Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Anne of Cleves | Secret Lives of the Six Wives

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Anne of Cleves gets a pretty raw deal in the history books.She's often accused of being ugly, after Henry VIII claimed the painting he had made of her was overly flattering.While their marriage was short-lived, is it time we give Anne of Cleves, who hailed from a small state in Germany, the props she deserves?Just who was this woman who came from relative obscurity into the madness of the Tudor court, and came out one of life's winners?In the fourth episode of our limited series, Secret Wives of the Six Wives, Kate is joined once again by Tudor export Nicola Tallis, to help us find out more about the woman who arguably played the game of being Henry's wife better than any of the five others.This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.All music from Epidemic Sounds/All3 Media.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are you, I am me, and this is betwixt the sheets. But before we can get going, I've got to tell you, I have to tell you, I am legally obligated to tell you. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adult things

and an adult way covering a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. And if you're not, stop holding things up and messing around, pick your things up and be off with you. The rest of you, on with the show. Being a Tudor Queen was very difficult. I mean, you got jewels and nice things, but wow, it was strict. And if you were one of Henry the Eighth's wives,

well, then the rules just meant doing exactly what he said, bending to every whim and desire no matter how airbrained or deranged. But, as history tells us, that didn't always go to plan. The women in Henry the Eight's life was smart. She was a woman who had her own voice and wasn't afraid to use it. Powerful. She wanted to send Henry the Dead King's body as like a war trophy. And rebellious.

She was a definite seductress who knew exactly how to play Henry. But they could also be naive. She is well aware that there is someone trying to get to the bottom of her previous life. and she slips up. And downright unlucky. I think that there was no way that her life was ever going to be saved. Who were these women that entered the volatile world of the Tudor Court? They're known for their individual fates.

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. But we're finding out who these six women really were. And why there is so much more to them than just their husband, a fat ginger serial killer with an oversized codpiece, punch on for jousting. Join me in this mini-series as we explore the secret lives of the six wives. What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course.

You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing the funny. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, for beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Derry. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal and with me, Kate Lister. The coming together of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleaves

is as close to the modern approach to dating as we are going to get in this miniseries, tipped for Queenhood by the master manipulator Thomas Cronwell, Anne had never met Henry in real life before their marriage. She was presented to Henry in the form of a painting, upon which he gave the Tudor equivalent of a swipe right. It is only one step removed from being a 16th century married at first sight scenario. But what was Anne's life like in Germany before she was thrust into the spotlight

of the Tudor Court? Why was their first meeting so humiliating for, well, both of them actually? And why is it perhaps time that we do some revisionist history on Anne, who is all too often thought of as the ugly wife of Henry VIII, when in fact she was probably the luckiest? In this fourth episode of our mini-series, Secret Lives of Six Wives, I am joined once again by the Magnific. magnificent scholar Dr Nicola Talis, who's going to help us get to know Anne a little bit better. So without further ado, let's crack on. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Nicola Talis.

How are you doing? I'm really good, Kate. It's so nice to be back with you. It's fabulous to have you back once again. You couldn't have left us hanging just a knot and not seen out the last three of the wives. That would have been a really rubbish series, wouldn't it? Yeah, absolutely. it had to be done.

So here we are back for number four. Number four, Anna of Cleaves. What do I think about Anna Cleaves? She didn't get a head cut off, so well done, Anne of Cleaves. She didn't die horribly in childbirth, so well done Anna Cleaves. But she was the one that Henry just kind of went, I don't fancy that much. And then she sort of went, oh, all right then.

