Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

At the time, surely Kateryn Parr had her reservations about being Henry VIII's sixth wife?

Aside from being a tyrannical maniac who'd just beheaded his last wife, Catherine Howard, he was getting old, angry and his ulcerous leg was getting smelly.

However, Kateryn was smart - she was the first queen to be a published author - and she loved the glitz and glamour of her new position.

What was her life like before Henry entered the picture? How did she narrowly escape being sent to the tower for heresy? And why was her marriage after Henry so controversial?

In the sixth and final episode of our limited series, Secret Wives of the Six Wives, Kate is joined by Tudor export Nicola Tallis, to help us find out more about the woman who would thrive as a queen and go on to live to survive Henry VIII.

This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

All music from Epidemic Sounds/All3 Media.

Accessing stories from the past can be difficult, but how do we access smells from the past?

Henry VIII called her his 'rose without a thorn', but the teenage Catherine Howard was to fall out of favour less than 18 months after becoming Queen of England.

Out of all of Henry's wives it could be argued that the young queen, who was a cousin of Anne Boleyn, is most deserving of our sympathy.

How did her past come back to haunt her? What would it have been like for this young woman to be with Henry VIII - an older man with a stinky leg ulcer? And what was the truth behind the scandal of her downfall?

In the fifth and penultimate episode of our limited series, Secret Wives of the Six Wives, Kate is joined by Tudor export Nicola Tallis, to help us find out more about the young woman who had to deal with so much drama and tragedy in her short life.

This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

All music from Epidemic Sounds/All3 Media.

The history of lonely hearts ads might be a lot deeper than you'd expect.

For as long as people have been printing newspapers, people (read: men) were enquiring about potential partners.

By the time the culture took off in the 18th century, how were people looking for love? How did the First World War boost the medium? And what are some of the strangest dating stories from this history?

Anne of Cleves gets a pretty raw deal in the history books.

She's often accused of being ugly, after Henry VIII claimed the painting he had made of her was overly flattering.

While their marriage was short-lived, is it time we give Anne of Cleves, who hailed from a small state in Germany, the props she deserves?

Just who was this woman who came from relative obscurity into the madness of the Tudor court, and came out one of life's winners?

In the fourth episode of our limited series, Secret Wives of the Six Wives, Kate is joined once again by Tudor export Nicola Tallis, to help us find out more about the woman who arguably played the game of being Henry's wife better than any of the five others.

This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

All music from Epidemic Sounds/All3 Media.