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per month. Slows. But

1:13

beyond their mostly doomed marriages to

1:15

Henry VIII and, in most cases,

1:17

tragic ends, here were

1:19

6 women who shaped history in

1:22

their own unique ways. The

1:25

National Portrait Gallery in London is hosting

1:27

a new exhibition called 6 Lives, displaying

1:30

the images that have shaped our

1:32

perception of Henry VIII's queens. It

1:35

was just the excuse I needed to

1:37

bring together the most illuminating interviews about

1:40

them from the Not Just the Tudors

1:42

archives. Across 6 episodes, I'll

1:44

also be exploring some of the latest

1:46

research and speaking to

1:48

the curator of the National Portrait

1:51

Gallery's exhibition, Dr Charlotte Bolland, to

1:53

paint an even fuller portrait of

1:55

each of Henry VIII's wives. Catherine

2:00

of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane

2:03

Seymour. Today is the

2:05

turn of wife number four, Anne

2:07

of Cleves. Famed since

2:10

the 17th century as the

2:12

so-called Flanders mare, whom Henry

2:14

allegedly rejected on the basis

2:16

of her ugliness, the

2:18

real Anne of Cleves and the

2:20

real story behind her marriage and its

2:23

dissolution turns out to be quite different

2:25

to the fable we've been told. In

2:33

this episode I'll be speaking to Heather

2:35

Darcy, Dr. Valerie Schut

2:37

and the National Portrait Gallery's Dr.

2:40

Charlotte Boland. I'm

2:42

Professor Susanna Lipscomb and this

2:45

is Not Just the Tutors. Her

2:53

birth name was Anna von

2:55

den Marck, Duchess of

2:57

Julius Cleves and Berg. We

3:00

know her by an anglicised version of her

3:02

name, Anne of Cleves. Depending

3:05

on whether you count Anne Boleyn, Anne

3:07

of Cleves was the second or third

3:09

of Henry VIII's wives to have been

3:12

raised outside of England. She

3:14

was the first and only wife whom

3:16

he did not know in person in

3:18

advance of their betrothal. This

3:21

was a political match designed to

3:24

give Henry another chance at begetting

3:26

sons but also to

3:28

offer defence for England in the

3:30

midst of trying international circumstances. The

3:37

break with Rome had taken its toll. In

3:39

1538 the Pope had published

3:41

his long threatened edict excommunicating

3:43

the King of England. He

3:46

named Henry a heretic who could be lawfully

3:48

deprived of his throne. Making

3:50

war on England was now the official

3:52

recommendation of the Catholic Church. To

3:55

make matters worse that same year the

3:57

King of France, Francis the first, and

4:00

the Holy Roman Emperor who had long been at

4:02

each other's throats, had met

4:04

face to face and promised each

4:06

other perpetual peace and to

4:08

be foes to each other's foes. Should

4:12

France and the Empire decide to conspire

4:14

against Henry, as Thomas Risley

4:16

put it, England would be made butter

4:19

morsel amongst these choppers.

4:21

Henry needed allies and

4:24

the ruling family of the United

4:26

Duchies of Julius Clevesburg looked a

4:29

possibility. Dr. Valerie Schute

4:31

explains. Her family's strategic

4:33

importance for Henry the Ace

4:35

was that there were many

4:37

duchies in Germany that though

4:39

they were considered part of

4:42

the Habsburg Empire were actually

4:44

ruled independently. So Cleves

4:46

was one of them, Saxony was another

4:48

of them and Duke John

4:50

of Cleves he had four children and

4:53

his oldest daughter Sabilla was married to

4:55

John Frederick of Saxony. So they

4:57

were both connected to the Habsburg

4:59

Empire and they were connected to the

5:01

Schmalkaldic League. So for

5:04

Henry the Ace they were strategically significant

5:07

as a potential family to

5:09

marry into whenever he was

5:11

considering a fourth marriage in 1538 and

5:13

39. Let's

5:17

dig a little more into the history

5:19

of this family with Anne's biographer Heather

5:21

Darcy. Her

5:25

father was a hereditary duke of Clevesmark. So the

5:28

territory started off as an earldom I suppose you

5:30

could say because it was originally the

5:32

Counts of Cleves and then at one point the Count

5:34

of Mark who had the last

5:36

name Trondemarck married the heiress of Cleves and I believe

5:38

that was in the late 14th century. Then in the

5:40

early 15th century Adolf who was a Count of Clevesmark

5:42

is then elevated

5:46

to duke so the territory becomes a

5:48

dukedom instead or a principality. Instead

5:53

of just an earldom or a

5:55

county and he marries into

5:58

the Burgundian noble family. And

6:00

so there's a lot of cross-culture that's

6:03

imported into Klee's mark. So Anna would

6:05

have grown up in very

6:07

German setting, but also with a

6:09

heavy Burgundian influence. Her mother

6:12

was the only surviving child of

6:14

William IV of Julechberg. And

6:17

as a result, in German culture

6:20

at the time, women could not

6:22

rule their own territories. So whoever

6:24

married Maria would then rule Julechberg.

