Throw in all of the Tudor-inspired series on Starz (Becoming Elizabeth, The White Queen, The Spanish Princess) not to mention the fact that the dynasty inspired the central analogy between Game of Thrones/House Of The Dragon and the Wars of the Roses – and it seems our screens will never be done with this period of history.

So, what gives? This is, after all, an era that spans just 117 years and, to be perfectly honest, most people are wholly focused on the events that occurred during Henry VIII’s 38-year reign. Why do we continue to – ahem – lose our heads over this particular chapter of English history?

Well, that little pun has a lot to do with it all. The Tudors, after all, are often introduced to us via that macabre children’s rhyme: “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”. Six women remembered with just six measly little words; six women – queens, political thinkers, trailblazers, and authors – whose identities are wholly reduced to that of their husband and his treatment of them (until the fabulous show Six: The Musical put them centre stage). Six women who played significant roles in a time of great social, political, and religious upheaval, one that paved the way to the modern Britain we know and live in today, who often feel like characters in a TV show.

“They’re the original TOWIE: why pop culture is so obsessed with the Tudors”