QUES: A new device for granting assent was created during the reign of King Henry VIII. In 1542, Henry sought to execute his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, whom he accused of committing adultery; the execution was to be authorised not after a trial but by a bill of attainder, to which he would have to personally assent after listening to the entire text. Henry decided that "the repetition of so grievous a Story and the recital of so infamous a crime" in his presence "might reopen a Wound already closing in the Royal Bosom". Therefore, parliament inserted a clause into the Act of Attainder, providing that assent granted by Commissioners "is and ever was and ever shall be, as good" as assent granted by the sovereign personally. The procedure was used only five times during the 16th century, but more often during the 17th and 18th centuries, especially when George III's health began to deteriorate. Queen Victoria became the last monarch to personally grant assent in 1854.

Queen Victoria was the last what to grant assent in 1954?
What is the answer?
ANS: unanswerable
QUES: In October 2009, the American Law Institute voted to disavow the framework for capital punishment that it had created in 1962, as part of the Model Penal Code, "in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment." A study commissioned by the institute had said that experience had proved that the goal of individualized decisions about who should be executed and the goal of systemic fairness for minorities and others could not be reconciled.

What goal did the ALI's study say could be reconciled with the goal of individualized execution decisions?
What is the answer?
ANS: unanswerable
QUES: In 1997, a year after the divorce, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris. The Queen was on holiday with her extended family at Balmoral. Diana's two sons by Charles—Princes William and Harry—wanted to attend church and so the Queen and Prince Philip took them that morning. After that single public appearance, for five days the Queen and the Duke shielded their grandsons from the intense press interest by keeping them at Balmoral where they could grieve in private, but the royal family's seclusion and the failure to fly a flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace caused public dismay. Pressured by the hostile reaction, the Queen agreed to return to London and do a live television broadcast on 5 September, the day before Diana's funeral. In the broadcast, she expressed admiration for Diana and her feelings "as a grandmother" for the two princes. As a result, much of the public hostility evaporated.

How long did Elizabeth and the royal family remain in seclusion at Balmoral?
What is the answer?
ANS:
five days