Bride, unwanted - the portrait of Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539

 

Anne of Cleves (German: Anna von Kleve; 28 June or 22 September 1515, Düsseldorf - 16 July 1557, London), queen of England from 6 January to 12 July 1540 as the fourth wife of King Henry VIII. The second daughter of John III Duke of Cleves, little is known of her before 1527 when, at the age of eleven, she became betrothed to the son of the Duke of Lorraine; the betrothal was cancelled eight years later.

Henry VIII desired a political alliance with Anne's brother, William, who was a leader of the Protestants of Western Germany, in order to strengthen his position against potential attacks from Catholic France and the Holy Roman Empire. So in March of 1539, a year and a half after the death of the king's third wife, Jane Seymour, negotiations for a marriage between Henry and Anne were begun.

Holbein was dispatched to Westphalia to paint portraits of Anne and her younger sister, Amalia, each of whom Henry was considering. The king instructed the artist to be as accurate as possible, not to flatter the sisters. Anne was described by the French ambassador as fair-haired, tall, and slim, "of middling beauty and of very assured and resolute countenance."

Henry was said to greatly value education and cultural sophistication in women, both of which Anne lacked. She was skilled in needlework but had received no formal education; she could read and write, but only in German. Holbein's portrait proved sufficiently convincing, though, and with Henry's chief minister Thomas Cromwell overseeing the negotiations, a marriage treaty was signed in October of that year.

Anne arrived in England at the end of December, and Henry met her privately on New Year's Day 1540. According to the testimony of Henry's companions, he was immediately disappointed with Anne, feeling that she was not as described: "She is nothing so fair as she hath been reported", he complained. They met officially three days later on Blackheath outside the gates of Greenwich Park, where a grand reception was laid out. His assessment of Anne had not improved and he felt that he'd been misled by his advisors; he admitted that he would have called off the marriage but, by this point, doing so was impossible without endangering the vital alliance with the Germans.

So, only days later, on 6 January 1540, they were married. The couple's first night as husband and wife was disastrous. Henry confided to Cromwell that he had not consummated the marriage, saying, "I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse". As the weeks went on, though, Anne seemed to be sufficiently content with the situation. Her husband was kind and respectful to her and, perhaps knowing no better, she didn't appear troubled by the fact that their union remained unconsummated.

But she was commanded to leave Court on 24 June, and two weeks later was informed of her husband's decision to reconsider the marriage. Shortly afterwards, she was asked for her consent to an annulment. She agreed, and the marriage was indeed annulled on 12 July 1540, on the grounds of non-consummation.

Following the annulment, the king gave her a very generous settlement. Henry and Anne even became friendly; she was considered an honorary member of the king's family and was referred to as "the King's Beloved Sister". She was invited to court often and, out of gratitude for her not contesting the annulment, Henry decreed that she would be given precedence over all women in England save his own wife and daughters.

After her arrival as the King's bride, she never traveled out of the country. Despite occasional feelings of homesickness, she seems to have been content in England. She lived to see the reign of Edward VI, and the coronation of Mary I, outliving the rest of Henry's wives. She died at the age of forty-one or forty-two, most likely of cancer.

In her last will she mentioned her brother, sister, and sister-in-law, as well as the future Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of Suffolk, and the Countess of Arundel. She left some money to her servants and asked Mary and Elizabeth to employ them in their households. She was remembered by everyone who served her as a particularly generous and easy-going mistress, described as "a ladie of right commendable regards, courteous, gentle, a good housekeeper and verie bountifull to her servants."

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In the collection of the Louvre since 1793, the Holbein portrait has recently undergone an extensive cleaning and conservation. The restoration produced astonishing results. Returned to the wall in the museum's Richelieu Wing just this past March, the great beauty of the painting has once again been revealed.

The portrait before cleaning and conservation.

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Holbein also painted a miniature that was based on the portrait and which was set into a round ivory box, the lid carved into the shape of a Tudor rose.