Anne of Cleves

1515 – 1557 · Generation XXII

Anne of Cleves was born at Düsseldorf in 1515, the second daughter of John III, Duke of Cleves, and Maria of Jülich-Berg. Her father, influenced by Erasmus, kept to a moderate path through the Reformation, and his long dispute with the Emperor Charles V over the duchy of Guelders made the family useful allies for anyone at odds with the emperor. Her brother William succeeded their father in 1538. At eleven Anne was betrothed to Francis, heir to the Duke of Lorraine, but the arrangement was cancelled in 1535. She had no formal education. She was skilled at needlework, liked card games and could read and write only in German.

In 1539 Henry VIII feared that France and the Holy Roman Empire, the leading Catholic powers, were about to unite against England. His chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, urged a marriage that would tie England to Cleves and the German opponents of Charles V, and Hans Holbein the Younger was sent to Düren to paint Anne and her younger sister Amalia. Henry was pleased with the portrait, and Anne reached England in December 1539. On New Year’s Day 1540, following a courtly custom, the king came disguised and unannounced into her room at Rochester. He came away disappointed. “She is nothing so fair as she hath been reported,” he complained.

They were married at Greenwich on 6 January 1540, and the marriage was never consummated. Once the feared Catholic coalition came to nothing, Henry no longer needed the match. Anne was asked to consent to an annulment and agreed, and the marriage was dissolved in July 1540 on the grounds of non-consummation and her earlier betrothal to Francis of Lorraine. Cromwell, who had promoted the match, was attainted for treason. The famous story that Henry called her a “Flanders mare” has no contemporary source and first appears in the writing of Gilbert Burnet in 1679.

Her compliance was generously rewarded. She received a large income and a string of properties, among them Richmond Palace and Hever Castle, once the home of the Boleyns, on condition that she stay in England. She was treated as an honorary member of the king’s family, “the King’s Beloved Sister”, with precedence over every woman in England except his wife and daughters. She lived mainly at Richmond and Bletchingley, visited court from time to time, and was on affectionate terms with Henry’s younger daughter, Elizabeth. After Catherine Howard was beheaded in 1542, Anne and her brother pressed Henry to take her back, but he refused. She outlived the king and all of his other wives.

In 1547 Edward VI’s council asked her to leave Bletchingley for Penshurst. When Mary I became queen in 1553, Anne took part in the coronation procession, which seems to have been among her last public appearances. After Wyatt’s rebellion in 1554 she lost the queen’s favour, since the imperial ambassador reported a suspicion that she had intrigued with her brother on Elizabeth’s behalf. When her health failed, Mary allowed her to live at Chelsea Old Manor, where she died in July 1557, most likely of cancer, aged 41 or 42. On Mary’s orders she was given a magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey with Catholic rites, as she had wished. She lies on the south side of the High Altar in a low stone tomb carved with her initials, a crown, lions’ heads and skulls, which was never finished.

Images

Portrait miniature of Anne by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539, set in a turned ivory box (Victoria and Albert Museum, London) (Hans Holbein the Younger, public domain)
The back of Anne’s tomb in Westminster Abbey, with the inscription added in the 1970s (VCR Giulio19, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Anne of Cleves’s arms as queen consort (Sodacan, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Partners

Married King Henry VIII (1491 – 1547) in 1540; the marriage was dissolved in 1540

Life

1515 — Born
1540 — Married Henry VIII Tudor
1540 — Separated from Henry VIII Tudor
1557 — Died

Sources

Anne of Cleves · Encyclopaedia Britannica
Anne of Cleves, 4th wife of Henry VIII · Westminster Abbey
Anne of Cleves · Wikipedia