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50 free Wars of the Roses trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Wars of the Roses trivia for history students, Shakespeare fans, Game of Thrones readers who know where George R. R. Martin got his ideas, and anyone who has visited Bosworth or Tewkesbury. The quiz explains where the name came from (Walter Scott, via Shakespeare's rose-picking scene), why the wars started - Henry VI's breakdown, bastard feudalism, the rival Plantagenet lines - and how they ran from the First Battle of St Albans in 1455 through Wakefield, Mortimer's Cross and the three suns, Towton on Palm Sunday, Edward IV's secret marriage, Warwick's betrayal, Barnet in the fog and Tewkesbury. It then covers the last act: Clarence's fall, Edward V's 78-day reign, the Princes in the Tower, Richard III's charge at Bosworth, Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth of York and the Tudor rose, Lambert Simnel and Stoke Field, and the discovery of Richard's skeleton under a Leicester car park in 2012. Roughly a third of the questions are easy and the rest reward people who know their Nevilles from their Woodvilles. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its source once you have answered.
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Q 01Which two rival branches of the House of Plantagenet fought the Wars of the Roses?
York and Lancaster
York's badge was a white rose; the red rose of Lancaster was only really adopted after Henry Tudor's victory in 1485.
Q 02Between which years are the Wars of the Roses conventionally dated?
1455 to 1487
They ran from the first pitched battle in 1455 to Henry VII's victory over the last Yorkist army in 1487.
Q 03Which novelist's 1829 book Anne of Geierstein brought the name 'Wars of the Roses' into common use?
Sir Walter Scott
He drew on Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1, where nobles pick red or white roses in the Temple Church garden; contemporaries just called them the civil wars.
Q 04How old was Henry VI when he succeeded his father Henry V in 1422?
Nine months
A weak and mentally unsound ruler, he was fought over by his Beaufort relatives and his queen on one side and his cousin the Duke of York on the other.
Q 05What term did Charles Plummer coin in 1885 for the system of paid retinues that let magnates defy the crown?
Bastard feudalism
Lords paid retainers rather than owing feudal service, building private armies loyal to themselves rather than the king.
Q 06Where was the 1455 clash in which York captured Henry VI, regarded as the opening of the wars?
St Albans
Parliament then made York Lord Protector; fighting resumed four years later.
Q 07At which battle in December 1460 was Richard, Duke of York, killed?
Wakefield
He had sortied from Sandal Castle for reasons still unclear; his son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, died too, and Warwick's father was executed the next day.
Q 08What phenomenon, appearing as three suns, greeted Edward's army at Mortimer's Cross in 1461?
A parhelion
Edward calmed his men by calling it a sign of God's favour and later took the 'sun in splendour' as a badge; the Lancastrian commander was executed after the battle.
Q 09Which 1461 Palm Sunday snowstorm battle is called 'the largest and bloodiest on English soil'?
Towton
An estimated 50,000 men fought for ten hours in North Yorkshire; Yorkist archers used the wind to outrange the Lancastrians.
Q 10Whom did Edward IV marry in 1464 against the advice of the Earl of Warwick?
Elizabeth Woodville
Warwick had been negotiating a French match; the snub, and Edward's turn to Burgundy, drove the earl into rebellion in 1469.
Q 11By what nickname is Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, known?
The Kingmaker
The wealthiest peer of his age, he first backed York, then restored Henry VI in 1470, and died fighting his former protege Edward IV in 1471.
Q 12Which of Edward IV's brothers did Warwick try and fail to put on the throne in 1469?
George, Duke of Clarence
Clarence had married Warwick's daughter Isabel; he later drowned in a butt of malmsey wine, according to legend, after his 1478 attainder.
Q 13To where did Edward IV flee in 1470 when Warwick and Henry VI's queen invaded and restored the old king?
Flanders
Q 21How old were the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, when their father died in 1483?
12 and 9
They vanished after a last sighting in the Tower that summer; workmen later found two small skeletons under a staircase, now buried in Westminster Abbey.
Q 22In which year did workmen at the Tower dig up a box with two small skeletons, widely taken to be the princes?
1674
Charles II had the bones buried in Westminster Abbey; whether they are the princes has never been proven.
Q 23On what date was the Battle of Bosworth Field fought?
22 August 1485
It was the last significant battle of the wars, won by an alliance of Lancastrians and disaffected Yorkists under Henry Tudor.
He came back within months with Burgundian help, and Henry's brief 'readeption' ended within months.
Q 14At which battle on Easter Day 1471 was the Earl of Warwick killed?
Barnet
It was fought in thick fog, and mistaken badges caused fatal confusion in the Lancastrian ranks.
Q 15Whose badge so resembled Edward IV's 'sun in splendour' that Lancastrians attacked their own side at Barnet?
The Earl of Oxford's star
John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, went on to command Henry Tudor's army at Bosworth fourteen years later.
Q 16Which Lancastrian heir, Henry VI's only son, was killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury in May 1471?
Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales
Henry VI died in the Tower shortly afterwards, ending the male Lancastrian line.
Q 17How was Henry VI's death in the Tower of London officially explained?
Great melancholy
He was almost certainly murdered, possibly on Edward IV's orders, days after his son's death at Tewkesbury.
Q 18Which French-born queen led the Lancastrian faction, giving recruits a silver swan badge?
Margaret of Anjou
Daughter of René, King of Naples, she was Henry VI's wife and, in the words of one chronicler, had 'stomach and courage more like a man'.
Q 19How tall was Edward IV, unusually for the period, according to contemporaries?
6 feet
Handsome and energetic, he dressed splendidly to contrast with the frail Henry VI.
Q 20How long did the twelve-year-old Edward V reign in 1483 before being deposed by his uncle?
78 days
He was never crowned; Richard of Gloucester had him lodged in the Tower on 19 May and Parliament declared him illegitimate in June.
Q 24Which noble family's forces were the 'wildcard' at Bosworth, ultimately turning against Richard III?
The Stanleys
The Earl of Northumberland also failed to move when signalled, prompting Richard's fatal charge at Henry Tudor.
Q 25Under what banner did Henry Tudor's forces fight at Bosworth?
A red dragon
The red rose of Lancaster only came into use afterwards, and was combined with York's white rose.
Q 26What was Richard III's personal device, used by his army at Bosworth?
A white boar
The falcon and fetterlock was his father's Yorkist badge and the sun in splendour his brother Edward IV's.
Q 27Whom did Henry VII marry in January 1486 to unite the two houses?
Elizabeth of York
She was Edward IV's eldest daughter and heir; their first son, Arthur, was born eight months later.
Q 28What emblem was created by combining the white and red roses after 1485?
The Tudor rose
The rose as a royal badge went back to Edward I's 'golden rose stalked proper'.
Q 29Which battle in June 1487 is considered the last of the Wars of the Roses?
Stoke Field
Henry VII crushed a Yorkist army of German mercenaries and Irish troops fighting for the pretender Lambert Simnel.
Q 30What job did Henry VII give the boy pretender Lambert Simnel after pardoning him?
Spit-turner in the royal kitchen
He was later promoted to falconer; a priest had coached him to impersonate one of the Princes in the Tower.