6:27

So that's where those two come from. Anna's

6:29

father was one of three children. He

6:32

had a sister, also named Anna, who

6:34

is quite rebellious. And then also

6:36

she had an uncle who unfortunately died young. So

6:39

Anna, or Anne, born in 1515,

6:41

was the second daughter of a Duke, from

6:46

United Dutchess in northern Germany that

6:48

were independent and strategically

6:50

well-placed within the Holy Roman Empire.

6:54

Fitting with German norms, Anne's

6:56

education was both segregated by sex and

6:59

distinctly more practical than that of

7:01

Henry's other queens. There

7:03

is this concept of the fallen sima, or

7:05

the ladies' rooms. Heather Darcy. No

7:08

boys over the age of 12 were allowed to

7:10

be there. So it was all women. They were

7:12

not locked up during the day,

7:14

but that's where they did most their learning, and they

7:16

all spent time together. We know

7:18

that Anna learned card games. I believe she

7:20

probably learned how to play chess because I

7:23

know her elder sister did. She

7:25

would have learned practical things like basic

7:27

mathematics so that she could run a

7:29

household because presumably Anna, the

7:31

hereditary duchess, would have married an old woman and would have

7:33

had to know how to take care of the household while

7:35

he was gone. They also learned things like

7:37

how to mend clothes, how to embroider,

7:40

how to cook, and she did

7:42

bring those traditions, I believe, with

7:44

her to England. The

7:46

other thing that was very common

7:48

with German princesses or German noblewomen

7:52

is that they would send each other gifts of increasing skill

7:54

and embroidery to compete with each other.

8:00

With not her intended seat. In

8:03

Fifteen Twenty seven when she was

8:05

not even twelve years old, I'm

8:07

was buttress the francis air of

8:09

the duchy. Of Lorraine. The

8:11

purpose of this was territorial

8:13

expansion. Hazardous A again.

8:16

On on and her brother were

8:19

both the chose to children from

8:21

the Lorraine ruling family. There was

8:23

an An of Lorraine to him.

8:25

Bill home was initially patrols and

8:27

and there was Francis of Lorraine.

8:29

The Is of Lorraine sons is

8:31

an honor was patrols. They are

8:33

the great grand children of Silica

8:35

of Gathers Silva of Gelder was

8:37

the twin sister of to Charles

8:39

of Gathers. Duke.

8:42

Carl had no children, he had no

8:44

heirs and to find them are family

8:46

had tried to wed Aunts Honor to

8:49

do Carl and instead she elopes which

8:51

is what made her feisty. My opinion.

8:53

So they've been trying for a while

8:55

to gain access to this territory and

8:58

it was thought that if Honor married

9:00

the Duke of Lorraine fun than their

9:02

offspring Word of course the entitled to

9:04

having that territory and hopefully they could

9:07

eventually consolidated. Likewise, if they'll have goes

9:09

on to have children with his wife.

9:12

They get consolidated territory on on.

9:14

When he was vitro, it was

9:17

no older. Than eleven years. There

9:19

is some evidence that. The contract

9:21

was day Switzerland meaning that there is

9:23

certain conditions that her father had to

9:26

sell in order for the marriage to

9:28

be put into effect and that was

9:30

that on his father had to pay.

9:33

A doubt he had a daily

9:35

money in the interim. Isabella, of

9:37

course she's the chose to Johann

9:39

Friedrich assess the and sixteen twenty

9:41

six as well. This is all

9:43

part of one large documents as

9:45

the villain becomes. The. lexus assess

9:47

the and her father had to put

9:49

up the down for that typically and

9:51

the german marital system at the time

9:53

german women would marry down not up

9:55

so overall the front of my sisters

9:57

are fascinating that both on i married

10:00

up by quite a bit.

