January 6, 1540: Henry VIII Marries Anna von Kleefes

Had Henry VIII's matrimonial turmoils really been about having heirs for England, Anna von Kleefes would have been the perfect choice as a wife. Her grandfather was nicknamed "the babymaker" because he had a whopping sixty-three illegitimate children besides the kids he fathered with his wife. Anna's own father seems to have been more conservative with his progenitive activities, but there was no doubt Anna came from a fertile line, and was young and healthy. She was intelligent, well-mannered and blue-blooded. The perfect Renaissance princess.

But Henry wasn't attracted to Anna, and that was reason enough for him to buck a thousand years of European matrimonial tradition, risk war and upsetting the power balance of continental alliances, and lowering the prestige of his dynasty - and England itself - in the eyes of the world.

Since their disastrous meeting on New Year's Day, Henry VIII had been desperately searching for a way out of marrying Anna. He tried to find an irregularity in the dispensation that had been issued after her failed betrothal to the Duke of Lorraine, but the Duke had been only ten at the time the marriage was arranged, and canon law held the betrothal was invalid on that basis alone. The envoys from Cleves insisted they had ample proof that the betrothal had been properly canceled. Henry tried demanding written proof. They had copies of the documents; Henry said he wanted to see the original.

The diplomats must have been frustrated and somewhat alarmed. These issues had already been discussed and settled even before the marriage was agreed upon. The diplomats boldly offered themselves as hostages, to act as a bond that the documents did exist and were legitimate. Checkmate.

Anna was being feted at banquets and introduced to the English court as their new queen, all while her intended husband was scrambling to find a way out of his engagement that wouldn't spark an international furor. Henry required that Anna herself appear before notaries and swear she was free of any impediments to their marriage. Was he hoping she would be offended by the request and refuse, causing a delay? If so, he was disappointed. Anna swore as requested.

Henry was resentful, to say the least. He muttered to Cromwell,

If it were not that she is come so far into England, and for fear of making a ruffle in the world, and driving her brother into the Emperor and the French King's hands, I would never have her: but now it is too far gone, wherefore I am sorry.

Their wedding was held at Greenwich. Archbishop Cranmer himself performed the service, and the king gave Anna a wedding ring inscribed with the words GOD SEND ME WEL TO KEPE.

The anxious Cromwell asked the king how his wedding night had gone the next morning, and Henry had a litany of complaints about his new bride.

Surely, my lord, I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse! She is nothing fair, and have very evil smells about her. I took her to be no maid by reason of the looseness of breasts and other tokens, which, when I felt them, strake me so to the heart, that I had neither will nor courage to prove the rest. I can have none appetite for displeasant airs. I have left her as good a maid as I found her.

Henry may have already been thinking of an annulment. Three days later, he called his physicians in and told them he hadn't consummated his marriage, though he hastened to add it wasn't because he was unable to do so. He could do it with anyone other than her. In fact, he'd had not one, but two wet dreams on his wedding night, as he lay beside his untouched bride.

Needless to say, Henry was sort of touchy about the impotence thing since the trial of wife #2, when George Boleyn had read out Anne's accusation that Henry was unable to perform with her.

Poor Anna! Groped a bit by her resentful husband, who then rolled over and fell asleep, and - according to him - had two nocturnal emissions thinking about other women. Anna had to be terrified. She spoke very little English, and her new homeland was a place of strange customs. Her husband - who had already killed one wife and divorced another - obviously disliked her.

Anna was alone. Her ladies from Cleves had been replaced by a contingent of English ladies in waiting, including a winsome young girl named Katheryn Howard, and Jane Parker, the former sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn.

Anna was an intelligent woman. She knew the court was tittering and gossiping about the non-consummation. The king was making a public issue of it, after all. Her mind must have been racing with what this might portend, and she wisely decided to play along.

Cromwell was in a panic. He asked Anna's Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Rutland, to talk to his wife and see if she could get Anna to take the initiative in getting the king to consummate the marriage. The countess supposedly urged Anna to be more "pleasant" to the king when he came to her chamber in the evenings. Whatever Anna replied to that led Jane Parker to say to the queen that she believed Anna was still a maiden.

Anna replied,

How can I be a maid... and sleep every night with the king? When he comes to bed, he kisses me and takes me by the hand and bids me, "Goodnight sweetheart," and in the morning, kisses me and bids me, "Farewell darling." Is this not enough?

It is highly unlikely Anna was that ignorant of how babies were made. Unlike the Victorian era, the Tudors did not believe sexual innocence also required sexual ignorance. Though the court of Cleves was more conservative than the court of Henry VIII, women were not kept from the facts of nature. Anna's reply was likely part of the ruse: "I'm so untouched, I don't even know what sex is!"