Okay, I guess I'll be off. I'll show myself out. What a strange story. I know. Out of all of them, she's probably lucky escape, right? Yeah, definitely. She did do quite nicely out of it, really. So although, yeah, maybe slightly embarrassing for her that Henry didn't fancy her. But other than that, I think she really did quite well. It would be cripplingly embarrassing, wouldn't it, to have that. Like, you were brought to marry the king,

and then you out to get it annulled because you, do you know what I'm getting ahead of myself? We shouldn't even, right, okay. We'll take it back a little bit. Who was Anne of Cleaves? Where is Cleaves? Yeah, great question. I mean, Cleaves is now part of modern day Germany,

but in the 16th century, it was still part of Germany, but it was also part of the far bigger Holy Roman Empire. And it was quite small and insignificant, I guess, in the whole scale of things. But, yeah, here Anne was the daughter of the Duke of Cleaves. So, yeah, it's a minor player in the scale of European politics at this time, little old Cleaves.

Was it ever on the cards that she would marry a king? No, no, not really at all. I mean, as I say, she is the daughter of the Duke of Cleves, but there's definitely no expectations of major grandeur. this point, like that's a real curveball. She is betrothed or there's this pre-contract between her and the Duke of Lorraine. So that seems like quite a nice match. And that's kind of the scale of the sort of marriage that Anne could expect to make. But yeah, marriage with the King of England. Wow. We should remind ourselves why the King of England is even shopping around and why he has to,

I don't want to say resort to, but sort of marry upper nobility in a sort of a small province of Germany, why princesses around Europe aren't flinging themselves at him. So where is Henry at this point, you know, when he's on the lookout for a new wife? Yeah, so Henry is a widow at this point. His third wife, Jane Seymour, died in October 1537, just days after giving birth to Henry's son. and it's great that he's got this son but that's just one male heir that Henry's got and one male heir is by no means enough to secure his dynasty like Henry needs a spare for sure

so that is what triggers his search for another bride shortly after Jane Seymour's death how soon after Jane Seymour's death because if the history books are sort of right and as we discussed last time he was ever so upset that Jane Seymour died. How long did he wait? He's upset. But I mean, we're talking weeks before he starts looking for another bride. So, yeah, I guess it's difficult not to think like Henry, what are you

playing at at this point? But I think, yeah, when we put it into the context of the time and remember that infant mortality is really, really high at this point as well, Henry's son could easily die at any moment. And he needs that spare really, really desperately to ensure that the Tudors are going to be safe in the next generation. So I guess it seems heartless that he's looking for a wife so quickly. But if you're looking at it politically, it's a sensible move. And he's had babies before, hasn't he, that died pretty quickly after birth or were miscarried? Yeah, exactly that. So his first wife, Catherine, of Aragon had had six children, but only one of these, a girl, Mary, had survived. Similarly,

his second wife, and Berlin, she had had several miscarriages and she had just one surviving child too in the form of Elizabeth. So Henry has got lots of experience in losing children young. All right. So Jane Seymour just about been put into the ground, Henry's on the lookout. That must have sent a bolt of fear through all the nobility throughout Europe, because surely by this point he's getting a reputation as you don't want to marry him. This isn't good. This doesn't work out for his wives. Well, yeah, that's so true.

And we see that firsthand, actually, because Henry actually expresses an interest in marrying Christina of Denmark, who's a young and quite attractive widow, Duchess of Milan. And she says that she would be quite happy to marry Henry if she has. had two heads. So yeah. So yeah, he's definitely getting a reputation. People have seen what's happened to Amber Lynn. And it's a pretty terrifying prospect. It would sort of get to the point, wouldn't it? Well, even the money and the titles and the power and the political alliance, it's not enough to tempt you because he's batting three for three now. I know Jane Seymour wasn't his fault, but, you know, like there must have been a kind of a feeling that not that he's cursed,

but there's something weird going on here. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, Henry himself, he would have only considered Jane Seymour of the three wives he'd had so far to be his legal wife. So perhaps he didn't view it in quite the same way. But yeah, people throughout Europe are talking about this.