10:02

Bottom line, her father's out of money. He

10:05

doesn't pay the contract in time. Du

10:07

Carl says, well, we're not going to

10:09

do this. This is off. You can't

10:12

marry my great-grandn's-nephew or whatever the term

10:14

would be. And that happens in 1535.

10:17

Not only was this first betrothal revoked,

10:20

but the territory it was supposed to

10:22

help acquire, gelders, had by 1538 become

10:24

an object of dispute with

10:28

the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V himself.

10:31

Feliou Chute explains. The

10:34

first betrothal was made when she

10:36

was a child. So like many

10:38

royal women, she was betrothed quite

10:40

early. And sometimes, as we know,

10:42

those betrothals simply didn't work out.

10:45

Or the alliance as the children got

10:47

older was no longer as important

10:50

as it was. And that was the

10:52

case with Anne. Whenever she was young,

10:54

she was contracted to marry Francis of

10:57

Lorraine. And that had to do with

10:59

the inheritance of the Duchy of Gelders.

11:02

So Anne and Francis were

11:04

going to be given the Duchy

11:07

of Gelders together if they

11:09

were married. And as

11:11

they got older, the Duke of

11:13

Gelders may have changed his mind,

11:16

or the Duke of Cleves may have changed

11:18

his mind. And actually, whenever Anne's

11:21

brother, William, took over as the

11:23

Duke of Cleves, he claimed Gelders

11:25

for himself. And he and

11:27

Charles V then fought for control

11:30

of Gelders for seven years. In

11:33

the midst of this dispute, in early 1539,

11:36

an English emissary, Christopher Mont,

11:38

was sent to Julius Cleves to

11:40

assess the possibility of a nuptial

11:42

alliance between England and the Duchies.

11:46

Thomas Cromwell was keen on the

11:48

match. He instructed Mont to send

11:50

her picture of the Duchy of

11:52

Gelders, so he might persuade his

11:54

Majesty thereby. Eventually, a portrait did

11:57

arrive, but it wasn't good enough for

11:59

Henry. So he sent his

12:01

court painter Hans Holbein the Younger

12:03

to capture her likeness. What

12:06

can Holbein's images tell us

12:09

about Anne's appearance? That's

12:13

such an interesting question. Dr Charlotte

12:15

Boland. I think it gives really

12:17

interesting insight because it is about the

12:20

clothing. It's the main thing and

12:22

that question of the role that

12:24

mismatched tastes can pay in different

12:26

sort of expectations. And so

12:28

in that idea of what a woman should

12:31

look like, that having

12:33

a different kind of silhouette, different

12:35

profile, if that was part of the

12:37

problem, that was a hurdle that she didn't realise she had to

12:39

overcome in her reception in England.

12:42

I think that it's really interesting to

12:44

think about what Holbein was

12:46

doing. So on the occasions where

12:48

he'd already painted Christina of Denmark as part

12:50

of those marriage negotiations, and then

12:53

in producing the image of Anne,

12:55

that other portraits had been sent

12:57

to England of Christina and of Anne

12:59

that had been deemed, I need to

13:02

see this person through Holbein's eyes. I

13:04

know that idea that Henry understood how

13:06

Holbein saw people and so therefore he

13:08

would be able to match up, have

13:10

an idea of the real individual from

13:13

Holbein's work. I think it's really interesting

13:15

to think about the difference in scale

13:17

and media of the portraits that Holbein

13:19

produced because we have the

13:21

Christina of Denmark that survives in the

13:23

National Gallery, so this incredible full-length portrait

13:26

that clearly entranced Henry and

13:29

that Holbein must have taken

13:31

a lot of time to create. And

13:34

you get the feeling that he thought this

13:36

would be it. This was the job that

13:38

needed to be done and arguably it was

13:40

successful. But then for grander, yes, geopolitical reasons,

13:42

that whole alliance falls apart. And

13:45

so the idea that actually the image of

13:47

Anne and the painting that survives in

13:49

the Louvre and being painted on vellum, it's

13:51

a much kind of faster job. Oh, of course,

13:54

I've got to do this again. And then contrasting

13:56

it again with the miniature that survives in

13:58

the Victoria and Albert Museums collection. which

14:01

I think is so resonant as an

14:03

object, because this is a portrait that

14:05

you're meant to hold and to have,

14:07

you encounter it one-on-one. You might perhaps

14:09

discuss it with someone, but it's about

14:11

your eye contact with that small person.

