Read Love Letters From Royals and Romantics Across 500 Years of British History

Ace History Desk – A new exhibition at Britain’s National Archives features a letter to Elizabeth I, Jane Austen’s will and a plea to free Oscar Wilde from prison

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Declarations of love and loyalty spanning 500 years of history are now on display in a new exhibition at Britain’s National Archives, open just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Titled “Love Letters,” the show features correspondence between a wide-ranging group of letter-writers. Monarchs, spies, celebrities and everyday Britons bare their bleeding hearts with expressions of anguish, hope, longing and joy. These tender messages are now available for the public to read, for free, through April 12 in Kew, London.

“The National Archives holds a surprising array of expressions of love—some criminalized, unconsummated or tragically cut short—found across 500 years of state records,” Vicky Iglikowski-Broad, the principal records specialist at the National Archives Council, says in a statement. “This exhibition takes visitors on a journey of emotional connection and reflection, revealing how love connects all kinds of people and takes many forms, often in the most unexpected places.”

One of the most iconic documents on display is the final letter written to Elizabeth I by her suitor, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, just before his death in 1588. Elizabeth never married, and the letter from Dudley was found at her bedside when she died 15 years later. The missive had been marked with the words, “his last lettar” [sic].

Showcasing expressions of love across social classes is a major theme of the exhibition. An 1851 petition written by an unemployed, 71-year-old weaver named Daniel Rush urges officials not to separate him from his wife by placing them in different workhouses.

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“There is a lot of connection in these two items even though on the surface they seem very different,” Iglikowski-Broad tells the Associated Press’ Jill Lawless. “In common they have just this human feeling of love … that the sacrifice is actually worth it for love.”

Sacrifice and secrecy defined the relationship between John Cairncross—a British civil servant who was later identified as a spy who leaked information to the Soviets—and Gloria Barraclough, a woman who likely never knew that her lover led a double life.

“Writing to you seems to have some magical effect on me,” Cairncross expressed in a letter in 1944. “Your letters have a lightness, vivacity and joie de vivre … a fresh voice from an exquisite past.”Ira Aldridge as Othello, painted in 1826. As an early Black Shakespearean actor, Aldridge was frequently subjected to racism.

Barraclough’s son, Tom Brass, found letters between Cairncross and his mother tucked into her copy of his autobiography. But before he could ask her about them, she died.

“My mother came from a category of women whose lives were deemed to be of little or no interest,” Brass tells the Guardian’s Amelia Hill. “But these love letters … show that before she was a wife and mother, she was loved by a spy for her vibrancy and intelligence.”

Not every artifact in the exhibition swells with romantic love. Familial love, calls for justice and even expressions of outrage can be found on many pages on display. Jane Austen’s will, handwritten in 1817, bequeaths all her possessions to her beloved sister, Cassandra.

Jane Austen’s letters

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Though the English novelist likely wrote thousands of letters during her lifetime, only around 161 are known to survive.

Meanwhile, a large collection of letters written by members of the public defend Ira Aldridge, a playwright and early Black Shakespearean actor, who faced racism throughout his career. In another letter, Lord Alfred Douglas—himself the recipient of one of the most famous love letters ever written, Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis—begs Queen Victoria to pardon Wilde, who had been imprisoned for his homosexuality.

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