Nobody really is in a great hurry to marry Henry. Christina of Denmark is just one example. There's also Mary of Gies, who later becomes the mother of Mary Queen of. of Scots. She's put forward as a prospective bride for him as well, and she's definitely not keen either. So how does Anne enter this picture then? Well, at this point, England is also quite politically and religiously isolated, because Henry, of course, has split from the Roman Catholic church with the Pope at his head and established himself as the head of the Church of England. But he's the

only one in Europe who's done this. And we see the other two main superpowers in Europe, who are both Catholic nations, Spain and France, looking to ally with one another. And this leaves England really, really vulnerable. So it's Henry's chief advisor, Thomas Cromwell, who suggests perhaps making this alliance with Cleves, which is this German nation who have an interest in religious reform and that perhaps Cleaves could be a quite useful ally for England. And that idea seems to appeal to Henry. Do we know anything about what Anne was like? Like was she a religious person? Was she gregarious? Was she quite demure? Like, what was she like? Well, in her early years, it's difficult to tell. We don't know much about her early life at all. We do know that she doesn't seem to have been particularly

well educated. So we've looked at Catherine Varrigan and Anne of Cleves and talks about how they were pious and very scholarly in Anne's case. But in Anne of Cleves' case, there doesn't seem to have been as much of that. She seems to have been able to read and write and was taught in all the accomplishments that were thought to be good for girls, you know, sewing, all of those sorts of things. But other than that, we don't really get many glimpses of her personality.

in the days before she suddenly thrust into the spotlight. I'm trying to imagine what it would have been like that she'd have just been sat there with her sewing and then somebody would have walked in with a letter of just, do you want to marry the king? Like, how on earth did that even happen? Well, it's really interesting because what happens is that Henry's core artist Hans Holbein,

who's like the most talented painter of the time, he arrives at the court of Anna's family and he comes to paint not only Anne but also her younger sister, Amelia as well. And Holbein has basically been sent along to remember this is the time when people can't just look at a photo of each other so that he's come along to capture the likenesses of these two women, basically to see if either of them float Henry's boat. So that's really the first real suggestion or real hint that Henry could seriously be interested in Anne. And they look nice these pictures. They do look nice. And this is kind of part of the mythology of Anne of Cleaves is that this image was painted of it,

that it was like sort of the modern equivalent of face tune app when it's just like ridiculously flattering and it didn't actually look anything like it. And I wonder how true actually is that? Is that like part of this, well, bullshit basically that Henry suggested about it? Was she a good looking girl? Well, Henry's ambassador in Cleaves at the time sees this painting of Anne of Cleaves and says that it's actually a really good likeness. And that to me suggests that perhaps it was just for some reason. She just wasn't Henry's cup of tea.

She didn't conform with his ideals of beauty. and yeah, she just wasn't for him because there aren't any other real suggestions or hints that any of the people around Anne or any of the people at Henry's court thought that she was ugly. I think that this is part of that mythology that's been circulated later

and that fitted with Henry's narrative as well. So Hans Holbein paints this picture, he takes it to Henry and he goes, I'll have that one, please. Pretty much. That's pretty much it. Yeah, that's pretty much it. He falls in love with the painting.

He likes it. He thinks great. Yeah. Right. Okay. So then presumably word gets sent to Anne. Like, right, we're on. You're going to be, God, what on earth must she have been thinking?

How old was she, by the way? She's born in 1515. So she's in her early 20s at this point. She's in her early 20s. Henry, of course, is quite a lot older. So the prospect, I don't know. Maybe on a personal level wouldn't have. been too appealing. But that idea of becoming Queen of England was probably a career move that

Anne would never have seen coming. And I imagine one that actually quite appealed her. It's a hell of a step up, isn't it? Definitely. So she, I mean, it's a gamble, but it's a step up. So she arrives at the court and how do things kick off? How do they meet what's the first encounter? So Anne actually arrives in England in December 1539 and she and Henry meet for the first time at Rochester and Henry when he hears that Anne has landed in England, he's really desperate to see her and so he hurries down to see her but unfortunately that first meeting doesn't go well at all. And there are numerous versions of what happened and a council of what happened, but we're told that Henry actually disguised himself, which was something that

