q12

[dubdobdee]

12.

i: What was renamed after Mr Pusey’s boss?
ii: Who rose to a great height following her marriage?
iii: Which Gypsy wore an old red blanket and a chip hat?
iv: Whose death in a Norwegian outpost precipitated a constitutional crisis?
v: Which widow allegedly poisoned her husband with powdered glass in his coffee?
vi: Who joined in stabbing the heir to the throne, perhaps fictitiously, atop a mole-hill?
vii: Who supported the proclamation of her apparent nephew as King Richard IV?
viii: Who looked to Basingstoke for the restoration of sanity?
ix: Who might be regarded as the last Queen of Mann?
x: Who, “in death, was not divided” from her brother?

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

is (v) something to do with the wars of the roses? in henry vi pt 3, elderly henry says -- during some battle or other -- "here on this molehill will i sit me down, to whom god will the victory, for margaret my queen, and clifford too..." and i can't remember the rest

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

My first thought was that the whole round was a pun on "rose(s)".

But I remember now that iii. is Keats again - Meg Merrilies was the gypsy

So theme is Margarets?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

margaret is something of a warrior queen definitely

other people at the battle (on the other side?)* = edward (iv-to-be), clarence, richard (iii-to-be)

possibly also warwick the kingmaker! about who i recall little except his name

*i can carry many complicated things in my head, but NOT the complexities of the wars of the roses

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

The question's answer is at the battle of Wakefield, which Team York lost. Richard of York was captured and (in the Shakespeare) Team Lancaster, including Margaret of Anjou, pull him up onto a molehill and put a paper crown on his head and give him a cloth drenched with the blood of his dead youngest son to wipe his tears with, and then stab him to death. Lots of good lines including "She-wolf of France, yet worse than wolves of France" and "Tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!" and "Off with the crown, and with the crown his head!"

Henry VI wanders over to a different molehill to watch the battle of Towton, where he also gets an excellent speech about wanting to be a shepherd instead of a king.

Warwick the Kingmaker changed sides like three times but I'm pretty sure he was on Team York for both of those battles.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

oh I forgot to fill out the punch line for the bit you quoted, which is "Margaret my queen, and Clifford too, have chid me from the battle, swearing both they prosper better there when I am hence." Poor Henry. <3

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I think this is definitely Margarets:

iv is Margaret, the Maid of Norway, who became Queen of Scots as a little girl in Norway on the death of her grandfather, but died on her way to Scotland to take up her throne. She died in Orkney, which was then part of Norway, and her death brought about the Investiture Crisis.

vii is Margaret of York, sister to Edward IV and Richard III, who 'recognised' Perkin Warbeck as Richard Duke of York, the younger of the two Princes in the Tower.

viii is Mad Margaret in Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore, who uses 'Basingstoke' as a sort of safe-word or touchstone.

x is features a quotation from the biblical books of Samuel - David's lament on the deaths of Saul and Jonathan: "Lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided". These words, in Latin, were over the door of my college chapel as part of a war memorial, but I don't know who they apply to in this case.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

+1 YES RUDDIGORE

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

and Margaret of York who is incredibly delightful, basically spent her retirement trolling Henry VII

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

MARGARET OF ANJOU!!!! And it is definitely fictitiously, not possibly, she wasn't even there!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

so remind me what happens? did i get the quote right (above)? and the other ppl present?

(i haven't read it for c.37 years)

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

I'm very drunk and going to bed but I will reply in the morning! Short answer yes kind of but twist, there are TWO MOLEHILLS in 3 Henry VI

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

Overnight I had a further Wars of the Roses related realisation for this round:

ix is almost certainly Lady Margaret Beaufort.

She was married four times, and her fourth and final husband was a Lord Stanley - him that waited to see who was winning before coming out for her son Harry Tudor against Richard III. Now the Stanleys were also Lords of Mann for a while, and I wouldn't mind betting that Lady Margaret's husband was either the last one, or the last one to use the style 'King of Mann'.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

I was thinking ii. was impossibly vague, but then I was thinking through royal Margarets, and I think it's Princess Margaret, as in the current queen's sister, whose fiance/husband was created earl of Snowdon before they got married - great height, big mountain, geddit?