Retha Warnicke doubts this exchange occurred. She says that Anna had not yet learned English well enough to speak with these ladies without an interpreter. (Rutland mentions having to get an interpreter because he couldn't understand her in early July.) Warnicke thinks the statement the ladies gave was intended to establish Anna's virginity, especially because of Henry's public claims that the droopiness of Anna's breasts indicated she couldn't be a virgin. Anna being untouched would be an important part of establishing an annulment case.

Anna spent her short-lived time at court building friendships. She asked for permission to bring the king's daughter, Elizabeth, back to court after Elizabeth sent her a welcoming letter. There's an apocryphal story that Henry first refused, telling Anna that Elizabeth had a mother so different from herself that she should not wish to meet the girl, but relented and allowed Elizabeth to come to court. By all accounts, Anna and Elizabeth got along swimmingly.

But by June, dark clouds were gathering. Anna complained to one of the courtiers about the attention Henry was showing to Katheryn Howard. A courtier named Richard Hilles wrote about it in a letter:

Before St. John Baptist’s day [24th June] it was whispered the King intended to divorce his queen Anne, sister of the duke of Gelderland, whom he had married publicly at Epiphany after last Christmas. Courtiers first observed that he was much taken with another young lady, very small of stature, whom he now has, and whom he was seen crossing the Thames to visit, often in the day time and sometimes at night. The bp. of Winchester provided feastings for them in his palace, but it was looked upon as a sign of adultery, not of divorce.

Anna was ordered to leave court on the date mentioned in the letter, on the pretext that there was plague in the city and she would be safer at Richmond Palace. Anna must have been frightened, because this was Henry's pattern, to physically distance himself from the wife before dealing with her. When the king's commissioners approached her, she fainted dead away.

She must have been sure she was about to be accused of adultery. Evidence didn't matter; Anne Boleyn's sham trial had proven that. It's no wonder Anna fainted. She had to be absolutely terrified, but she rallied quickly, showing a fortitude that's often lost in the portrayals of her.

Fortunately for her, the king had a generous offer in mind. If Anna agreed to an annulment, she would get a huge pension of £4000 per year and various properties, including Hever Castle, the family home of Anne Boleyn. She would be known as "the King's Sister" and would take precedence over every lady in the land, except the king's wife and children. The new wife was already waiting in the wings.

Anna pretended reluctance to lose such a wonderful husband. As I said before, Anna was a very intelligent woman. She stalled for a short time, asking to examine the evidence the king had collected to "prove" her pre-contract with the Duke of Lorraine made her marriage to Henry invalid. But she agreed to the king's terms. She sent him back the wedding ring he had given her, and told him he should have it broken up as "a thing of little worth." One wonders if Henry caught the full meaning of that.

After the dissolution of their marriage, Henry discovered that he really liked Anna. Her intelligence and grasp of European politics made him once say he wished he could make her one of his councilors.

She made friends with Katheryn Howard, and was a frequent visitor to court during her short reign. Records indicate the two women exchanged gifts, and on at least one occasion, danced together after dinner.

After poor Katheryn's execution, Anna pretended to be interested in resuming her position as Henry's wife, and made a show of asking her ambassadors to seek support of the request.

At the end of November, 1541, Henry Olisleger - one of the ambassadors who had helped arrange the first marriage of Anna and Henry - wrote to Cranmer and the Earl of Southampton to seek their help in getting Anna re-instated as Henry's wife. Carl Harst also approached the French ambassador for assistance in putting Anna’s request forward.

The French ambassador wrote to the Queen of Navarre, praising Anna’s virtuous behavior, and his letter implied that he had communicated with Anna directly enough to believe re-marriage was what Anna wanted.

Anna’s supposed desire to be re-instated was so well-known that a booklet was printed in France called the Remonstrance of Anne of Cleves, in which poor Anna lamented her terrible fate in being abandoned by Henry. Anna didn’t have anything to do with the booklet, but it shows she was a figure of sympathy around the world at this time.

I have no direct proof that Anna was behind these requests, but she did move to Richmond Palace during this time to be “closer to the king,” which implies she at least knew of the requests. And she certainly did not speak out against them.

Was it at the behest of her brother the requests were made? Perhaps, but even if it wasn’t Anna behind it, I believe she saw the opportunity it presented. The benefits she would get from securing Henry’s favor far outweighed the public embarrassment of being rejected again by him.

