Monarchs are the oldest reliable seam in British quizzing, and unlike most
history topics they form a single unbroken sequence, which means they can be
learned as a chain rather than as a set of facts. Once the houses are in order —
Normans, Plantagenets, Lancaster, York, Tudors, Stuarts, Hanoverians, Windsors —
most questions have somewhere to hang.
What the questions are actually about
Very few are "when did X reign". The great majority are about the
superlatives and the anomalies: the longest reign, the shortest, the youngest to
be crowned, the ones who were never crowned, the ones who abdicated, the wives
of Henry VIII and their fates, the monarch during a given war, and the year with
three kings.
Numbering catches people out. There has been no King Louis of England, no
Henry IX, and the numbering of Scottish and English monarchs does not align —
which is why the present numbering of a British monarch is occasionally
contested in Scotland, and why that makes a good question.
The stories
The events attached to particular reigns are asked at least as often as the
reigns:
the Princes in the Tower,
the Armada,
the Great Fire,
the Gunpowder Plot,
Magna Carta and
Hastings. Each identifies its
monarch, which makes them dual-purpose: learn the event and you have the reign
for free.
Broader history questions are
here.
Last Tudor monarch?
Answer Elizabeth I (died 1603)
Which king abdicated in 1936?
Answer Edward VIII (to marry Wallis Simpson)
Last Plantagenet king, killed at Bosworth (1485)?
Answer Richard III
King who signed Magna Carta (1215)?
Answer John
Longest-reigning monarch before Victoria?
Answer George III (59 years)
Who won the Battle of Hastings and became King in 1066?
Answer William I (the Conqueror)
First Stuart king of England?
Answer James I (James VI of Scotland), 1603
'Lionheart' — which king?
Answer Richard I
Which king was executed in 1649?
Answer Charles I
The 'Nine Days' Queen'?
Answer Lady Jane Grey (1553)
Royal house of William the Conqueror?
Answer Normandy
Monarch restored in 1660?
Answer Charles II
Only English king called 'the Great'?
Answer Alfred the Great (pre-1066, Wessex)
Longest-reigning British monarch?
Answer Elizabeth II (1952–2022, 70 years)
Joint monarchs after the Glorious Revolution (1688)?
Answer William III and Mary II
Fates of Henry VIII's wives (the rhyme)?
Answer Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived
Last Stuart monarch?
Answer Anne (died 1714)
Who won at Bosworth and founded the Tudor dynasty?
Answer Henry VII
Current monarch and accession year?
Answer Charles III (2022)
First Hanoverian king?
Answer George I (1714)
Henry VIII's six wives, in order?
Answer Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr
Victoria's reign?
Answer 1837–1901 (63 years)
Royal house renamed Windsor in 1917 — from what?
Answer Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Order of royal houses from 1066?
Answer Normandy → Plantagenet → Lancaster → York → Tudor → Stuart → Hanover → Windsor