he quite liked to do. It was in keeping with these ideas of kind of courtly love. And he just assumed that Anne would naturally recognise him or that they'd naturally just be drawn together and it would be love at first sight. So it would be this hugely romantic dream. However, Anne doesn't recognise him. And worse than that, she largely ignores him, actually. And yeah, not good, not a good move, not a good start. And that doesn't go down with Henry very well at all, as you can imagine. Awkward. And he did this dressing up and pissing around as like Cheval Rick Knight's nonsense with Catherine of Aragon,

but she thought it was really cute and like knew what he was doing. So you can kind of see, I guess, what he thought he was doing, that he would kind of like come charging into her room as, you know, like the knights of old. But she obviously had no clue what on earth he or who he was or what was happening or anything. No, she was totally clueless. She didn't realise what was expected of her at this point. And yeah, let's not forget. She hadn't seen Henry in person.

So she didn't know what she was looking for. So, yeah, she was totally, I think she was mortified when she found out that this was Henry. Absolutely. Like somebody could have given her a heads up. Somebody could have helped her out with that. And Henry's 48 at this point. Now, in his prime, he was a catch was Henry, six foot tall, strapping lad works out all the time, redhead.

Even the people who didn't like him said how good looking he was. At 48, which isn't old by our standards, but what are we dealing with? What does Henry look like at 48? So by 48, Henry is in increasing bad health, and this also makes him increasingly bad-tempered as well. He is getting bigger and bigger by the year. Like his girth literally is expanding. And he also is suffering with an ulcer on his leg, which has been inflicted as a result of a jousting accident.

And that causes him a huge amount of pain. So his health is by no means what it once was. He's no longer in the prime of life. No. What about the language barrier? Because she's German. He's not. Could they speak to each other all right?

No. No, not at all. Yeah, exactly. Hand doesn't speak English. She does try and learn English. But obviously, she hasn't been raised with this expectation of becoming Queen of England. So she hasn't had time to prepare. for that, although importantly

she does make an effort to try and learn card games that she knows that Henry likes, so priorities. Yeah, well, I know. But she's very much relying on an interpreter at this point. And literally, the language of England is completely

foreign to her, which means she can't communicate with Henry. And so it's customs as well. So it's basically a completely new and alien land to Anne. So we have this awful exchange where Henry has tried to do this sort of like a joke almost, like a kind of a play and that she didn't understand it, she didn't recognize him. It must have been mortifyingly embarrassing for everybody involved.

Do you think it was that that made him suddenly go off her? I think it definitely didn't help. And I think that he felt that Anne's appearance in life didn't match with Holbein's image of her on. canvas. But yeah, I think he was definitely, he must have been so mortified and humiliated. I mean, he's so mortified at the time when Anne doesn't recognize him that he's bought presents for her and he actually leaves Rochester without giving her the presents. He leaves them behind for someone else to pass on. So he is, these first impressions really have stuck and so much so that he doesn't want to go through with this marriage at all.

I'll be back with Nicola and Anne after the short break. So why does he? I mean, presumably at this point he could still say, no, we're not getting married. They're not married yet. So why does he go through with it if at this point he's already taken against her? Well, two reasons, I guess. One of which is that England do still really need that alliance with cleaves at this point.

So there's the political aspect. But also imagine how humiliating it would be for both Henry and Anne. If you actually turned around and were like, no, sorry, it's not happening. You need to go. Henry wasn't prepared to do that because he didn't know what the outcome would be in terms of the alliance with Cleaves. For Anne, that would be career over. There would be no hope of any other kind of marriage for her.

but it could have caused all sorts of political problems with Cleaves if he had turned around and said, no, it's not going to happen. So he does go through with it. Where's the wedding? Was it a happy affair? Was he dragged down the aisle? Well, it seems like it in many ways because he did famously declare, I like her not,

and he was doing everything he could to extricate himself. But yeah, he really was desperate not to go through with it. it's Thomas Cromwell, the man who's arranged it in the first place, who's like, no, come on, sir, you really have got to do this. And the marriage takes place at the beginning of January, 1540, at Greenwich Palace. And, I mean, yeah, it doesn't go particularly well, particularly because we know that that night, the wedding night, what should have been a really happy and exciting occasion,

doesn't quite turn out that way either. And Henry isn't remotely gentlemanly like about this whatsoever. And it's because I think that we're going to the real crux of masculinity here now, whether or not you can get it up. I think that it's crude and it's overly simplistic, but it's amazing how much of the human psyche, particularly the male psyche, comes back to their willies. And we have this wedding night where it's not consummated.

