Sex and love

Melvyn Bragg speaks to the History Extra podcast about the 12th-century love story of Heloise and Abelard. (Photo by Awakening/Getty Images)

Melvyn Bragg on Heloise and Abelard

1949: Clementine with husband Winston Churchill at Epsom racecourse for the Derby. (Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

6 surprising facts about Clementine Churchill

c1540, a portrait of King Henry VIII. An engraving by T A Dean from a painting by Hans Holbein. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

5 things you (probably) didn’t know about Henry VIII

A 15th-century detail from the Fountain of Youth, Piedmont, Italy. (Image by De Agostini/Getty Images)

Sexing up history: how to study and tell the history of sex

The marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte to Habsburg Archduchess Marie-Louise. (Photo by API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Napoleon’s other wife: who was Habsburg Archduchess Marie-Louise?

Woodcut of a woman who may be stoking a furnace or baking bread, printed in the 15th century. (SSPL/Getty Images)

What was life like for a medieval housewife?

Queen Victoria pictured c1862 during her period of mourning after the death of her husband, Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Prince Albert: the death that rocked the monarchy

A man helps his partner to dress by lacing her corset. (Photo by Frank Martin)

Love in Georgian times

Penrhyn Castle, Gwynedd, Wales. (Photo by Getty Images)

5 British castles with romantic histories

A medieval couple being married by a clergyman. Central miniature, folio 102v. Book IV by Henricus von Assia (13th century). Chapter Archive of Tarazona, Spain. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

Love and marriage in medieval England

York Minster's south transept rose window features 16th-century Tudor Roses white on red (left) and Lancastrian Roses, red. The Tudor Rose became known as “the flower of England” and is today England's national flower. (Angelo Hornak/Alamy Stock Photo)

A brief history of the English rose

An illustration of motors and cycles in Kensington High Street, opposite Holland House, London, from the Illustrated London News, 1903. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Lonely hearts and holiday flings: a brief history of dating

The former Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, for whom Edward gave up the throne in 1936, sparking a crisis that rocked the British monarchy. The couple are pictured here in 1939. (Photo by Keystone-France\Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

The 7 most romantic moments in history

A 19th-century portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Elizabeth I’s love life: was she really a ‘Virgin Queen’?

How to celebrate a Victorian wedding