 Of course, it was a sham - Henry would never retract his position that her pre-contract made her ineligible to be his wife, especially after he had publicly decreed that she was his "sister." But she made the gesture all the same, flattering the king and securing her place in his favor.

Anna left court after Henry married Kateryn Parr, his final wife. Court gossip said it was because Anna was “jealous” of Henry’s new queen, or that she disliked Kateryn. We have no documentary evidence of that. All we have is a single recorded remark by Anna that "Madame Parr has taken a great burden upon herself" in marrying Henry. Anna knew that better than anyone. She didn’t “court” Kateryn’s favor like she had done with Katheryn Howard.

By all accounts, Anna lived out the rest of her days in England a happy woman. She was the only one of Henry's wives who did.

She died on the 15th or 16th of July, 1557 at Chelsea Old Manor. She was forty-one years old, and had been ailing for some time. Modern historians speculate that she had cancer, but the illness is not named in the contemporary records. She was well enough to make her last will and testament before she died, leaving generous bequests to the servants who tended her. Anna left jewelry to both of the girls who had once been her step-daughters, Elizabeth and Princess Mary - who was now queen. Anna asked that Mary use the rents from one of her estates to settle her debts, and that Elizabeth take one of her maids into her service.

Queen Mary saw to it that Anna was given the royal funeral she deserved, with a full Catholic requiem mass given by Bishop Bonner. (While Anna's faith had always been reformist, she seems to have been content to return to Catholic forms of worship during Mary's reign.) Jane Seymour's sister, the Marchioness of Winchester, served as chief mourner.

Agnes Strickland described it:

Thus they passed St. James and on to Charing Cross, where was met a hundred torches, her servants bearing them, and the twelve bedesmen of Westminster had new black gowns, and they had twelve burning torches and four white branches, then her ladies and gentlewomen, all in black, on their horses; and about the herse sat eight heralds bearing white banners of arms.” These white ensigns were to signify that Anne of Cleves had lived a maiden life.

At the abbey-door all did alight, and the bishop of London and my lord abbot in their mitres and copes received the good lady censing her, and their men did bear her under a canopy of black velvet, with four black staves, and so brought her under the herse, and there tarried dirge, and all the night with lights burning.

The next day requiem was sung for my lady Anne daughter of Cleves, and then my lord of Westminster (abbot Feckenham) preached as goodly a sermon as ever was made, and the bishop of London sang mass in his mitre. And after mass, the lord bishop and the lord abbot did cense the corpse, and afterwards she was carried to her tomb, where she lies with a herse and cloth of gold over her.

The hearse, covered in seven palls of costly fabrics, was looted by the monks of Westminster about a month after her funeral.

The hearse was left, according to custom, some weeks in the church, and Machyn chronicles that when it was taken down it was discovered that the monks had despoiled it in the night of all the velvet cloth, coats of arms, banners, and even the gold fringe of the valance, “ the which was never seen afore so done.” As a matter of fact, the trappings of the hearse were taken by order of the abbot, lest the heralds should claim them. The heralds complained of the loss of their perquisites, but the abbot and sexton appeared before the council and showed grants proving the right of their body to the hearses. Sentence was ultimately given against the heralds.

Mary commissioned a grand tomb for Anna, designed by her countryman Theodore Haveus, but it was never completed. Strickland continues:

Anne of Cleves is buried near the high altar of Westminster Abbey, in a place of great honour, at the feet of king Sebert the original founder.‘Her tomb is seldom recognised. In fact it looks like a long bench placed against the wall on the right hand, as the examiner stands facing the altar, near the oil portraits of Henry III. and king Sebert. On closer inspection, her initials A. and C., interwoven in a monogram, will be observed on parts of the structure, which is rather a memorial than a monument, for it was never finished. “ Not one of Henry’s wives, excepting Anne of Cleves, had a monument,” observes Fuller, “and hers was but half a one.”

Apparently, some work was still ongoing during the reign of James I, but it was probably lack of royal funding which left the tomb unfinished. In the 19th century, a marble panel from it was removed and used in the communion table.

Couretsey of Westminster Abbey

The tomb was marked only with her initials "AC" until a small plaque was installed during the 1970s. Today, Anna's tomb is often obscured by rows of chairs.

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The Meeting of Henry VIII and Anna von Kleefes

January 1, 1540. Three years after Jane Seymour's death, Henry VIII is about to meet his fourth wife, Anna von Kleefes (Anne of Cleves.) Anna isn't featured in Under These Restless Skies, but she will be in the sequel, The White on the Crimson.

Henry's usual matrimonial hunting grounds, his queen's ladies in waiting, hadn't stirred up anyone of interest. This time, Henry would marry a princess for an alliance to benefit England. The search began before Jane Seymour was even in the ground.

