Dan Snow's History Hit - Anne of Cleves

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Anne of Cleves was the ‘last woman standing’ of Henry VIII’s wives and the only one buried in Westminster Abbey. How did she manage it? Was she in fact a political refugee, supported by the King? Was she a role model for her step-daughters Mary and Elizabeth? Why was her marriage to Henry doomed from the start?In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by author Heather R. Darsie - editor of maidensandmanuscripts.com - whose research into Anne of Cleves casts a new light on Henry’s fourth Queen, potentially revealing a very different figure than the so-called 'Flanders Mare'.For this episode, the Senior Producer was Elena Guthrie. It was edited by Thomas Ntinas and produced by Rob Weinberg.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi there, History Hit fans. Let's let you know about another podcast we've got. Not Just the Tudors, with Professor Susanna Lipscomb. You know when I'm walking down the streets, you know what most people ask me? What's Professor Susanna Lipscomb like? So, you can find out for yourself, I say. Listen to her flipping podcast. It's right here, available wherever you get your pods. Not Just the Tudors. You know what that's about?

The Tudors, but Not Just the Tudors. She talks about the Aztecs. She talks about the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty, the Mughals. She talks about the Aztecs. She talks about the Yuan dynasty, the Ming dynasty, the Mughals. She talks about everything that's going on in that wonderful age, the Renaissance, that remarkable age of growth, beauty, tragedy, terror and transformation,

the 16th and 17th centuries. You've got to go and check it out, folks. Go and listen. For all of your Tudor and Tudor Plus requirements, get involved in Susanna Lipscomb's podcast, not just the Tudor and Tudor Plus requirements. Get involved in Susanna Lipscomb's podcast, not just the Tudors, wherever you get your pods. Well, one thing is for certain.

He never called her a Flanders mare. That expression was coined in the 18th century. But the sad thing is that you would know who I'm talking about, even if you hadn't read the name of this podcast. What Henry VIII had to say about his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, in reality was hardly less damning, and their six-month marriage was over before it had even really begun. It's no doubt because of this short spell on the limelight, and perhaps coupled with problematic or absent sources about Anne's early life, that scholarly interest in this Queen of England has never been that great.

I'm a massive fan of Anne of Cleves, however, so I decided to speak to someone who has written her biography, Heather R. Darcy. Her book is called Anna, Duchess of Cleves, for reasons we'll discuss, and Heather has two new books, Duchess of Cleves, for reasons we'll discuss. And Heather has two new books, both coming out in 2023, Children of the House of Cleves and Stuart Spouse's A Compendium of Consorts. She also has a website, maidensandmanuscripts.com. As you'll learn today, Heather Darcy brings an international perspective to the life of Anne of Cleves, and also even to Henry's reaction to her. Listen on.

a great pleasure to welcome you to Not Just the Tudors. I read your book, Anna, Duchess of Cleves, The King's Beloved Sister, some time ago, and it seems to me it remains one of the only biographies on this woman, which is astonishing. Why do you think there's been a lack of interest in this most famous of women? I think it could be if you go with Henry VIII's narrative that she was unattractive and that's why the marriage ended. That sounds like a rather dull life. And so I would assume that that's why. There's also a bit of a language barrier at times too, I would suspect, with not just German, but also the form of German that her father spoke, which is different than modern German. So I think that for those reasons, traditionally it might have been difficult in the past to write a longer biography about her.

And we need to say, first of all, something about her name, because it tends to be kind of, I don't know, I'd want to say colonialized into Anne of Cleves, anglicized. What would she have grown up knowing herself to be called? Anna, with the accent. And so her last name was Vondermark, which looks like Vondermark, if I say it with my nice Midwestern flat tone. But her name was Anna Vondermark.