14:13

And we know from Henry VIII's letters

14:15

with Anne Boleyn that he sent his

14:17

image to her in a bracelet. This

14:19

idea of the role of sort of small images

14:21

of your beloved was part of the way he

14:23

liked to perform falling in

14:26

love. And that I think this is

14:28

a sort of tool that he

14:30

commissioned from Holbein to help that process. It's

14:32

intriguing because it's one of the rarer

14:35

miniatures to have ultramarine. So it's

14:37

the more expensive materials rather than azurite in

14:39

the blue. And ultramarine has its associations in

14:41

the way that you paint the blues of

14:44

the Virgin Mary. And there's

14:46

also lovely parallels in the materiality of

14:48

the miniature with the fact that they're

14:50

mounted on playing cards as their kind

14:52

of support. And so at the

14:55

time that Henry was falling in love, looking at a

14:57

kind of playing card of Anne of Cleves, that she

14:59

was learning to play cards in Calais to

15:01

try and learn how to build a relationship with

15:03

him. So this great sort of idea of the

15:05

materiality of these portraits, I think is so interesting

15:07

to think about how they functioned. The

15:12

pictures were convincing. Henry

15:15

projected his fantasy onto Anne's image.

15:17

And in September, 1539, Anne and

15:20

her mother and brother consented to

15:22

her marriage to the English king.

15:25

Soon after the contract was signed,

15:27

it was agreed that Anne would set out for

15:29

England within two months. The

15:32

question was, hmm. The

15:36

marriage contract was signed in

15:38

early October in both England

15:40

and Cleves. Valour shoot.

15:43

And I think Henry VIII was very

15:45

anxious to get his bride over. And

15:48

in fact, he wanted to put her in

15:50

a boat and sail her to England because

15:52

Henry was very proud of his Navy. And

15:55

that's how he thought would be the fastest

15:57

way to get her to England. And.

15:59

And the ambassadors of Cleves were very hesitant

16:02

to put her in a ship and send

16:04

her over. And they did blame weather on

16:06

that. It was the wrong time of year.

16:08

They didn't want to put her in the

16:11

North Sea and ship her to

16:13

England because of the potential for

16:15

bad weather, for shipwrecks. They even

16:17

said Anne's complexion could get damaged.

