In Six Wives with Lucy Worsley (from 7 December), a three-part series on the marital history of Henry VIII, the historian was thrilled about securing access to the Vatican library where, for the first time, she was allowed to show on camera 17 letters, amorous in tone, from Henry to Anne Boleyn.

“Amazingly I’m the first person who’s been allowed in to film them,” she said. “Brilliant!” And then she gave two thumbs up.

Written mostly in French, the letters were most likely stolen from Anne. How they arrived in the Vatican is unclear. It is usually suggested that they were taken to Rome at the time of Henry’s annulment negotiations to bolster the case against him. Worsley, though, gave a different account: she said they were bought from a dealer in the seventeenth century, long after the events.