While Americans squirmed or vented self-righteous outrage at the revelation of their president’s escapades with Monica Lewinsky, the rest of the world seemed bemused. Oxford history fellow, George Cawkwell, who knew William Jefferson Clinton in his 1960s Rhodes Scholar days, was worldly in defence of his former student: ‘I think the truth is that people behave in sex matters in a way they’d never behave in anything else.’ He counselled English discretion: ‘We don’t attack our monarchs all the time. It wouldn’t have been good for people to have known every bit about Henry the Eighth.’

Readers of Hilary Mantel’s splendid novel Wolf Hall, which in its fictional way does let on a fair bit about Henry VIII’s behaviour in sex matters, could argue that the revolution might have come sooner if the British people had known the whole truth. But hierarchical and monarchical cultural habits have a long half-life, as the recent history of the House of Windsor demonstrates. There are still persuasive pragmatic arguments for keeping sex out of politics and squinting at any sexual indiscretion that does not compromise matters of state. Australians have accepted this realpolitik moral reasoning for much of their history. As have Americans. So why not now? The affairs of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy never threatened to derail a presidency. Why did Bill Clinton’s infidelities cause such national angst?