16:20

And eventually they chose this land

16:22

route and it seemed to be

16:24

just as treacherous, perhaps, and very

16:26

long. The

16:29

progress moved at the glacial speed

16:31

of five miles a day. Her

16:34

train, the people with her, there were more

16:37

than 200 of them. So

16:39

I think there may have just been a lot of

16:41

people to move. I

16:43

also think it may have

16:45

been over unfamiliar terrain. So

16:48

there were some English attendants with

16:50

them, but not many. So

16:53

it may have been lots of German

16:55

people going through unfamiliar lands trying to

16:57

get to Calais. I think

17:00

they experienced bad weather. That's

17:02

certainly what happened in Calais, where they were stuck

17:04

for an additional two weeks. And

17:06

it seemed like they traveled in winter,

17:08

which just may not have been the

17:11

best time to move a few hundred

17:13

people across the middle of Europe to

17:15

try to get to England. All

17:19

this delay made Henry impatient to meet his

17:21

new bride. Rather than wait to meet her at

17:23

the appointed time at Greenwich, on New Year's

17:25

Day, 1540, he rode to

17:27

Rochester in fancy dress to accost

17:29

her. What

17:32

happened next is disputed. The

17:37

English eyewitness accounts all date from

17:39

six months later. Heather

17:41

Darcy. Of course, the

17:43

English account of Anna and Henry's first

17:46

meeting is created for purposes of the

17:48

annulment proceedings. And that's the story that

17:50

we have where Henry goes in disguise

17:52

and he has furs and he meets

17:54

Anna and she's hideous and he's so

17:57

disgusted that he leaves. According to the

17:59

German source... which were written by Olis Leger,

18:03

whose name is Heinrich Baab, and his nickname

18:05

Olis Leger. He is a Vice Chancellor of

18:07

Cleves at this time and is eventually elevated

18:09

to Chancellor of Cleves. He was

18:11

with Anna, and a few days

18:13

after her marriage to Henry, he writes

18:15

back to Anna's brother, Wilhelm and Mother

18:18

Maria about what had gone on. Apparently,

18:20

I tend to think this is more

18:23

truthful, but of course the truth is always somewhere in

18:25

the middle. Henry does show up in

18:27

disguise. At some point, Anna does

18:30

realize who it is. Henry presents

18:32

Anna with a crystal goblet that had a

18:34

gold foot and a gold lid and had

18:36

diamonds and rubies on it, also a gold

18:38

chain with, I believe, rubies and pearls. No

18:41

mention of furs. He stays there with her

18:44

and has dinner with her. This is, of

18:46

course, at Rochester Castle. He leaves

18:48

for the evening but stays close enough to her

18:50

that he can come back and have breakfast with

18:52

her the next day. So very, very different. And

18:55

we don't hear any mention

18:57

of any type of discord between the two of

18:59

them until we look at the documents that were

19:01

created for purposes of the annulment. What

19:03

had happened? Valerie Schute offers

19:06

her explanation of why Henry didn't take

19:08

to Anne when they met. For

19:11

all of Henry's other wives, all five, he

19:13

had seen them first, and

19:15

I think he believed in chivalry. I

19:19

think he believed that he was

19:21

going to love his bride. He loved

19:24

Catherine of Aragon before he married her.

19:26

He lusted after Anne Boleyn before he

19:28

married her. And I think that

19:30

with Anne of Cleves, or who was ever going

19:32

to be his fourth bride, Henry was

19:34

adamant that he needed to see her first. And

19:36

I think this was because he wanted to love

19:40

his bride. He knew he would see this woman

19:42

and love her. And when

19:44

it came to the Hans Holbein portraits, we

19:46

know the newly restored portrait

19:48

that's in the Louvre that looks beautiful, and

19:51

then the little miniature that is at the

19:53

V&A. And it wasn't originally in

19:55

that box. It was originally out of the

19:57

box and probably a square. And

19:59

I think he... probably carried it with him. It

20:01

was a portrait that he would look at and

20:03

say, I'm going to marry this woman. And

20:06

he probably talked himself into loving

20:09

her. This was the woman he was going to

20:11

love and marry and hopefully have children with. And

20:14

when he saw her, and I don't

20:16

know if it happened at first sight,

20:18

because these sources from January, when he

20:20

met her, none of them

20:22

report a bad meeting. It's not

20:24

until the July depositions that

20:26

we hear, Henry didn't really love

20:28

her from the beginning. And

20:31

I think he was just disappointed. He

20:33

had convinced himself he loved this woman.

20:35

Maybe she didn't look like the portrait.

20:37

She certainly didn't speak English. There would

20:39

have been cultural differences. She

20:41

would have dressed funny compared to the

20:43

English or French dress he was used

20:45

to. And she just didn't live up

20:47

to what he built her up to be in

20:50

his mind. And even over the few months

20:52

they were married, I think

20:54

between the linguistic and the cultural barrier,

20:56

they just didn't fall in the way

20:58

that he hoped they would. Welcome

21:15

to Sincerely Sloan presented by Uninterrupted.

21:18

I'm your host, professional tennis

21:20

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21:22

Sloan-Seedon. As an

21:24

athlete and as a person, my journey has

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had a lot of twists and turns from

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moments of adversity and doubt to unimaginable triumph

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for the love of home. Heather

23:48

Darcy suggests that there may have

23:50

been an underlying foreign policy question

23:52

determining Henry's response to Anne. And

23:55

what was happening in the background is

23:58

the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth's wife. his

24:00

beloved wife dies in early May of 1539. Henry's

24:04

ambassadors had just started asking

24:06

Wilhelm about whether or

24:08

not he had a sister available to

24:10

wed Henry. Wilhelm inherited gelders, which we

24:12

talked about a little bit earlier, in

24:14

June of 1538 against

24:17

his father's advice, because his father knew

24:19

that the Holy Roman Emperor had a

24:21

ton of claims to

24:23

this property for various reasons. Then

24:26

unfortunately Anna's father dies in February of

24:28

1539, so just a few

24:30

months before Charles V's wife,

24:32

Isabella passes away. Isabella passes

24:34

away, Charles V is an absolute

24:36

wreck. He goes and hides himself

24:38

away in a monastery for all of summer 1539.

24:42

At the same time, you have Wilhelm saying, oh

24:44

yeah, King of England, this is a great idea,

24:47

please do marry one of my sisters because then

24:49

I will have the Elector of Saxony's army and

24:51

your army in case I go to war over

24:53

this piece of territory called gelders.