And when she and her siblings were born, her father specified that he wanted them to be known as being of Cleves, because he was the hereditary duke to Cleves. Her mother was Maria of Jülichberg, Maria or Mary, of Julliersburg, again with my nice Midwestern flat tone. So he wanted to specify that his children were of Cleves and not of Jülichberg. Okay, so to call her Anna of Cleves

wouldn't be too much of a distortion. No, not at all. And you mentioned there her parents. Tell me a bit more about them and about her homeland. Her father was a hereditary duke of Cleves Mark. So the territory started off as an earldom, I suppose you could say, because it was originally the Counts of Cleves. And then at one point, the Count of Mark, who had the last name Fond du Marque, married the heiress of Cleves, and I believe that was in the late 14th century. Then in the early 15th century, Adolphe, who was

a Count of Cleves Marque, is then elevated to Duke. So the territory becomes a dukedom instead, or a principality, if you will, instead of just an earldom or a county. And he marries into the Burgundian noble family. And so there's a lot of cross culture that's imported into Cleves Mark. So Anna would have grown up in a very German setting. I can expound that in a moment, but also with a heavy Burgundian influence. Her mother was the only surviving child of William IV of Jülichberg. of William IV of Jülichberg. And as a result, in German culture at the time,

women could not rule their own territories. So whoever married Maria would then rule Jülichberg. So that's where those two come from. Anna's father was one of three children. He had a sister, also named Anna, who was quite rebellious. I found all of the Cleves girls to be feisty characters. And then also she had an uncle who unfortunately died young. One thing I like to talk about is what a young woman growing up in a German court, what her life would have been like. There was this concept of the Fallen Simma or the ladies rooms, but that was also used as a name for

the collection of ladies that would have been at court. So you have to see in which context the word is being applied to really know what they're talking about, because otherwise it just, when I first became familiar with the word, I would read things and I'd think they were talking about rooms and it dawned on me, oh, this word has two meanings. But in the Fallen Sima, no boys over the age of 12 were allowed to be there. So it was all women. They were not locked up during the day, but that's where they did most of their learning and they all spent time together. We know that Anna learned card games. I believe she probably learned how to

play chess because I know her elder sister did. She would have learned practical things like basic mathematics so that she could run a household because presumably Anna, as a hereditary duchess, would have married a nobleman and would have had to know how to take care of the household while he was gone. They also learned things like how to mend clothes, how to embroider, how to cook, and she did bring those traditions, I believe, with her to England. The other thing that was very common with German princesses or German noblewomen is they would send each other gifts of increasing skill and embroidery to compete with each other. I want to discuss more about her upbringing, but perhaps first of all, we can rewind and discuss some of the debate over

when she was actually born. We know it was 1515, but there's some sort of dispute about exactly the day. I go into this definitely in my first book, Anna, Duchess of Cleves, the King's Beloved Sister, and my second book, which is being released in June 2023, Children of the House of Cleves, Anna and Her Siblings. I explain a little bit more about where I think this September date came from. I traced it back to the 19th century historian, and I always forget her name,

but she wrote The Six Wives of Henry VIII, I believe. Agnes Strickland, her sister. So I tried to trace it back and I couldn't find actual birth dates. I did my best to look up her sources that she cited and they either were completely inaccurate about the birth dates of Anna and her siblings overall, or they left out Zabilla, the older sister who married the elector of Saxony, or they left out Amalia, the younger sister who remained unwed. And one day I had ordered books from Germany because I had to go straight to the sources, of course. And one of them was a transcription of a chronicle from the city of Duisburg, Duisburg, again, in the nice English or excuse me, American English accent.

And I sat down reading it and it described the birth of Zabilla and it had the birth of Wilhelm and a couple other important events for which I knew the dates. It, unfortunately, the person who was writing the chronicle is thought to have died in a bout of plague that struck the city in October to November of 1517. And Amalia was born in November 1517, as far as we're aware. Nothing for September 22nd, 1515, which is, of course, a historical date that's typically given for Anna. So then I'm just flipping through reading 1515. And there it is, June 28th, 1515. It's a remark that she was born that day, and it talks about her baptism. And when looking at even German secondary sources as recent as the 19th century, her birth date's always given as being a late June,

as late as June 28th to early July, July 12th of 1515. So I'm going to choose to use the June 28th date because that's the one for which I have an actual source. But she is never given a September or autumn birth date whatsoever in German sources that I've been able to find. And you've mentioned her siblings. And of course, you're writing or have written much more about this in your upcoming work. But tell us a bit about her three siblings. So she had an older sister named Zabilla. Zabilla was three years older than Anna. So she had an older sister named Zabilla. Zabilla was three years older than Anna. They were known to be, it seems like they might have had normal quarrels.

