While medieval royal women were accorded high status, when it came to the task of producing heirs to the throne, they were sometimes subject to the most humiliating examinations.

One example is what Anne of Brittany had to endure. Charles VIII, king of France, had besiedged her in her city of Rennes to persuade her to marry him. Anne was the Duchess of Brittany and marriage meant that Charles would bring the previously obstinately independent Bretons under his control. When Anne realised that none of her allies would break the siege, she agreed to negotiate terms.

The terms were clear. Charles wanted to marry her. But before Charles would enter into marriage with Anne – and remember she was only 14 at the time – the French required that she prove that she was able to produce children for the king. To that end, Anne had to parade naked before the king’s commissioners: Anne, Charles’s elder sister, and two male advisers.

Having inspected the naked duchess as one would inspect a brood mare, the commissioners wrote a report that noted Anne had a congenital limp but concluded that she would be capable of bearing children.

The marriage duly agreed, the ceremony was fixed for 6 December 1491. Making her views about her future husband very clear, Anne arrived for the marriage celebration with two beds.

Anne and Charles were married for seven years – until Charles, a famously short man, contrived to hit his head on a door lintel and died shortly afterwards.