Anne of Cleves

Queen consort of England (r. January-July, 1540)

• Born: September 22, 1515
• Birthplace: Cleves (now in Germany)
• Died: July 16, 1557
• Place of death: London, England

German-born Anne of Cleves helped promote a brief alliance between her husband King Henry VIII of England and her brother, Duke William of Cleves, a Protestant leader in Germany. Also, she displayed great courage in the face of an often unforgiving and ruthless Henry when she first refused his formal request for a divorce.

Early Life

Anne of Cleves was part of a politically influential family. Duke William of Cleves, her brother, embraced the new Protestantism that was spreading through northern Europe during the Reformation. William was seen as politically useful to Henry VII , who broke from Roman Catholicism and established the Church of England following his divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon . A marriage to Anne would ally Henry’s Church of England with the German Protestants.

Anne’s lineage can be traced to Edward I of England and John I of Burgundy. Like most young noblewomen of that time, Anne lived under the close surveillance of her mother, her chief teacher. Living with her immediate family until she was betrothed, she quickly learned modesty, humility, and passivity. She mastered the gestures expected of a lady: controlling her gaze and using her eyebrows expressively. Her education revolved around religion and needlepoint, in which she became adept. German was the only language she spoke fluently when she married Henry.

Life’s Work

Before King Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves, he had married three other women: Catherine of Aragon, a union whose annulment caused England to break away from the Roman Catholic Church; Anne Boleyn , whom he had beheaded; and Jane Seymour, who died in 1537 shortly after giving birth to Henry’s first son, Edward VI. Although Henry appeared shattered by Jane Seymour’s death, he realized that he had to remarry to produce additional heirs to the throne. He did not, however, plunge into a quick remarriage.

Henry’s minions spent three years seeking a suitable mate for him, finally dismissing the possibility of his marrying any of the English candidates. Henry needed to strengthen his political position by forming an alliance with the nobility of some northern European country, and Duke William of Cleves was finally considered the nobleman who could cement such an alliance. William’s sister, Anne of Cleves, was under consideration to become Henry’s next wife.

Lord Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief ambassador to Germany, actively promoted the king’s marriage to Anne of Cleves. The king’s emissaries lauded Anne’s physical attractiveness, intelligence, and purity of body and soul. Late in 1539, Henry, eager for an alliance with Germany, agreed to marry the twenty-four-year-old princess without having met her. He had, however, seen Hans Holbein’s portrait of Anne, a flattering rendition of the princess painted hastily in August, 1539.

The prospective bride journeyed to Calais before her voyage to England, arriving there on December 12. Bad weather delayed her departure from Calais until December 27, when she was finally able to cross the English Channel, landing at Downs, where the duke and duchess of Suffolk received her. Inclement weather delayed Anne’s progress to London. She paused in Rochester where, on January 1, 1540, a bullfight was arranged for her amusement.

Suddenly, six men, identically dressed in colorful cloaks and hoods, entered her apartment, where she was observing the bullfight from a window. One of the men advanced, kissed her, and presented her with a gift, supposedly from the king. He continued his advances, which Anne rebuffed. Finally, the man left, only to return dressed in the royal purple of his office. Henry, eager to meet his bride, had traveled to Rochester to surprise her.

Henry’s initial impression of Anne was highly unfavorable. He barely spoke to her, retreating from her presence as quickly as he could. The reports of her beauty obviously had been exaggerated. The Holbein portrait portrayed someone far more attractive than the person Henry now faced.

Henry was desperate to cancel the marriage contract to which he was committed. There was no way to do this, however, without jeopardizing the political gains he hoped his marriage to Anne would assure. The wedding that was planned for January 4 was postponed while Henry attempted to find a reasonable way out of his dilemma, but none surfaced. On January 6, Henry was forced to marry Anne.

As Henry came to know Anne better, his distress heightened. The language barrier precluded easy communication. Their conversations required the presence of a translator, a situation hardly encouraging to intimacy. Henry considered Anne limited intellectually. She suffered from a pervasive homesickness, adding another complication to an already troubled marriage.