And so he just goes on the attack, doesn't it? Yeah, he says that he feels that he can get an erection with other women, just not her. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, how embarrassing. How totally embarrassing. And he says that her breasts are really droopy and that her belly's really soft. He's basically implying that he doesn't believe that she's a virgin and that someone else has been there first. I mean, pot calling the kettle black for fuck sake. Like it's just, it's vicious what he does.

He implies that not only that she's so ugly that he couldn't get an erection, but also that he doesn't believe that she's a virgin, which is just so unfair. And what on earth must poor old Anne have been thinking? Well, to begin with, she doesn't actually realize that anything is wrong or a miss. She doesn't actually seem to have been schooled in what was expected on a wedding night. And she kind of thought that everything was normal. And it's only when one of her ladies, one of her English-speaking ladies,

basically plucks up the courage to say to her, what actually is going on with you in the King? And Anne's like, okay, well, every evening, he kisses me good night. Every morning he kisses me good morning. Isn't this enough? And her lady in waiting's like, no. Yeah, exactly. It's like nowhere near enough.

So she's totally naive to it. So by that token, it doesn't even seem like Henry's trying. No. He's not really because he's just, he's convinced himself that this marriage is never going to work for him. It's one by this point of politics only. Like, he can't get himself roused by Anne. And he says that he's tried. But really, he's just not interested in her.

And he says that she smells as well. which is a particularly nasty thing. Yeah, exactly. Him with his big ulcery leg as well, saying that anyone else smells. Yeah, I know, the cheek of it. So Anne's physical characteristics are literally dragged through the mud by Henry and there's nothing she can do about it. So I guess this now has become, it's not just like an awful thing between a husband and wife

and he's humiliating it, but this is sort of a matter of state because he must be saying these things to people. He must be saying them to Cromwell and other people and they must be giving him some kind of advice. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Thomas Cronwell is basically trying to encourage Henry to plow on through with it and to consummate this marriage. Henry is just not having any of it.

He just genuinely believes that the problem is with Anne and not with him at all. And he sort of proves this in some ways by taking an interest in another woman, another woman who is part of Anne's own household in the form of Catherine Howard. He starts showing attentions to her and makes it clear that he quite fancies her. But yeah, he's really, I think from that first moment at Rochester when he set eyes on Anne, I think he'd already made his mind up that there was no way physically that this was going to work for him. And I think that once he had that idea in his head, that was it. there wasn't anything that anyone could say to him to make him view her differently.

Do you think any of it is true? It's really tragic that this is kind of what Anne's name has been caught up with and these awful descriptions of just, quite frankly, a very sulky, petulant, emotionally unstable man who is lashing out at her. Do you think that this is true, what he says about that? No, no, not at all. I think that Anne was actually quite a smart cookie in lots of ways. And bear in mind, Henry's making all these slurs about her personal character.

I think she was actually a woman who really wanted to make a good impression on her subjects as well and those around her. And people around Henry's court actually seem to have quite liked her too. I mean, they didn't have to sleep with her, I guess. But she really did like the finer things in life. And one of the things that I quite like about, Anne, it is almost like she knew from the start that it wasn't going to last for very long because it's like she decides to make the most of it with Henry's money because she spends... Well, yeah, you know, why wouldn't you? She spends an absolute fortune on jewellery at this point. So she's definitely going about trying to make herself look good and feel good.