It wasn't easy to find a new bride for the scandalous king. Christina of Denmark is reported to have said of Henry "If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England's disposal." It's probably apocryphal, but it shows the attitude of Europe at the time. In most circumstances, royal parents wouldn't care if their daughter didn't want to marry their chosen bridegroom. (Anna's sister-in-law, Jeanne d'Albret, had been whipped by her parents when she refused to marry the Duke of Cleves, and had to be physically carried to the altar by the Constable of France when she refused to go.) But in this case, the crowned heads of Europe agreed with their daughters. Catholic monarchs didn't want to ally with a king who had been excommunicated. Protestant monarchs were offended by Henry's relentless persecution of Lutherans in his realm, and his insistence on keeping all of the Catholic elements of worship except for the authority of the Pope.

Compounding the difficulty was the fact that Henry needed his marriage to bring him a beneficial alliance that would help shift the balance of power in Europe in his favor. There weren't many princesses that fit the bill.

And Henry insisted that his wife had to be beautiful. He was troubled by having to rely on ambassadors, deputies, and others to describe the women and their attributes to him. When it came to selecting his bride, Henry said:

"I trust to no one,but myself. The thing touches me too near. I wish to see them and know them some time before deciding."

He suggested through his ambassador that the French should send their candidates for a visit to see if Henry found any of them suitable.

The French reacted to this bizarre suggestion with ridicule. They would not be trotting out princesses for Henry to inspect like hackneys he was considering buying. It's recorded that Henry had the grace to blush when the French ambassador said this.

Henry's behavior in this matter was outrageous, to say the least. Royal marriages were made for

alliances between nations, and the attractiveness of the candidates wasn't really a consideration. Certainly, Henry hadn't worried whether or not his sister Mary Tudor Brandon would find the elderly French king attractive when Henry forced her to marry him.

Portraits would be exchanged, but often that was after the marriage had been agreed upon. And the princess would be married by proxy before she left her homeland for her new realm. It was the way things had been done for a thousand years in Europe, but Henry thought he should be an exception.

Cromwell urged Henry to accept Anna von Kleefes or Amalia, the sisters of a duke who ruled a small, but strategic, German country. Cleves was Reformist in its faith; one of Anna's brother-in-laws was known as the "Champion of the Reformation." Anna's mother, however, had been a strict Catholic, and Anna still adhered to her faith. But she was willing to obey her husband in regards to religion.

Henry sent the court painter, Holbein, to paint portraits of the two princesses and men he trusted to report on their beauty and attributes. Holbein's portrait of Anna shows a moderately attractive young woman with gentle features. He painted her head-on, which somewhat disguised her long nose. Ambassador Wotton, who had gone with Holbein, pronounced the finished portrait "a very lively [life-like] image." After viewing the two portraits, Henry picked Anna as his bride.

The ambassadors who met her said Anna was "... of middling beauty, and of very assured and resolute countenance." Anna wasn't beautiful, but she wasn't ugly, either. Certainly, she was prettier than Jane Seymour.

Anna was solemn and dutiful, the qualities that had so attracted Henry to Jane Seymour. By English standards, Anna wasn't sophisticated or accomplished. She wasn't a witty conversationalist, but she was gracious and charming. She did not sing or play any musical instruments, which the Germans felt were "unbecoming" for a lady, and in her brother's sober court, dancing was frowned upon. She could read and write, but only in German. She loved to play cards, and embroidered beautifully. And, as it would later turn out, Anna had such a brilliant political mind, Henry wished he could put her on his council.

The proxy marriage was performed and Anna was dispatched to England. She made her way across the sea and landed at Deal. From there, she set out on a slow, winding path for London, where she expected to meet her new husband. At every house she stayed in along the way, there were celebrations and feasts to greet the new queen. The courtiers she met were charmed by her. She was likeable and gracious. No one made any negative reports about her appearance at this time.

Henry had other plans for their first meeting. He was impatient to meet her and wanted to "nurture love" by getting to know her before she reached London. He decided to play one of the pranks of his youth, the games he used to play with Katharine of Aragon. In those long-ago days, he would dress up as a highwayman and invade Katharine's chamber, demanding to dance with the queen. Katharine always pretended to be surprised when he took off his disguise.

Henry dressed himself in a "mottled," or ragged, cloak and hood, and went to Rochester. He called aside her steward and announced he had come to meet his new wife. Henry may have been remembering the romantic stories of French and early English monarchs who had first checked out their brides while in disguise and then revealed themselves to them. The romantic outcome was that the princess was supposed to fall in love with the "stranger" because their hearts would know one another, even if their eyes were fooled.

