British royal family quiz questions and answers, every one checked

In short

• Forty British royal family quiz questions and answers, in five rounds of eight: history, residences, titles, ceremony and a hard round.
• Every answer was checked against an official or reference source before it went in, and anything disputed was left out.
• The questions climb from gettable to hard, so the early rounds keep the whole room scoring.
• Nothing here depends on this year’s news, so the round still works next year and the year after.
• Two tie-breakers at the end, both answered by a number.

British royal family quiz questions are one of the safest bets in a UK function room. Almost everybody knows something, nobody knows all of it, and the gap between those two is where a quiz round actually lives. I have written the forty below for a work social, a family night or a charity evening.

I have also written them to last. Out go the line of succession, anyone’s health, and anything that reads as gossip. What is left is history, buildings, titles, ceremony and documented record, which will be as true in 2030 as it is now.

What makes good British royal family quiz questions?

Good British royal family quiz questions have one checkable answer and no opinion in them. The monarchy is a subject people arrive with views about, and a quiz is not the place to test those. I ask what the building is called, not what anyone thinks of it.

• Prefer a date, a number or a name over a judgement. Those can be marked in two seconds.
• Leave out anything you would have to re-check every year. “Who is currently” questions rot.
• Skip the contested objects and the private lives.
• Read every question out loud before the night, because royal titles are longer than they look on paper.

If you want more formats to drop these into, there is a full list of quiz round ideas on the site.

Royal history quiz questions

Start here. Most tables will get six or seven of these, which is exactly what you want from an opening round.

1. In 1917, George V adopted a new name for the family. What was it? Answer: Windsor, declared at a Privy Council meeting on 17 July that year.
2. Which building gave the family that name? Answer: Windsor Castle.
3. Which royal house did Windsor replace? Answer: Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
4. In 1960 a second surname was declared for some of the Queen’s direct descendants. What was it? Answer: Mountbatten-Windsor.
5. Which king ordered the Coronation Chair to be made? Answer: Edward I.
6. In which two years was that oak chair made? Answer: 1300 and 1301.
7. Since which year has the chair been in use at the coronation ceremony? Answer: 1308.
8. Coronations have been held at Westminster Abbey since which year? Answer: 1066.

Which royal residences questions work best?

The residences questions that work best are the ones with a number in them, because a table can argue its way towards a number and still feel clever when it is wrong.

1. How many rooms does Buckingham Palace have? Answer: 775.
2. Since which year has it been the sovereign’s official London residence? Answer: 1837.
3. Which castle does the royal household describe as the largest occupied castle in the world? Answer: Windsor Castle.
4. Which hall at Windsor seats up to 160 guests at a State Banquet? Answer: St George’s Hall.
5. A chapel that owes allegiance directly to the sovereign rather than to a bishop is known as what? Answer: a Royal Peculiar, as St George’s Chapel at Windsor is.
6. What is the official residence of the monarchy in Scotland? Answer: the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
7. At the end of which Edinburgh street does it stand? Answer: the Royal Mile.
8. In which year was Holyrood founded as a monastery? Answer: 1128, by David I.

Royal titles quiz questions

This is the round where confident people come unstuck, which makes it a good one to put third.

1. Which dukedom does the heir apparent hold under a charter of Edward III? Answer: Duke of Cornwall.
2. In which year was that charter made? Answer: 1337.
3. Which Scottish title does the heir hold alongside it? Answer: Duke of Rothesay.
4. True or false: the title Prince of Wales passes automatically to the heir. Answer: false. It is conferred by the sovereign, and Charles was invested in 1969 at Caernarfon Castle.
5. Which 2013 Act stopped succession to the Crown depending on gender? Answer: the Succession Act, formally the Succession to the Crown Act 2013.
6. On what date did it come into force? Answer: 26 March 2015.
7. Besides the sovereign and senior members of the family, how many knights does the Order of the Garter have? Answer: twenty-four.
8. What is the Order of the Garter’s motto? Answer: Honi soit qui mal y pense, “shame on him who thinks this evil”.

