Anne of Cleves

Anna de Cleves or Anna de Cleves (in German, Anna von Jülich-Kleve-Berg; in English Anne of Cleves; Düsseldorf, September 22, 1515 - London, July 16, 1557) was a German noblewoman and fourth wife of King Henry VIII of England and as such was Queen of England from January 6, 1540 until on July 9 of the same year. The marriage was never consummated, and she was not crowned queen consort. After the annulment of her marriage, the king granted Anne a generous settlement, and from then on she was referred to as the king's beloved sister. Of the women of Enrique VIII, she is the second oldest, after Catherine of Aragon.

Anne was portrayed twice by Hans Holbein the Younger, who painted her in 1539.

Early Years

Anna was born in 1515 near Düsseldorf, the second of four children of John III, Duke of Cleves, Julich, Berg, Count of Mark and Ravensberg (often referred to simply as Duke of Cleves), and of Maria de Julich (1491-1543), heir to the duchies of Julich, Berg and Ravensberg. Her father was influenced by Erasmus and followed a moderate trend within the Reformation. He sided with the Schmalkaldic League in opposition to Emperor Charles V. Upon John III's death in 1538, Anne's brother William became Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, bearing the promising epithet of "The Rich". In 1526, her older sister Sibylla had married John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, head of Germany's Protestant confederation and considered the "Champion of the Reformation."

At the age of twelve (1527), Anne was betrothed to Francis, son and heir of the Duke of Lorraine when she was only ten years old, so the engagement was considered "unofficial" and it was canceled in 1535. Her brother William of hers was a Lutheran but the family did not adhere to a single religious tendency, as her mother, Duchess Maria, is described as a "strict Catholic." 3. 4;.

Being the Duke of Cleves an ally of the Protestant princes, Henry VIII of England needed an alliance with him. The duke's continuing dispute with Charles V over the Gelderlands made him a convenient ally for Henry at the start of the Truce of Nice. Chancellor Thomas Cromwell urged the king to this link. Both Enrique and Ana descended from Charlemagne through Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders.

Wedding preparations

The artist Hans Holbein the Younger was commissioned to portray Ana and her younger sister, Amalia, as Enrique was considering both as candidates to be his fourth wife. Enrique asked the artist to be as precise as possible, not to flatter the sisters. Both versions of Holbein's portrait are in the Louvre in Paris and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Negotiations with Cleves were in full swing by March 1539. Cromwell oversaw the talks, and a marriage treaty was signed on October 4 of that year. Enrique valued education and cultural training in a woman, but Ana lacked both, since she had not been educated in that sense. She was skilled at needlework and liked to play cards. She could read and write correctly, but only in German. Despite everything, Ana was considered kind, virtuous and docile, qualities that made her a suitable candidate for Enrique. Anne was described by the French ambassador, Charles de Marillac, as tall and slender, "of medium beauty, and of a very confident and resolute appearance."She had long blond hair; she looked solemn according to English customs and she looked older than she was. Holbein painted her with a high forehead, drooping eyelids, and a pointed chin, Enrique was pleased with her result. Today it is known that the court artists had details with the important people they portrayed. According to the standards of the time, Ana was really ugly: she was tall and stout, and her unattractive face also showed skin scars from having suffered from smallpox.

A portrait of Ana in the 1540s by Bartholomäus Bruyn the eldest.

Henry was impatient to see his bride-to-be, so he went to Rochester and was not satisfied with Anne's arrival in England. He felt that he had been deceived, as everyone had praised Anne's attractions: "She is not at all as beautiful as I have been told," he complained. Henry urged Cromwell to find some legal way to to avoid the marriage, but at this point, doing so was impossible without jeopardizing the vital alliance with the Germans.

A Doomed Marriage

Miniature with the portrait of Ana de Cléveris, by Hans Holbein the Young, 1539. Lie on the vitela. It is currently in the Museum of Victoria and Alberto.

Despite Henry's misgivings, they were married on 6 January 1540 at Placentia Palace in Greenwich, near London, by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. The phrase "God send me well to keep" it was engraved around Anne's wedding ring. Immediately upon arrival in England, Anne accepted the Anglican way of praying, as Henry expected. The couple's first night as husband and wife was not a happy one. Henry confided to Cromwell that he had not consummated the marriage, saying, "I didn't like him very much before, but now I like him much less."