One thing I love is when you get the anecdotes about day-to-day life. We know that Zabilla and Anna had a fight when they were kids, and Zabilla took, it's just scissors, but I think they're little thread scissors or something, and actually threw them at Anna and cut her above her left eyebrow. So I suspect one of the things we don't see in portraiture of her is a scar above her left eyebrow. So they had a very typical sibling relationship. Amalia, the younger sister, was two years younger than Anna, and then their brother Wilhelm was a year younger than Anna. They were born in 1512, 1515, 1516, and 1517. Zabilla, Anna, and Wilhelm all have their marriages sorted out in 1526. And of course, that's where that famous contract comes from between Anna and Francis of Lorraine.

Zabilla is destined to marry Johann Friedrich, the son of the current, actually, I believe he might have been the nephew of the elector at the time. The electors of Saxony are, of course, the ones who harbored Martin Luther when Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was getting at him. So Zibela goes to Saxony. She marries the future elector of Saxony, becomes the electress of Saxony, which interestingly, I believe is only an English word. They don't ever really call her that. In 1532 is when they're elevated, has four sons with him. Really interesting lady in the sense that she was very, very bold. She very much loved her husband and her sons, which isn't always common that we find a love match between two people in an arranged marriage.

Anna, of course, we know had an interesting experience in England. Wilhelm was a character. He wound up inheriting a piece of property, which the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V said, no, no, Wilhelm, that's my property. And eventually they went to war over it and it did not go well. And so Wilhelm wound up being somewhat subjugated to the imperial family for the rest of his life.

His second wife was a Habsburg princess. And he did try to maintain a friendliness or via media towards Lutheranism or at least reformed Catholicism throughout the rest of his life. Amalia, who is probably my favorite of the sisters, Zabilla was my favorite for a little while, but now I think I like Amalia. She's the youngest one. She, of course, never marries. Typically in a German family, the youngest daughter would have been sent to a convent. But of course, those don't exist anymore because we have a very similar thing happening in Germany during the German Reformation that we see in England with the dissolution of the monasteries.

There are some convents around. There are some Protestant ones. It's just, for whatever reason, she never really went anywhere. But Amalia has fully converted to Lutheranism. So Anna and Wilhelm remain Catholic or Reformed Catholic. Zabilla and Amalia are full-blown Lutherans. And this caused a lot of fighting between Amalia and her brother Wilhelm to the point where she made him so mad once he went after her with a sword. That's a little bit about them. I think they were all together very courageous and clever set of siblings. It's interesting what you say there. We have these great pieces of evidence about the faith of so many of the siblings. But Anna, although you mentioned her there, isn't it somewhat harder to get at what she actually believed? Or do you feel like you've had evidence that directed you to know where she was on that kind of Catholic Protestant spectrum at the time?

I think there is some evidence. Her mother, Maria, was extremely Catholic, as was her father. So she was raised that way. I don't know how devout Anna was, but she was certainly raised in the Catholic tradition. She was also given a book of hours, which there's illustrations of that in my first book, if anyone would like to see what it looked like. I believe she was given that as a wedding present before she left to go to England, and Zabilla had one as well. But I don't see Anna as having had much contact with Lutheranism because it was the sort of thing in the United Duchies. So Julek Kleferberg, Julliard's Klevesberg, was known as the United Duchies of Jülich Klefeberg.

So I use that term interchangeably sometimes. In the United Duchies in 1526, there was a law passed by Anna's father. Basically, you can be Lutheran, but I do not want to see or hear about it. So Lutheranism was not very popular at that court. Also, Anna's father was good friends with Desiderius Erasmus, who of course was a Catholic, and Erasmus went so far as to dedicate

a book to Anna's brother Wilhelm. So there is heavy Catholic influence there. Now, when we look at the other side, it's commonly thought, I think that, or I believe that the reason why Cromwell proposed Anna as a bride was because she herself was Protestant or Lutheran. What I believe actually happened was Anna's brother-in-law, Johann Friedrich, the elector of Saxony, was the head of the Schmalkaldic or Protestant League, which was a military force aimed at defending against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. So the thought was Henry marries Anna, and then he tangentially has a brother-in-law who is in charge of this really, really powerful military organization, effectively. Unfortunately, when Henry passed the Six Articles in 1539, Johann Friedrich didn't like that very much.