24:55

And that's the part that Cromwell didn't pick

24:58

up on. So you have kind

25:00

of a Cold War brewing between, if

25:02

I can call it that, or an

25:04

ongoing diplomatic incident between Wilhelm and Charles

25:07

V that is being mediated by Charles

25:09

V's brother Ferdinand, who goes on to

25:11

be Holy Roman Emperor after Charles passes

25:13

away. And when

25:16

Charles comes out of mourning, he

25:18

finds out that this negotiation has been going

25:20

on. And in my opinion, decides to let

25:22

it happen because he's still trying to play

25:24

nice to Wilhelm and says, hey, Wilhelm, I

25:27

have this pretty niece, Christina of Denmark, perhaps

25:29

you'd like to marry her. And

25:31

I'll just let this go with the King of England. And

25:33

he, out of friendship also

25:35

with Henry VIII, allows Anna to

25:37

go to England. At the

25:39

same time that Anna is traveling to England,

25:41

so late November and into December of 1539,

25:45

Wilhelm secretly goes to France to

25:47

negotiate for a French ride from the

25:49

French royal family. Effectively, what

25:51

this would do is if

25:53

he did go to war with Charles V over

25:55

gelders, he could create a pincher

25:58

move, militarily speaking, you've got. the

26:00

English and the English Channel. They could stop any

26:02

ships from going up past their

26:04

countries and getting into the low countries. You

26:07

have the Elector of Saxony, which was

26:09

the most powerful Electra at the time, and

26:11

their army. You have the Ulyssef Berge army

26:13

and you have the French army that could

26:15

all do a pinch remove because Gelders is

26:17

kind of in the middle of all this

26:20

and defeat Charles the Fifth. So

26:23

that was a great idea to someone who is 22 years

26:25

old. Henry VIII did not like

26:27

that idea. And by the time Anna arrived

26:29

in England in January of 1540, several members

26:32

of her

26:34

troops that came along, and that

26:36

I think probably intended to stay a

26:38

bit longer, decided to go home right

26:41

away because it was becoming too dangerous

26:43

for them to be in imperial territory

26:45

or to cross over imperial territory. And

26:47

Wilhelm enters into a marital

26:49

contract for Marguerite of Navarre's

26:52

daughter Jean d'Albre, and I believe

26:55

that was in summer of 1540, so

26:57

right after Anna's annulment. So all these

26:59

things happened, but that's

27:01

what I think went wrong for Anna's

27:03

marriage to Henry was that Anna's brother

27:05

was sneaking behind Henry's back and not

27:07

telling him his plans. And then of

27:09

course we do actually have the Cleves

27:11

war in 1543.

27:15

I offer a third possibility, that

27:17

when Henry appeared before Anne in

27:19

disguise, she recoiled. Her

27:22

limited education had not taught her the

27:24

games of courtly love. She did not

27:26

anticipate his masquerade. She had not been

27:29

warned that the King of England had

27:31

gone to seed. She did

27:33

not know that she would have to dissemble in

27:35

the face of his obesity and

27:37

amidst the reek of his pus-filled

27:39

ulcer. He saw himself

27:42

reflected truthfully in her eyes,

27:45

and it was enough to turn him right off her. Perhaps

27:49

all three theories are correct.

27:51

Using the excuse of her previous

27:53

betrothal, Henry sought to find a way

27:55

out of the marriage before their ceremony,

27:58

but to no avail. On the 6th

28:00

of January, they were married. Later,

28:03

Henry would insist that the marriage had

28:05

never been consummated, but to

28:07

all appearances, they were happy. In

28:09

their few months of marriage, they traveled from

28:12

Greenwich to Westminster to Hampton Court for Easter

28:14

and back to Whitehall for May Day tournaments.

28:17

Ballew Schut believes that Anne had an

28:19

impact even in her short tenure as

28:21

queen. She was

28:23

culturally successful. She brought in

28:25

artists and she had

28:28

all of this patronage power and I think

28:30

that was her success as a queen. She

28:32

wrote in books, she was given books. She

28:35

had a beautiful book of hours that has

28:37

now been chopped to bits in his back

28:40

in Germany. And she was

28:42

written about. There are phenomenal poetry

28:44

books that were written at

28:47

the time of her marriage to Henry. But

28:49

Henry had charged Cromwell with extracting him

28:51

from the union. When Cromwell

28:54

failed, he fell. The

28:56

juggernaut of Henry's desire thundered

28:58

on. In early July,

29:00

an ecclesiastical commission was set up to

29:03

investigate the validity of the marriage. The

29:06

conclusion was foregone. Henry

29:08

and Anne, it determined, had

29:10

never legally been married. Though

29:13

shocked and saddened, Anne was

29:15

gracious, reconciling herself to

29:17

the clergy's conclusion. Henry's

29:19

gratitude was manifest. He

29:22

made a very generous settlement on

29:24

Anne. Valerie Schut. Lots

29:27

of lands, lots of money,

29:30

and not even just lands and

29:32

money, but position. And I think

29:34

that was done for a few reasons.

