel. Politics sometimes helped heal the rift; Elisabeth's intervention, and the birth of their fourth child, helped cool unrest in Hungary. The horror of the 1889 Mayerling affair, in which their only son murdered his lover and then killed himself, brought them closer together for comfort and support. She was murdered by an anarchist nine years later; on hearing the news, her husband is said to have murmured, "She will never know how much I loved her."
7. He was a Biblical king with many wives and concubines; she was the wife of one of his officers. He fell hopelessly in love with her when he first saw her. Their marriage began with adultery and murder, but at the end of his life, it was her counsel and her son that the king honored. Who were they?

Answer: Bathsheba and David

By the time David met Bathsheba, he had come a long way from the scrappy shepherd boy with a slingshot. His armies were at war, but he was safe at home in Jerusalem when he saw her bathing from his rooftop. Overcome, he sent for her, and they conceived a child even though her husband, Uriah, was at war. Ultimately, in 2 Samuel 11, David had Uriah killed, and in the next chapter God's punishment became terribly clear: the untimely death of the couple's first child, and turmoil in the House of David.

Yet despite this, and despite David's other romantic attachments, the two became closer over many years. They had other children, including the future king Solomon. And when David was on his deathbed in 1 Kings 1, and his son Adonijah was angling for the succession, the prophet Nathan did not trust in his own ability to rouse the king; he turned to Bathsheba for help, knowing that -- as always -- she had the king's ear and trust.
8. He wasn't one for true love, but one of his six queens saw more enduring tenderness from him than the rest combined. He was an absolute monarch and a religious reformer who was desperate for a son. She was a quiet English noblewoman who died soon after childbirth and is buried next to her husband. Who were they?

Answer: Jane Seymour and Henry VIII

Jane Seymour (circa 1508-1537) was born in Wiltshire and served as an attendant to the first two wives of King Henry VIII (1491-1547). Henry's notorious enthusiasm for marriage was rooted in his obsession with having a male heir; after all, he was only the second of his dynasty and England was only five decades removed from a devastating series of dynastic civil wars. He divorced his first wife when she aged past childbearing (founding a new church in the process) and beheaded his second wife on probably trumped-up charges of adultery. He and Jane wed just eleven days after the execution. Seventeen months later, she was dead of an infection following the birth of their son, the future Edward VI.

Was it love? She was the only wife whom Henry mourned and the only one whom he gave a state funeral, though he outlived four of the six. In Henry's will, where he expressed his wish to share a tomb with her, he referred to her as his "true and loving wife." Her real feelings aren't known, but her motto -- "Bound to obey and serve" -- suggests that she kept her immediate predecessor's grisly fate in mind.
9. He was Pharaoh of all Egypt, a religious reformer who continues to fascinate people today. She was his Great Royal Wife, and her very name proclaimed her beauty. The art of their day shows them as affectionate partners, a sharp departure from depictions of other ancient Egyptian marriages. Who were they?

Answer: Nefertiti and Akhenaten

Akhenaten reigned from about 1352 to about 1335 BC. He began his reign as Amenhotep IV, but soon changed his name to honor the sun disk Aten, who was central to the new religion the pharaoh strove to impose on Egypt. Nefertiti, whose name translates to "the beautiful woman has come," was his primary consort. Sculptures depict her as roughly the same size as her husband, which, at the time, was a bold statement of equality.

They are shown praying together, acting lovingly toward each other and toward their six daughters, and even sharing some of the traditional iconography of the Pharaoh. Time has erased the details of their relationship, but the evidence that has survived is striking for its show of mutual respect and affection.
10. She was a British princess, destined to lend her name to an era. He was the son of a German duke. When they wed, she was queen and they launched a great partnership; their grandchildren ruled much of Europe. Who were they?

Answer: Victoria and Albert

Victoria (1819-1901) ascended the British throne in 1837, at the age of 18, after the death of her uncle (William IV). Another uncle, the King of Belgium, had already introduced her to her handsome cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819-1861). "He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy," she wrote her uncle, and the couple were married in 1840. They went on to have nine children, several of whom married into other European royal families.

Victoria's 63-year reign saw the formal addition of India to the British Empire and the establishment of a more symbolic role for the UK's monarch. Prince Albert, in his position as royal consort, aided in this transition by spearheading reforms and urging his wife to avoid the appearance of partisanship. When he died at the age of 42, she was devastated; she secluded herself from the public for years, and wore mourning black for the rest of her long life. She encouraged memorials to him that appear all over the world, from London's Royal Albert Hall, to the Saskatchewanian city of Prince Albert, to Lake Albert on the Uganda-Congo (Kinshasa) border.
Source: Author CellarDoor

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