And this, of course, was passed while the negotiations were going on between Thomas Cromwell and Anna's brother Wilhelm. And so Johann Friedrich banned allowing in any new members until I believe it was at least 1541. So Henry was not allowed access. But in my opinion, we have some evidence that Anna would have been Catholic when we look at what I believe to be the real reason why Thomas Cromwell thought she made a good bride, it's not because she was Protestant, it's because of to whom she was related. Right. And it suggests that perhaps if they're in contact with people like Erasmus, the form of Catholicism that she would have known, or would have been one that was kind of reformist, but not Protestant, something that would have fitted in with Henry's point of view without having crossed that line. What do we know of her

character in these early days? Do we have any evidence? There's no information about her as a child. It was either never recorded or it was lost to the sands of time or unfortunately destroyed during some of the world wars. Yes, I mean, that's a crucial thing to point out, isn't it? The area where she grew up, this Rhineland area is one of the areas that was most damaged during the Second World War. And so if the documents had survived to that point, there's every chance they would have been lost at that then. And they did attempt to consolidate the archives, as far as I'm aware, in the late 19th century. And some of the documents that do still exist, there's a pencil mark in the top corner, so you know what the document was in the archive, but they've been damaged by water, so you can't read them. So you know that something

existed, but it's not readable or it's illegible today. There's one thing that's very fortunate for historians interested in that area, is that in the 19th century, several historians then actually wrote the, what is it, Zeitstift des Bergischen Geschichtereins, the History Union magazine for the territory of Berg, I think is how I would translate it on the fly. But they got together and they looked at these original sources and they recorded what they said. And some of it is a transcription of a document and some of it is a citation to a document that we know existed at the time, but that doesn't exist any longer. But fortunately, we do at least have that. And I did rely on those when we're researching Anna and her family. Now, you mentioned briefly the marriage negotiations with Lorraine. These later used to undo her. So we must talk about this betrothal. What happened? to undo her. So we must talk about this betrothal. What happened? Anna and her brother were both betrothed to children from the Lorraine family, the Lorraine ruling family. There was an Anne of

Lorraine to whom Wilhelm was initially betrothed. And then there was Francis of Lorraine, the Duke of Lorraine's son to whom Anna was betrothed. They are the great grandchildren of Philippa of Gelders. They are the great-grandchildren of Philippa of Gelders. Philippa of Gelders was the twin sister of Duke Charles of Gelders. I call him Duke Carl with a K just to make it easier in my writing. Duke Carl had no children. He had no heirs. And the Fond du Mar family had tried to wed Aunt Anna to Duke Carl,

and instead she eloped, which is what made her feisty, in my opinion. So they'd been trying for a while to gain access to this territory. And it was thought that if Anna married the Duke of Lorraine's son, then their offspring would, of course, be entitled to having that territory, and hopefully they could eventually consolidate it. Likewise, if Wilhelm goes on to have children with his wife, they could consolidate that territory. Anna, when she was betrothed, was no older than 11 years. There is some evidence that the contract was de futuro, meaning that there were certain conditions that her father had to fulfill in order for the marriage to be put into effect. And that was that Anna's father had to pay a dowry. He had to pay dowry monies. In the interim, Zbilla, of course, she's betrothed to Johann Friedrich of Saxony in 1526

as well. This is all part of one large document. But Zbilla becomes the electress of Saxony and her father had to put up the dowry for that. Typically in the German marital system at the time, German women would marry down, not up. So overall, the von der Macht sisters are fascinating that both Anna and Zabella married up by quite a bit. Bottom line, her father's out of money. He doesn't pay the contract in time. Duke Karl says, well, we're not going to do this. This is off.

You can't marry my great-grand-nephew or whatever the term would be. And that happens in 1535. We'll come back to this, I'm sure. But it's used against her. And yet there are so many noblewomen, princesses who go through betrothals of this sort that then get called off later, and nothing is said about it, that it is definitely deployed as opposed to legitimately used later. Yes. And remember, too, that Francis of Lorraine goes on to marry the Holy Roman Emperor's niece, Christina of Denmark, famous for saying that if she had two heads, she would happily marry the King of England. And so, in my opinion, that's even further proof

that the betrothal between Anna and Francis of Lorraine was properly called off. Although talking sources, I've never been able to find a source for that line from Christina of Denmark, Christina of Milan. So if you ever do, let me know. I will. I haven't found a source for it either, but it's such a good story, isn't it? It's such a good line. So talking of marrying up, we get a representative from England going to the Cleves Court in January 1539. What's his mission? What does he have to say? He's supposed to find out what the sisters are like.