29:37

So firstly, she didn't put up

29:39

a fight. And I think

29:41

he had annulled two previous marriages where

29:43

both women put up a fight. And

29:46

she did not. And

29:49

I think part of it is this

29:51

was very much a thank you. He

29:53

could have really gone up against, similar

29:56

to Catherine of Aragon, but not to

29:58

the same extent, an international some

30:00

international pushback. She had a

30:03

brother and a brother-in-law, and

30:06

they had their allies, and they

30:08

really could have fought back against

30:10

the annulments, and they didn't, and

30:12

she didn't. And I think that

30:14

part of this generous settlement was

30:16

maybe a thank you for taking

30:18

it graciously. I

30:20

think part of it was recognizing her

30:22

status. I think part

30:25

of it was trying to appease

30:27

Duke William in divorcing Anne. He

30:29

also essentially broke off

30:31

the political alliance that the

30:33

two of them had formed,

30:36

and I think some of this

30:38

was to show outwardly, we may

30:40

not be married, but I'm

30:43

not that bad a guy. He makes

30:45

Anne write these letters to her brother. I

30:47

agreed to this. Everything is okay. And I

30:50

think this was very much an outward gesture as

30:52

much as he was trying to placate Anne. I

30:55

think this was very much a big

30:57

outward gesture for other people to see,

30:59

too, that Henry could leave

31:01

this marriage, but not sever

31:04

so many political ties in

31:06

the process. But

31:09

why did Henry dare take the risk? In

31:12

short, because Francis and Charles were

31:14

no longer friends. Valerie,

31:16

shoot again. It was a

31:18

very big risk politically, and I think

31:20

that's so much of why he entered the

31:23

marriage because he at the time thought he

31:25

needed the political allies because

31:27

there was the chance that Francis and

31:29

Charles and maybe even the Papacy were

31:32

going to invade England. That was a

31:34

threat, and Henry perceived it as a

31:36

real threat, no matter how

31:38

real or not it may actually have

31:40

been, and aligning himself with

31:42

the Schmuck-Haldic League and

31:45

those people connected to them, because Cleves

31:47

wasn't actually part of it. It was just on

31:49

the outskirts. They gave him political

31:51

allies, but by May, the

31:54

political threat of Francis and

31:56

Charles coming into England really was no more. And

32:01

Henry was able to back out of the

32:03

political allies he had made with Cleves and

32:05

the German Duchies to go back to the

32:07

more traditional allies that he was used to,

32:09

Francis and Charles, and I think

32:12

those were maybe more powerful, certainly, than

32:14

the Dukes of Cleves, and I think

32:16

those were the allies that Henry sought,

32:18

so he was able to disconnect from

32:20

one group and try to

32:22

connect himself back to another, but it was still a

32:24

risk. There was still a risk that

32:27

the German Duchies could have retaliated. There

32:29

was a risk that somehow Charles V

32:31

could have retaliated. Those

32:34

were still Duchies technically under his

32:36

control, even if they ran independently. It

32:38

was all a risk, and I think that

32:41

so much of it had to do with

32:43

Henry and Anne not necessarily

32:45

being compatible in the marriage and

32:47

the outer threat not being so

32:49

great, and that let Henry slowly

32:51

back himself out of the situation.

32:56

Henry married Anne's lady-in-waiting, Catherine

32:59

Howard, just days later. What

33:02

is perhaps remarkable is that Henry

33:04

and Anne remained on very good

33:06

terms. It seems that Anne got

33:08

along well with Henry's daughters, Mary and Elizabeth.