And on one occasion, she spends the modern day equivalent of nearly 12 grand on a single diamond. So it almost feels to me as if she in some ways knows that Henry doesn't really fancy her. But that's not going to stop her from glaming up and making herself feel good and splashing the cash at the same time. So Henry's running around cocktail and anybody that will listen to him that his wife is so repulsive that he can't get an erection. and flirting a lot with, I think she's 17 at this point, 17-year-old Catherine Howard at court, how long does this marriage last? And how does it finally reach a crisis point where someone's got to say, well, where the king says, I don't want to be married to you anymore. Yeah, so the marriage lasts for six months. And I think Henry thought he'd done quite well,

making it that far, to be honest. And all the while that he's been married to Anne, he's been trying to find grounds to remove himself from that marriage. And finally, it is a knolled on the grounds that Anne has had this pre-contract with the Duke of Lorraine prior to her marriage to Henry. And therefore, because of this pre-contract, her marriage to Henry can't possibly be declared valid. So these deputies on behalf of Henry are sent to Anne to tell her that this in Norman is going to take place. She only finds out a couple of days before it actually happens.

So she has to come to terms with that first and foremost. She must have been shitting herself. Like she knows how this one goes. My God. Yeah, exactly. She does know exactly how this one goes. And Henry's envoys basically promise her that things will go really well for her as long as she does exactly what Henry wants.

And like you say, she's seen what's happened before. she doesn't want to end up that way. So she does. She agrees to the annulment. She goes along with everything that Henry wants. And she's quite nicely rewarded as a result of that. Hmm. Okay, so what is it that Henry wants?

And what is he offering? So Henry realizes that Anne can't really be sent back to Cleaves. It would be seen as a bit of a disgrace for her. So he offers her the title of the King's Sister. I mean, who wouldn't want that? Is that an official title? Is that what is that? Well, it is now.

It is now? Yeah, it is now. Yeah. And he basically, what it means is that Am will be the leading lady of the realm, aside from Henry's daughters and any other wife that he has. So it's quite a prestigious position, I suppose. Okay. And he also offers her money.

and he offers her lands and he tells her that she can keep all of her jewels and everything that she's had since she became queen. So it's quite a nice sweetener, really. It could have been a lot worse. I'll be back with Nicola and Anne after the short break. I mean, she can't have been particularly happy in this marriage either, really. Like, we know that Henry wasn't and he was sulking and moping about,

but she must have eventually realised this is very tense and I'm not enjoying this. Yeah, I think so. There are later some suggestions that when Henry becomes a free man after Catherine Howard, that perhaps Anne is quite keen to reignite the flame. And it's really difficult. I don't know how true that is. Why would you be?

I don't know, particularly because she's got quite a nice life after leaving or after finishing with Henry. But yeah, I think she was more than happy to. go along with his demands when it meant that she was going to be given all of this money and the chance to stay in England and have this nice title. Did she have to give back the ring? Ha ha. Interesting. You should say that. Yeah, she does. She sends back the ring and she says to Henry, basically, you should just break this up now and have it melted down because it's something that has no value anymore. So this is kind of a really strong symbolic gesture on Anne's behalf of saying, I'm doing exactly what you want. And yeah, you can have the ring back too. This is smart,

really. I mean, I don't know how smart. I mean, it was risky to have ever married Henry the 8th, I think. But if marrying him means you never have to actually have sex with him and he just stumps around sulking and you get loads of jewels and then eventually they go, look, you can't be married to him anymore, but you can keep everything and live in this castle. Well played, Anne, I think. Yeah, she did really, really well out of it. I mean, yeah, she'd watched and learned. She knew that there was quite a nice life in store for her in England if she did what he wanted.

And after that, after this marriage comes to an end, Henry, to his surprise, finds that he actually quite likes Anne when that whole pressure of having to sleep with her and having to be, yeah, he enjoys her company and she carries on coming to court, they carry on swapping presents, that sort of thing. And he finds that he actually, yeah, he enjoys her company when there's no label attached to it. So a good outcome all round, I guess. Interesting. And what does happen to Anne? Does she go on and marry somebody else?