What royal ceremony questions get a room talking?

The royal ceremony questions that get a room talking are the ones about rituals people have half-watched on television without ever asking why. Somebody at every table has an opinion on the door-slamming.

1. Which ceremony marks the sovereign’s official birthday? Answer: Trooping the Colour.
2. In which month is it held? Answer: June.
3. How many guns are in the salute fired in Green Park to mark it? Answer: 41.
4. At the State Opening of Parliament, which official is sent to summon the Commons? Answer: Black Rod.
5. How many times does Black Rod strike the Commons door after it is slammed? Answer: three.
6. Which crown travels to Parliament in a carriage of its own? Answer: the Imperial State Crown.
7. Royal Maundy money is distributed on which day? Answer: the Thursday before Easter Sunday.
8. How many purses does each recipient of Maundy money receive? Answer: two, one red and one white.

Hard British royal family quiz questions

Hard British royal family quiz questions should still be gettable by eight adults talking it over. These are the ones that separate the top two tables. Put them last, never first.

1. On what date did Charles III become King? Answer: 8 September 2022.
2. On what date was the coronation of the King and Queen? Answer: 6 May 2023, at Westminster Abbey.
3. Which crown does the monarch exchange for the Imperial State Crown at the end of the coronation service? Answer: St Edward’s Crown.
4. Which coronation sword has a blunted tip, symbolising mercy? Answer: Curtana, the Sword of Mercy.
5. Which diamond, the largest clear cut diamond in the world, is set in the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross? Answer: Cullinan I, at over 530 carats.
6. The Black Prince’s Ruby in the Imperial State Crown is not a ruby. What is it? Answer: a red spinel.
7. The Crown may claim ownership of unmarked birds of which species, swimming in open water? Answer: mute swans.
8. Which museum has housed the Stone of Destiny since it opened in March 2024? Answer: Perth Museum. The Stone was taken south in 1296 and returned to Scotland in 1996.

What is a good royal quiz tie-breaker?

A good royal quiz tie-breaker has a number for an answer, so the nearest team wins and the night cannot end in a draw. Try this one: roughly how many gemstones are set in the Crown Jewels? The answer is about 23,578.

If you need a second, ask how long St George’s Hall at Windsor is. The answer is 55.5 metres.

How do you keep a royal round respectful?

You keep a royal round respectful by asking about institutions and objects rather than about people. Nobody has ever fallen out over the length of a banqueting hall.

That is not squeamishness, it is practical. A function room usually holds both strong monarchists and people who would rather not be asked, and a host who picks a side loses half the room in one question. The history, the buildings and the ceremony are common ground, which is why I keep a royal round on them.

Nobody remembers a normal night. They do remember the host who made the room go quiet for the wrong reason.

The same thinking runs through the family quiz questions already on the site, if you want a second round to sit alongside this one.

How do I run a royal round on the night?

I run it as a show rather than a sheet, on software I built myself, because a work crowd is not a pub quiz crowd. When one person on each table holds the pen, everyone else drifts by round two. Every game can be played at the front, at the tables, or on every guest’s phone.

Here is how these five rounds would play:

• On a quiz show board. Five rounds becomes five categories, cheapest questions at the bottom, the hard round at the top. Teams pick, buzz in and steal the misses.
• On every phone. With quiz software the whole room answers on their own handset, scored for being right and for being quick, with a leaderboard after every question.
• Mixed in. Eight questions is about four minutes, so a royal round works well as the second of three, with something lighter either side of it.

I write the questions for the people actually in the room, so a royal round can sit next to one about your own office without either feeling bolted on.

If you would rather hand the whole evening over, I will pick the games, write the rounds and run it as your quiz master. One host, the whole evening. Call me on 07596 851647 and tell me about the room.