Enrique wanted to break the relationship but did not want to be violent or unfair to Ana, so he soon found a pretext for divorce. This marriage was the beginning of the end for Thomas Cromwell as a minister and right-hand man to the king. Ana was ordered to leave the court on June 24, and on July 6 she was informed of her husband's decision to reconsider the marriage. Shortly after, they asked Ana for her consent for an annulment, to which she agreed. The marriage was annulled on July 9, 1540, alleging that it had not been consummated due to her previous commitment to Francisco de Lorraine.

After nullity

Anne was compensated with various properties, including Richmond Castle (in Surrey) and Hever Castle (in Kent), belonging to the family of his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Anne of Cleves's house, in Lewes, Sussex, is just one of her properties; she never lived there. Enrique and Ana became good friends; she was an honorary member of the king's family, and was referred to as "the king's beloved sister. She was often invited to court, and out of gratitude for not having contested the annulment, Henry decreed that she be given precedence before all women in England save his own wife and daughters.

After Catherine Howard was beheaded, Anne and her brother, the Duke of Cleves, pressured the King to remarry her. The king was quick to respond to such suggestions by saying no.

In 1553, (after the death of Edward VI and the crown in the hands of Joan Gray at his will) when Henry's daughters Mary and Elizabeth marched to London with Mary as the new queen, Anne was there to greet them. She was also present at Mary's coronation at Westminster. This was her last public appearance.

A few months later, Anne wrote to Maria I to congratulate her on her marriage to Prince Philip of Spain. Anne, however, rarely visited court during Maria's reign and enjoyed managing her private estates. Upon her arrival as the king's bride, Anne never left England: when her marriage was annulled, her parents were already dead, and her brother, a strict Protestant, did not approve of her adherence to Anglicanism.

Death

She was the last of Henry VIII's six wives to die. When her health began to fail, María I allowed Ana to live at Chelsea Old Manor —where Enrique's last wife, Catalina Parr, had lived after her marriage. Here he dictated his will in mid-July 1557. In it he mentions his brother, sister and sister-in-law, as well as the future Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of Norfolk and the Countess of Arundel. He left some money to his servants and asked Mary and Elizabeth to employ them in their homes. Anne died at Chelsea Old Manor on 16 July 1557, a few weeks before her forty-second birthday. She was laid to rest on 3 August in what is described as "a somewhat difficult tomb to find in Westminster Abbey" as it lies opposite the shrine of Edward the Confessor and slightly above the level of vision of a person of average height. At the end of her days, she converted to Catholicism following the advice of her husband's daughter, Maria Tudor. ^{[citation needed ]}

She has the distinction of being the last of Henry VIII's wives to die, having lived nine years longer than the last, Catherine Parr. However, she was not the one who lived the longest of hers, since in this she surpassed the first of hers, Catherine of Aragon, who was fifty years old when she died. After her death, she was also the only one of Henry VIII's wives to be entombed in Westminster Abbey.

About Anne of Cleves

Nonfiction

• Elizabeth Norton, Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's Discarded Bride, Amberley 2009 cartoné ISBN 978-1-84868-329-7

Fiction

• Elsa Lancaster plays Ana in the 1933 Alexander Korda film, The Private Life of Henry VIII.
• Philippa Gregory's novel, The Boleyn Inheritance, is narrated from the point of view of three outstanding women of the court Tudor de Enrique VIII: Ana de Cléveris, Catalina Howard and Jane Boleyn.
• My Lady of ClevesMargaret Campbell Barnes describes what Ana's life could have been between the time her portrait was painted by Hans Holbein and the death of King Henry VIII.
• An Ana de Cléveris defiction appears briefly in the early scenes of Carry On Henry, played by Patsy Rowlands.
• In 2009, Joss Stone played Ana in the third season of the television series The Tudors.
• It appears as a ghost in Homer's dream in the episode The SimpsonsFather Knows Worst.

Ancestry

Predecessor: Juana Seymour

Queen Consort of England 1540

Successor: Catalina Howard