Private Lives of the Tudors

Why is it that a history series that’s brought us new nuggets of information about the private lives of the Tudor kings can’t do the same with the Tudor queens? Is it the way that television does history, with kings being men of action while queens’ lives are resolutely personal?

So here we go: Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain was a political rather than romantic union; her phantom pregnancies were a humiliating failure. And as for Elizabeth, we run through her “erotically charged” love affairs, her cruel treatment of her ladies and her love of tooth-rotting sugar.

And Tracy Borman finally succumbs to her colleague Lucy Worsley’s favourite activity, getting dressed up in full Elizabethan rig. She looks uncomfortable – and it’s not just the corsetry.