Rumors that the royal marriage was unconsummated generated consternation in Henry’s court. Cromwell and his associates knew that something must be done to remedy the situation. No one, however, was willing to intervene on such a delicate matter, largely because of the king’s reputation for dealing harshly with those who displeased him. Cromwell shifted much of the responsibility for mending the marriage to the earl of Rutland, who was reluctant to risk royal disfavor by entering into the fray.

Anne’s only possible confidante in court was Mrs. Loew, a German woman who had accompanied Anne to England and, in a break from tradition, had remained following the marriage to assume a prominent place in Henry’s household as surrogate mother to the German maids. Anne, however, was too diffident about her situation to discuss it with anyone. Indeed, she pretended ignorance when some of the ladies in court questioned why she had not yet become pregnant. She confided to no one the true state of her marriage.

Henry, on the other hand, conferred with his physicians and with Cromwell about the state of his unhappy union with Anne. Word circulated about the crumbling royal marriage. By the beginning of summer, Henry was frequently seen crossing the Thames to visit the dowager duchess of Norfolk’s palace, where he had clandestine meetings with Catherine Howard, with whom he had fallen in love and whom he would eventually marry.

On June 24, Henry dispatched Anne from his palace to Richmond Palace, explaining that the climate there was better. On July 6, however, Anne learned that her marriage to Henry was the subject of considerable scrutiny with the obvious aim of termination. On July 9, she was served with a formal request that she sign divorce documents. Fearing that she might suffer the fate of Catherine of Aragon, Anne refused to sign the necessary papers, thereby making divorce unlikely. She demanded that her marriage to Henry be judged by a convocation, which would, predictably, rule in the king’s favor, after which she would accept an annulment. She then wrote to the king, signing her letter “Your Majesty’s most humble sister and servant, Anne.”

Henry, amazed at Anne’s conciliatory attitude, wrote, in a letter dated July 12, that he would henceforth regard Anne as his sister rather than his wife. Following the annulment, Anne received an annual stipend of four thousand pounds, a handsome sum for the time. She also received palaces at Richmond and Bletchingley and was still accepted at court. The annulment agreement stipulated that Anne remain in England. This hurdle behind him, Henry married Catherine Howard on August 8, 1540.

Significance

Anne of Cleves lived for seventeen years following her annulment. She showed deference to Catherine Howard, who had been one of Anne’s maids during Anne’s brief tenure as queen, and approached her with a becoming humility and courtesy. For the remaining years of her life, Anne visited court occasionally and was remarkably amiable despite being deposed.

Although she had no far-reaching political significance, Anne demonstrated remarkable survival skills, negotiating the volatile realm of Henry’s court. Her mere survival was miraculous, brought about by her stubbornness and shrewdness. The very political advantage that Henry hoped to gain by his marriage to a northern European became moot, however, when the alliance between northern Europe’s Catholic powers stalled, making the whole matter of his marriage to Anne of Cleves embarrassing politically.

Bibliography

Chamberlain, Arthur B. Hans Holbein the Younger. London: G. Allen, 1913. Dated but valuable for its account of Hans Holbein’s conscription to paint a hasty portrait of Anne so Henry could see what she looked like.

Crawford, Anne, ed. The Letters of the Queens of England, 1066-1547. Stroud, Gloucestershire, England: 1994. Contains letters from Henry’s wives, including several from Anne of Cleves.

Starkey, David. Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. A valuable resource that views Henry’s marriage to Anne in the context of his five other marriages.

Warnicke, Retha M. The Marrying of Anne of Cleves: Royal Protocol in Early Modern England. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. The most comprehensive account of Anne’s marriage to Henry and its subsequent annulment.

Weir, Alison. Henry VIII: The King and His Court. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001. Weir provides vivid descriptions of Anne’s arrival in England and, eventually, in court.