We loved the historical setting of this book. What do you think gives the Tudor period such enduring appeal?

Well, the period isn’t known to historians as ‘early modern’ for nothing! Whilst being intriguingly different from our own (as ‘early’, of course), the Tudor era is also recognisable to us as we were beginning to be ‘modern’, unlike the medieval period which remains alien.

To take just one example: the increase in social mobility – remember Thomas Cromwell, who became the most powerful man in England, was reputedly the son of a butcher. It’s a world that we both know and don’t know, and, as such, is particularly satisfying for us, I think.