Did anyone tell the king it might not be a good idea to "introduce" himself in such a way to a girl who came from a far away land that didn't have the same courtly traditions, and hadn't read the same romances he had? If they did, it didn't deter him.

Anna was in her chamber, gazing out her window, watching a bear-baiting outside staged for her amusement. Henry entered and announced he had a gift for her from the king. With that, he grabbed her into his arms and kissed her.

Anna was shocked at being manhandled by this obese, uncouth peasant. It's not hard to imagine she had a look of disgust on her face as she recoiled. She turned away from him and stared out the window, likely unsettled and unsure of what to do.

It was probably the only time Henry had ever seen a look of repulsion aimed in his direction. He was surrounded at all times by trained courtiers who gazed at him in adoration and assured him he was the most handsome prince in Christendom. Anna brutally shattered that illusion in a single moment. She did not swoon and fall instantly in love with him. She did not pretend coy delight. She showed him - stripped of courtly pretence or artifice - what she thought of him, and it wasn't flattering.

What must Anna have been thinking? It must have been bewildering and frightening to her. She was a royal princess who had just been assaulted in her new homeland, and no one was doing anything about it. Her servants hadn't thrown out the stranger. Was this the kind of lack of respect she would have to learn to expect here?

Henry left the room and returned dressed in his kingly robes. Anna was deeply embarrassed; Henry probably was, too. But he played his part.

And when the lords and knights saw his grace they did him reverence.... and then her grace humbled herself lowly to the king's majesty, and his grace saluted [kissed] her again, and they talked together lovingly...

But behind the scenes, Henry was fuming. His pride had suffered a brutal blow, and as Henry usually did when hurt or angry, he deflected it on others. Anna was the one who was repulsive, not him!

 "I like her not! ... She is nothing as well as she was spoken of."

Henry had a litany of complaints about his new bride. She looked old. She smelled bad. Her clothes were terrible. He added darkly, "I am not well handled." He began to blame those who had "deceived" him into marrying her, and as his courtiers usually did, they hastened to agree with him that Anna was hideous. However, disintered parties such as the French diplomat, Charles de Marillac, described Anna as beaulté moyenne, "medium beauty," which is better than he rated Katheryn Howard, who Henry thought was a knock-out.

Henry tried to wriggle out of the marriage, scrambling to find reasons why it might be invalid. But nothing could be uncovered. All of her paperwork was in order. Henry whined:

"Is there no other remedy, but that I must needs, against my will, put my neck in the yoke?" 

Henry was deeply resentful when forced to do anything, but in this case, there was no escaping it. To annul the proxy marriage and eject Anna from England would be to alienate his new German allies, whom he needed desperately since the Emperor was now allied with the French. Another way would have to be found to rid himself of her.

Oddly, he never blamed the portrait's artist, Hans Holbein, or said the portrait was inaccurate. Henry continued to give him commissions. It was Cromwell who would bear the brunt of the king's displeasure.

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Spelling the Names

When I wrote Under These Restless Skies, I knew it would be difficult for readers to distinguish between the multiple Annes, Janes, Marys and Catherines. Henry VIII married three women named Catherine, two women named Anne, and a Jane. He had a sister named Mary and a daughter named Mary. His mother was named Elizabeth, his mother-in-law was named Elizabeth, and he had a daughter named Elizabeth. His father was named Henry, he was named Henry, and he had two sons named Henry (one of whom died in infancy). So, as you can see, it becomes very difficult to distinguish the characters without a lot of awkward introduction every time the character is mentioned.

As a result, I decided to differentiate the names as much as possible.

Henry's first wife is referred to as Katharine of Aragon, as her name is spelled on her tomb. Katharine herself spelled it a variety of ways, but almost always with a "K" instead of the "C" most writers use.

Henry's sister is referred to as Mary Brandon, though she wouldn't have used that name in life. She preferred to be called Mary, Queen of France. She might have used "Mary Suffolk" because nobility usually referred to themselves by their title, not their surname. I decided to make it easier on the reader because her husband is referred to as Charles Brandon when he is mentioned, the name used most often in books about the Tudor era.

Henry's fourth wife doesn't play a role in Under These Restless Skies, but I mentioned her in the notes. She is referred to as Anna von Kleefes. She generally signed herself "Anna Daughter of Kleefes."

Henry's fifth wife is Katheryn Howard, as she herself spelled her name in her famous letter to Thomas Culpepper.

Henry's sixth and final queen is Kateryn Parr, how the lady spelled her own name on documents. Share on Tumblr