Illustration of a couple

Sex and love

A Maria Spilsbury painting of a group sat at a drawing room table

Regency romance and a real-life Anne Elliot.

Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù as Mr Malcolm and Freida Pinto as Selina Dalton in Mr Malcolm's List

What was on Mr. Malcolm’s List? The real history behind the Regency romance

Casanova: more than a serial seducer.

Diane de Poitiers. As the mistress of Henry II of France, she had incredible and indescribable influence over the French king.

The French royal mistresses who made it about more than sex.

Princess Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour (Photos by Getty and Alamy)

Did Thomas Seymour sexually abuse the teenage Princess Elizabeth?

Did Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville marry for love?

Jonathan Bailey as Anthony Bridgerton and Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma in Bridgerton season 2

How to succeed in Regency courtship.

Bridgerton: behind the scenes of season 2.

Philip II, king of Spain from 1556, seated with Queen Mary I of England. They married in 1554

When Mary met Philip: a Tudor queen in love

Valentine's celebrations in historyFrom fertility festivals to the first cards

Lettice Knollys

A Tudor love triangle: Elizabeth I, Lettice Knollys and Robert Dudley

Charles and Camilla, 1979

Charles and CamillaA history of their romance

Claire Foy as the Duchess of Argyll in A Very British Scandal (left); Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (right)

The Argyll divorce: the society scandal that rocked 1960s Britain

HistoryExtra Masterclass: Tudor Royal Women with Tracy Borman

Tudor Royal Women with Tracy BormanThe Private Life of Elizabeth I.

Sex lives of medieval people.

Chaucer reading his work to the court of Richard II

Katherine Swynford: the scandalous duchess and ancestress of royal dynasties

Sex work: a brief history.

Sir Lancelot of the Lake and Queen Guinevere seen embracing by King Arthur in a medieval illustration

Tudors in love: what were the dynasty's romantic secrets?.

(Illustration: Clair Rossiter for BBC History Magazine)

Beans, ale & 'windy meats': surprising 17th-century aphrodisiacs.

A medieval miniature depicts a monk and a woman in a bed.

Sex in the Middle Ages: have attitudes really changed?

A mosaic that shows two Roman women exercising, one holds a flower and another holds a leaf

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Roman women

An ancient Greek vase depicting sexual intercourse

A brief history of sex and sexuality in Ancient Greece

A set of Tudor faces laid out on playing cards

Why the Tudors fell for courtly love.

A portrait of Lady Emma Hamilton

Nelson's sensational mistress: how Emma Hamilton took Europe by storm.

An architectural grotesque of a woman displaying her vulva

How naughty was the past? The hidden depths of the medieval church

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, on historical fiction.

Fern Riddell

Contraception, consent & erotic connection: sex through history.

Colour portrait of Jane Austen (1775–1817) drawn by her sister Cassandra. Dated 1810. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Jane Austen: a guide to her life, books and death – plus 8 fascinating facts

Fern RiddellSex: Lessons from History.

Portrait of Carlo Broschi (stage name Farinelli), the most famous opera singer of the 18th century. (Photo By DEA/A. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

Castrated Georgian opera stars: the stars of the 18th century.