National Archives<\/a> that covers five centuries.<\/p>\nCurator Victoria Iglikowski-Broad said that the documents recount \u201clegendary romances from British history\u201d involving royalty, politicians, celebrities and spies, \u201calongside voices of everyday people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to open up the potential of what a love letter can be,\u201d she told The Associated Press on Wednesday. \u201cExpressions of love can be found in all sorts of places, and surprising places.\u201d<\/p>\n
They also take many forms. The exhibition ranges from early 20th-century classified ads seeking same-sex romance to sweethearts’ letters to soldiers at war and a medieval song about heartbreak.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also \u201cone of our most iconic documents,\u201d Iglikowski-Broad said, referring to a poignant letter to Queen Elizabeth I from her suitor Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.<\/p>\n
Written days before Dudley\u2019s death in 1588, it conveys the intimacy between the \u201cVirgin Queen,\u201d who never married, and the man who called himself \u201cyour poor old servant.\u201d<\/p>\n
The missive, with \u201chis last lettar\u201d written on the outside \u2014 spelling at the time was idiosyncratic \u2014 was found at the queen\u2019s bedside when she died almost 15 years later.<\/p>\n
Bonds of family and friendship<\/p>\n
Love, in the exhibition, doesn\u2019t just mean romance. Family bonds are in evidence in Jane Austen\u2019s handwritten will from 1817 leaving almost everything to her beloved sister Cassandra, and in a 1956 letter in which the father of London gangster twins Reggie and Ronnie Kray, implores a court to go easy on the brothers, because \u201call their concern in life is to do good to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter writers range from paupers to princes. In an 1851 petition, an unemployed 71-year-old weaver named Daniel Rush begs authorities not to separate him and his wife by sending them to workhouses. It\u2019s displayed alongside the Instrument of Abdication through which King Edward VIII gave up the throne in 1936 so that he could marry \u201cthe woman I love,\u201d twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of connection in these two items even though on the surface they seem very different,\u201d Iglikowski-Broad said. \u201cIn common they have just this human feeling of love \u2026 that the sacrifice is actually worth it for love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other documents tell of love lost. There is a never-before-displayed 1944 letter from young British intelligence officer John Cairncross to his former girlfriend Gloria Barraclough, reflecting on what might have been. \u201cWould we have broken off, I wondered, if we had known what was coming?\u201d<\/p>\n
Some readers may think Barraclough had a lucky escape \u2014 years later, Cairncross was unmasked as a Soviet spy.<\/p>\n
Royal romance and tragedy<\/p>\n
Some love stories tell of danger, heartbreak and tragedy. In one, Lord Alfred Douglas asks \u2014 in vain \u2014 for Queen Victoria to pardon his lover Oscar Wilde. The writer had been sentenced to two years in prison for gross indecency after Douglas\u2019 outraged father revealed their relationship.<\/p>\n
Nearby is a letter written in 1541 by Catherine Howard, fifth wife of King Henry VIII, to her secret beau Thomas Culpeper.<\/p>\n
Archives historian Neil Johnston noted that the tone of the extraordinary letter is \u201crestrained panic. She is warning him to be very, very careful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catherine signed off the letter \u201cyours as long as life endures.\u201d That turned out not to be long. The king discovered the affair and both Catherine and Culpeper were executed for treason.<\/p>\n
A letter by Queen Henrietta Maria to King Charles I \u2013 \u201cmy dear heart\u201d \u2013 is a rarity, since Britain\u2019s royal family guards its private papers closely.<\/p>\n
It was found among possessions left behind by the fleeing king in 1645 after a battlefield defeat for royalist troops in England\u2019s civil war. Charles lost the war and was tried, convicted and executed in 1649. The letter ended up in Parliament’s archives, which last year was transferred to the National Archives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have very many intimate letters between monarchs like this,\u201d Johnston said. \u201cThis is a little gem within the disaster of the English Civil War.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
\u201cLove Letters\u201d opens Saturday and runs to April 12. Admission is free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wsls.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2013 Love is, famously, a many-splendored thing. It can encompass longing, loneliness, pain, jealousy, grief \u2014 and, sometimes, joy. As Valentine\u2019s Day approaches, the many facets of passion are going on display in \u201cLove Letters,\u201d a public exhibition at Britain\u2019s National Archives that covers five centuries. Curator Victoria Iglikowski-Broad said that the documents recount […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2245288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[434627,434621,434622,21741,434617,434618,399662,374762,434624,21818,434628,434619,410380,434626,434620,434625,434623,401834,22814],"class_list":["post-2245286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-catherine-howard","tag-daniel-rush","tag-elizabeth-i-of-england","tag-entertainment","tag-gloria-barraclough","tag-henrietta-maria","tag-henry-viii-of-england","tag-jane-austen","tag-john-cairncross","tag-lifestyle","tag-lord-alfred-douglas","tag-neil-johnston","tag-oscar-wilde","tag-robert-dudley","tag-ronnie-kray","tag-thomas-culpeper","tag-victoria-iglikowski-broad","tag-wallis-simpson","tag-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Historic-love-letters-from-royals-rogues-and-romantics-go-on.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2245286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2245289,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245286\/revisions\/2245289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2245288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2245286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2245286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2245286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}