And by sisters, I mean Anna and her younger sister Amalia, because, of course, Zabilla is off in Saxony at this point. What they looked like and what the politics in the United Duchies were like. I don't know that they really did a good job sorting the politics in the United Duchies, which, of don't know that they really did a good job sorting the politics in the United Duchies, which of course comes back to bite Thomas Cromwell later on. And there was some resistance at this point in time to having portraits made of Anna and Amalia, is that correct? There is a record that portraits that were taken of Anna and Amalia in the late, I think in 1538 or so, between 1535 and 1538 before their father died, that those were created and that they were sent to England. I don't know that there was a resistance to portraiture, but Wilhelm, for

whatever reason, maybe he was, you know, 22 and thinking he's protecting his sisters, just didn't want them to be picked based on their looks and wanted them to be picked perhaps based on their other qualities. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, kings and popes who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.

And it always seems important to me that Cranach was ill as well. You know, their favourite painter is not available. So maybe that's it as well. That could have been it. And then a few months later, we get a new ambassador dr nicholas wootton turning up and pushing forward these marriage negotiations and now it's decided that her portrait will be sent there are two versions of the portrait of anna that's sent there's the one at st john's college cambridge and there's one at the rosenbach museum in philadelphia and they're rather lovely. Can you describe them? If I may, the one that's at St. John's College in Oxford was actually painted in the 1570s. Well, I actually wanted to discuss this with you because it's very interesting because

I noted in your book that you said that this is a later 16th century one, and I wanted to ask you about this because you think the Rosenbach is the original in your book, but you don't say why. But I wanted to ask you about that too. There was a fabulous article written in the Burlington Magazine in the early 2000s, I want to say. And when I was visiting St. John's Oxford, they very politely provided me with this book of their research. And they had done x-rays on the portrait that they have there. They uncovered, and I think they might have done dendrochronology as well I don't remember right off the top of my head and they found evidence that it used to say I think something like daughter of Duke John III of Cleves in Latin in the top left corner and also something that they did with the dating put it more in the 1570s

which is why I believe or at least why I put forward that that portrait is from that time period. The one from the Rosenbach is mentioned in that article as well as being suspected to be the original portrait. I am not an art historian. It seems to me when looking at the different styles and what is known about that portrait and having gone to the Rosenbach Museum and looking at their notes, that appears to be the original. Okay. And the Rosenbach is, of course, the one on my book cover. Yes, and it's a lovely picture. So, I mean, in terms of the image itself, it's a really beautiful picture and you describe it so well in your book. Can you kind of bring it

to mind for those who might not remember it? This is not, we're not with Holbein just yet. We'll get to him soon. Yes. So she is wearing a flat-topped cap that is embroidered with pearls. It's a gold color. And then her hair is completely covered, including bits that go of her hood that go over her ears. She is wearing the same shirt in this portrait

as she is in the Holbein portrait with the pearl embroidery on it. She also has voluminous sleeves that are striped with black and orange fabric, and she's holding pinks. She has a cross necklace and a thick gold chain. But for whatever reason, this lovely picture doesn't seem to do the job. It seems to be anxiety, perhaps, about whether this is a true likeness, and Henry VIII decides to send Holbein and then we have all this fuss about the picture of Anne by Holbein. What do you make of it? I have to say I haven't given a ton of thought to it. I think that the fuss is it's more of a modern fuss if I will of people trying to justify this idea that Henry thought Anna was ugly. He

never actually says that she's ugly he says he's unattracted to her for a reason why, or as a basis for which he could not consummate his marriage to her, thus having an annulment instead of a divorce. But when you look at the two portraits, the Rosenbach portrait and the Holbein portrait, they appear to be the same woman. And so I think more of the fuss is more modern in that, well, she looks like a pretty lady in this portrait, so why didn't Henry like her? Absolutely. It does the trick though, doesn't it? The marriage is agreed. And you've gone into looking at the details of the marriage contract and agreement in your book. What are the salient points that we should know? So effectively, Anna's children would become the heirs to the throne if she had a son, but her children would not have any claims to any of the

