For all the tabloid fuss and docudramas, the messy love lives of today’s British royals seem like pallid reflections of monarchical scandals past. The personalities are smaller, the stakes so much ...

The Tudors in Love. By Sarah Gristwood. St Martin’s Press; 400 pages; $29.99. Oneworld Publications; £20 As “The Edifying Book of Erotic Chess” shows, chess once carried a more thrilling charge than ...