No, she never marries. She lives out. Yeah, very smart. I mean, why would she want to as well? Why on earth would she want to at that point? Exactly. Henry even gives her Heaver Castle, which was the childhood home of wife number two and Berlin, quite weird, but she gets that anyway. And she also gets the Royal Palace of Richmond amongst other properties. So she's given these really fabulous homes to live in. She's given the cash to live a nice, wealthy lifestyle. Why would you want to go marry? She doesn't. No, she's been there, she's done that. If she gets married, she's just hush. well, she doesn't even have any wealth, it all belongs to her husband.

Huh. I'm starting to like Anne. I think that she played a bit of a blinder here. Yeah, no, she definitely does. And she also manages to stay on good terms with all three of Henry's children, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward as well. They all seem to quite like her. And she outlives Henry by 10 years.

So perhaps we should actually start thinking of Anne as the Queen. who survived. I think so. When he was making overtures towards Catherine Howard, who we were going to talk about in the next episode, do we have any records of what Anne thought of that? I'm kind of thinking that her attitude will have just been, well, oh no, say it ain't so.

Oh, no, please, please don't go off with another woman. I know, right, but there's not really any indication as to what she thought of the time, but when Catherine becomes queen and, does come to court on one occasion to celebrate New Year with Catherine, Howard and Henry. And I think it's quite a weird dynamic in some ways. We haven't seen that before. But we see that Henry at that time, all of the gifts that he's given to Catherine,

Catherine then passes on to Anne and they're dancing together. And it's almost like, I don't know, it's almost like. Weird. Yeah, Anne's kind of thinking, yeah, I've dodged a bullet there. Thank you. Who did she ever, Mike? I mean, the lesson that I'm learning throughout all of this is just don't fight him. Whatever hair, brain, deranged, madcap scheme he's going to come up with,

you are much safer to just go, yep, yep, that's fine with me, sunshine. Because that's what did for Catherine of Aragon, as nobly as she, you know, literally went down with that ship of, I'm still queen, I'm still queen, I'm still queen. It's like, well, you're not, though, love. Yeah, like, it's gone really wrong. Anne Boleyn fought him on so many different fronts and came a spectacular cropper. And Anne just went, yeah, all right, then. I'll be your sister in living a castle.

Yeah. She's got no leg to stand on, really, also, because she's got no children with Henry in the way that Catherine of Aragon had as well. True. And so she's got no one who she really needs to fight for, apart from herself. And if you're being offered a nice way out of it in a comfortable life, done deal. Why wouldn't you? And where's she buried?

Where's Anne buried? She's actually buried in Westminster Abbey. So she's the only one of Henry's wives to be buried in Westminster Abbey. And that is all on account of the fact that she did have this good relationship with Henry's eldest daughter, Mary. And she dies in July 1557. And in her will, she leaves her best jewel to Mary. So perhaps that was a nice little sweetener to, you know, go along with the burial. and then the second best jewel to Elizabeth.

And then Mary arranges for her to be buried in Westminster, which I think is quite a nice place for her story to end in some ways. I agree. Well, well done, Anne of Cleves. Far from being the kind of the munter that Henry just didn't want to marry, she's actually, she's pretty damn smart, I think. Yeah, definitely. I think she's been overlooked and misrepresentation.

presented, but actually she is the wife that arguably came out of her marriage to Henry the best. Well, the next one that we're looking at definitely did not. And maybe it was not very smart with it either. But will you come back next time and talk to us about Catherine Howard and how she played the Henry game? Of course. Can't wait. Me neither. Thank you so much for coming back and telling us about Anna Cleaves.

You've been marvellous. Thank you. Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Nicola for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe you just fancied saying hello, then you can email us at betwixt at historyhit.com. We've got episodes on the history and future of dating coming your way,

as well as the fifth part in this limited series, which is coming to you next week. Now, who could that one be about? Yep, it's Catherine Howard. I've got a bit of a soft spot for Catherine. Actually, I really do. This podcast was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again betwixt the sheets,

The History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.