territories in the United Duchies. This also created or gave the opportunity to create an alliance between Cleves and England that's ratified later on. So those were the main points, sort of create an alliance for military purposes to defend between common enemies and saying what her children's rights would be. So, I mean, this is the absolutely crucial thing here, as far as Henry's concerned, that he's buying himself this ally. And he's super excited about meeting her, isn't he? I always think this journey for her, it must have been heart-wrenching. I mean, she probably knew she would never see her family again. Her elder sister, Zabilla, who still lived in Germany, never went home after she married

Johann Friedrich. So she didn't see her sister after 1527, I believe it was, was when she moved to Saxony. Wow. So Anna knew that she wouldn't. She had that experience. She knew that that was it. Absolutely. And so she sets out on this journey. And we have several different moments of reception at Calais, the fateful first meeting, as you call it, and then later grand reception and things. What do you think went wrong? I think Anna's brother Wilhelm is what went wrong. So, of course, the English account of Anna and Henry's first meeting is created for purposes of the annulment proceedings. And that's the story that we have where Henry goes in disguise and he has furs and he meets Anna and she's hideous and he's so disgusted that he leaves.

According to the German sources, which were written by Olesleger, whose name is Heinrich Bar, but he's nicknamed Olesleger. He is a vice chancellor of Cleves at this time and is eventually elevated to chancellor of Cleves. He was with Anna. And a few days after her marriage to Henry, he writes back to Anna's brother Wilhelm and mother Maria about what had gone on. Apparently, I tend to think this is more truthful, but of course the truth is always somewhere in the middle. Henry does show up in disguise. At some point, Anna does realize who it is. Henry presents Anna with a crystal goblet that had a gold foot and a gold lid and had diamonds and rubies on it. Also a gold chain with, I believe, rubies and pearls. No mention of furs. He stays there with her and has dinner with her. This is, of course, at Rochester Castle. He leaves for the evening but stays close enough to her

that he can come back and have breakfast with her the next day. So very, very different. And we don't hear any mention of any type of discord between the two of them until we look at the documents that were created for purposes of the annulment. And that's so fascinating because actually in terms of thinking about the evidence, it's, as you say, six months later, it's designed in order to get Henry out of this. And so it's got to prove that the marriage wasn't consummated. Exactly. And what was happening in the background is the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's wife, his beloved wife, dies in early May of 1539.

Henry's ambassadors had just started asking Wilhelm about whether or not he had a sister available to wed Henry. Wilhelm inherited Gelder's, which we talked about a little bit earlier, in June of 1538 against his father's advice because his father knew that the Holy Roman Emperor had a ton of claims to this property for various reasons. Then unfortunately Anna's father dies in February 1539, so just a few months before Charles V's wife Isabella passes away. Isabella passes away, Charles V is an absolute wreck. He goes and hides himself away in a monastery for all of summer 1539. At the same time, you have

Wilhelm saying, oh yeah, King of England, this is a great idea. Please do marry one of my sisters because then I will have the elector of Saxony's army and your army in case I go to war over this piece of territory called Gelders. And that's the part that Cromwell didn't pick up on. So you have kind of a Cold War brewing between, if I can call it that, or an ongoing diplomatic incident between Wilhelm and Charles V that is being mediated by Charles V's brother Ferdinand, who goes on to be Holy Roman Emperor after Charles passes away. And when Charles comes out of mourning, he finds out that this negotiation has been going on and, in my opinion, decides to let it happen because he's still trying to play nice to Wilhelm and says, Hey, Wilhelm, I have this pretty niece, Christina of Denmark. Perhaps you'd like to marry her.

And I'll just let this go with the king of England. And he, out of friendship also with Henry VIII, allows Anna to go to England. At the same time that Anna is traveling to England, so late November and into December of 1539, Wilhelm secretly goes to France to negotiate for a French bride from the French royal family. Effectively, what this would do is if he did go to war with Charles V over Gelders, he could create a pincher move militarily speaking. You've got the English and the English Channel. They could stop any ships from going up past their countries and getting into the low countries. You have the Elector of Saxony, which was the most powerful electorate at the time, and their army. You have the Jülich Kleveberg army, and you have the French army that could all do a pincher move because Gelders is

kind of in the middle of all this and defeat Charles V. So that was a great idea to someone who was 22 years old. Henry VIII did not like that idea. And by the time Anna arrives in England in January of 1540, several members of her troops that came along, and that I think probably intended to stay a bit longer, decided to go home right away because it was becoming too dangerous for them to be in imperial territory or to cross over imperial territory. And Wilhelm enters into a marital contract for Marguerite of Navarre's daughter, Jeanne d'Albray. And I believe that

was in summer of 1540. So right after Anna's annulment. So all these things happen. But that's what I think went wrong for Anna's marriage to Henry was that Anna's brother was sneaking behind Henry's back and not telling him his plans what's going on there. But I do have to press you and ask whether you think that there isn't anything really in the personal relations between Henry and Anne, or Anna, that go wrong. I know we're resting a lot of the time on evidence from six months later, but would you say that it really is all determined by this foreign policy situation? I think predominantly the reason why I believe that or the reasons why I believe that is Henry goes on to have a friendship with Anna.

And it seems from the evidence that we do have that they got along well. It seems that Anna got along well with Henry's daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Also turning to the Cleves War and what happened to Catherine Howard. So Catherine Howard, of course, then marries Henry right away after the annulment so that Anna's brother can't come back and say, wait a minute, I don't like your process here. This isn't legal. And she has her downfall in November of 1541. And there's instantly an idea that Anna might remarry Henry. And for Wilhelm, that would be amazing if Anna remarried Henry, because then he could have access to this once more. Henry dithers, I believe in part due to

his closeness with Anna, whether that was romantic closeness or just out of friendship or whatever it was. And it doesn't actually remarry until he marries Catherine Parr smack in the middle of the Cleves War, where prior to that, Henry had a secret alliance with Charles V that he built up. And at the same time, it's constantly having Wilhelm bother him, hey, remarry my sister, remarry my sister, remarry my sister. And I think that there was a closeness and that there was a high degree of respect from Henry to Anna. There's also an item in the Folger Shakespeare Library that was gifted by Anna after her annulment. We don't know what year, but it was gifted by Anna after her annulment

to Henry VIII, and it is a prayer book. And in it, at the end, she signs it, and I don't remember the exact words, but basically says, I hope that you think of me whenever you look at this book and the Daughter of Cleves. So whether that was just a nice diplomatic gesture for a New Year's gift, to me, that's a little bit more intimate because she actually signs it and inscribes something in it. So I think those are the reasons why we can see that they got along. As far as were there any issues while they were married between the two, I'm sure there were. I mean, you have two strangers coming together, you have a language barrier. I don't know that it was always easy, but... history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

Again, you don't have the major description of any issues between them until preparing for the annulment. Anna becomes the king's beloved sister after the annulment and doesn't go back to Cleves. What do we know of her life after Henry? I want to speak to first why she didn't go back to Cleves. So, again, it was too dangerous for her to go home. She was effectively a political refugee there. She was trapped there. And I don't think that either Henry or Wilhelm

wanted to be responsible for sending her back to Germany and risking her being captured. So she didn't really have the choice to go home. She initially wanted to, and then she was fine being in England under Henry. And then at a point during the reign of his son, Edward, she did want to go back, but she kind of got forgotten about by Wilhelm

to a certain extent. As far as I know, there's not too many sources about her life afterwards. We do know that she corresponded with Wilhelm and with her sister Zabilla. Unfortunately, all of her letters that she sent out of the country and that she received from her family were read.

So we don't, the small glimpses that we have, we don't know her true feelings very well. There is one letter from 1552, I believe, under the reign of Edward VI, that Anna sends home to Wilhelm, where she says that the English are English and we're still strangers here. So she was unhappy, I believe, under the reign of Edward VI. And of course, when Edward becomes king, he has no reason to really care about Anna. I suspect that Anna and Edward were more so strangers than Anna would have been with Mary or Elizabeth. And he starts taking away Anna's properties. And whether it was him or his uncles, who can really say, but starts taking away Anna's properties. And she just kind of becomes an afterthought.

kind of becomes an afterthought and Wilhelm is forced to send ambassadors repeatedly to England to ask that Anna's monies that she was to receive as Henry VIII's beloved sister, that she actually receives those. So I heard at a seminar once, and I've not been able to verify this at all, and I frankly haven't pursued it too heavily, but I'm under the impression that at one point she might have been forced to sell some of her clothes at auction to pay her bills. On the other hand, she was free to come and go. She did have her own territories. She was able to hunt, which was a pastime that she very much enjoyed. She was able to be German, if you will.

There are some remarks over her cooking, which was thought very odd for a noblewoman in England. And, of course, as we discussed earlier, that's one of the primary skills that she would have learned. She would have been very well equipped to run her own household, again, because of her German upbringing. So I think she was okay under Henry VIII. I think that her biggest obstacles

under Henry VIII's reign was, of course, watching her homeland be destroyed by Charles V and then watching her sister, Zabilla, her homeland be destroyed by Charles V, and then watching her sister, Zabilla, also face the army of Charles V in 1547, right after, I suppose, right after Henry dies. But those would have been her main obstacles, I think, would have been heartbreak for her homeland under Henry VIII, and then never knowing where her finances were going to be under Edward VI. And she is close to Mary, as you've said, and it's Mary in the end who organizes for her the most impressive of all Henry VIII's queen's tombs.

Tell us about that. If you go to Westminster today, if you stand at the main altar to your right, you see this low tomb that's engra stand at the main altar to your right, you see this low tomb that's engraved with the Lion of Julech, which is for her mother, and then the Escarbuncle of Cleves, which is that gear shape that we see, and her initials. It's not spoken about on the audio tour, if you listen to that. I've only used the audio tour. But on the other side, there is a plaque that says Anne of Cleves 1515 to 1557, but Mary organizes for Anna a proper duchess's burial. There is a huge funeral train. There's all

the heraldry of her family and all the proper steps are taken for her to be properly honored for her station. And then she's buried where she is in a very, very prominent place. So I think that that shows that Mary and Anna had to have had a close relationship because why would Mary have gone to all that trouble out of her own pocket to bury this woman if they were not friendly with each other? We also have a record that Anna and Elizabeth rode together in a chariot behind Mary's chariot when Mary rode through London during her coronation. And again, I'm not sure why Mary would have included Anna in that if they were not friends with each other.

And that must surely be another piece of evidence in favor of Anna's Catholicism, given Mary's outlook on life. I think so, yes. One final question. You are clearly passionate about the House of Cleves. You've done some groundbreaking research. What is it about them that has drawn you in? I suppose it's threefold. So my undergraduate work was in German languages and literature. And of course, we were exposed to German history as part of that. So I was already very interested in Germany. And then I went to law school and obtained my Juris Doctorate, and I'm a practicing attorney in the United States.

And as part of that, you learn, hey, look at this court case, break down this court case, look at both sides. And the other bit was I started learning about the Tudors in around 2010 or so, and really getting into it in 2012. And I'm sitting there one day and I just realized, and this isn't brilliant, but I realized, you know, her name probably wasn't Anne. So I just decided I was going to research her and maybe write a book about her. And I wrote a letter in German to the mayor of the city of Cleves, told him who I was, what my mission was. And he forwarded my letter on to the Swan Castle there, Schwandenburg. And they wrote me back and they sent me a pack of information. They emailed me with different archives that I could contact. And that's really what set it off. And then

again, as an attorney, I'm looking at what's effectively a court case for the annulment of Anna and Henry. And then I'm looking at the actual history of the territory and it just kind of clicked. So one way I like to joke about myself is that I'm Anna's attorney. I just showed up 400 years late. So that's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us. Yes. Thank you so much for reaching out. Well, thank you so much for this introduction to Anna of Cleves and very much seeing her as of Cleves and putting her in that context, that German context, which reveals so much that the English sources, frankly, do not. Thank you so much.

Thank you. This has been a delight. Thank you for listening to Not Just the Tudors. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. It seems about time, frankly, that you got a chance to speak to us too. So we have belatedly launched a Twitter account, which is at Not Just Tudors. Please write to me on there and say what you would like to hear podcasts about. Or if Twitter is not your thing, we also have an email address, which is notjustthetudors at historyhit.com. you