33:10

Heather Darcy. So

33:13

Catherine Howard, of course, then marries Henry right away after

33:15

the annulment so that Anne's brother

33:17

can't come back and say, wait a minute, I don't

33:19

like your process here, this isn't legal. She

33:22

has her downfall in November of 1541, and

33:25

there's instantly an idea that Anne

33:28

might remarry Henry. For Wilhelm,

33:30

that would be amazing if Anne remarried

33:32

Henry because then he could have

33:35

access to this once more. Henry

33:37

dithers, I believe in part due to

33:39

his closeness with Anne, whether

33:41

that was romantic closeness or just out

33:43

of friendship or whatever it was, and

33:46

doesn't actually remarry until he marries Catherine

33:48

Parr smack in the middle of the

33:51

Cleves war, where prior to

33:53

that Henry had a secret alliance with Charles V that

33:55

he built up, and at the

33:57

same time is constantly having Wilhelm bother him. remarry

34:00

my sister, remarry my sister, remarry my sister. And

34:03

I think that there was a

34:05

closeness and that there was a high degree

34:07

of respect from Henry to Anna. There's

34:09

also an item in the

34:13

Folger Shakespeare Library that was gifted by Anna

34:15

after her annulment. We don't know what year,

34:17

but it's gifted by Anna after her annulment

34:19

to Henry VIII and it is a prayer

34:21

book. And in it, at the end, she signs

34:24

it and I don't remember the exact words, but

34:26

basically says, I hope that you think of me

34:28

whenever you look at this book and the Daughter

34:30

of Cleves. So whether that was just a nice

34:32

diplomatic gesture for a New Year's

34:34

gift, to me, that's a little bit more intimate

34:36

because she actually signs it and inscribes something in

34:38

it. So I think those are the reasons why

34:41

we can see that they got along. As far

34:43

as were there any issues while they were married

34:45

between the two, I'm sure there were. I mean,

34:47

you have two strangers coming together, you have a

34:49

language barrier. I don't know that it was always

34:52

easy, but again, you

34:54

don't have the major description of

34:56

any issues between them and so preparing

34:58

for the annulment. Anne did

35:01

now what she'd been brought up to do. She

35:04

managed her estates. I

35:06

think it's very impressive in many ways that

35:08

she did not remarry. Valerie Schute.

35:12

And she ran her own households for 17 years

35:14

post divorce. She took

35:17

care of herself financially. We know

35:19

she was involved with the financial

35:21

running of her estates. We know

35:23

that she liked to pay for

35:26

dresses. We have some of her

35:28

expense account skills. She paid for

35:30

dresses, she played dice, she played

35:32

cards, she had entertainment. And

35:35

she ran her own household and she

35:37

would have been a very independent woman

35:39

and a very unusual independent woman and

35:42

that she was foreign living

35:44

in England and doing all

35:46

of this more or less on her

35:48

own with some distant guidance from her

35:51

brother and a cousin who

35:53

stayed in her household with her and I

35:55

think helped oversee things, but

35:57

we forget or we can't. get

36:00

used to the idea that Anne was the

36:02

ugly wife who was put away and that

36:04

just isn't the case. She

36:07

just continued to manage herself

36:09

and her properties independently yet

36:12

keep herself involved in English

36:15

politics enough to be

36:17

friends with two queens. We think

36:19

that she and Elizabeth had a

36:21

relationship although the letters between

36:23

them, some of them may have been falsified,

36:25

but we do think that she had

36:27

these friendly relationships and even

36:29

after the divorce she was still considered

36:32

important internationally. We know that the books

36:34

that were written about her in the

36:37

1540s that kind of lament her divorce

36:40

because Henry shouldn't have

36:42

mistreated this important international woman in

36:44

this way and so

36:47

she was still involved in politics

36:49

even if the marriage wasn't intact.

36:53

Why didn't she go back to Cleves? Valerie

36:55

thinks it was an active choice. England

36:58

seemed very culturally different compared to

37:00

Cleves so as far as we know from her

37:03

upbringing there was no music,

37:05

there was no dancing, she got a

37:07

very traditional female education, she probably read

37:09

or understood her own language but no

37:12

other languages and I think that going

37:14

to England she would

37:16

have been exposed to many more

37:18

things and I think she

37:20

may have simply enjoyed being independent. If

37:22

she would have gone back to Cleves

37:25

the first thing that would have happened is that her

37:27

brother would have tried to marry her off again and

37:30

maybe she just didn't want to and

37:32

if she stayed in England she had

37:34

finances she had her own properties and

37:36

she was more or less in control

37:38

of herself. Heather Darcy

37:40

thinks she had no choice. and

38:00

then she was fine being in England under Henry, and

38:03

then at a point during the reign of

38:05

his son Edward, she did want to go back, but

38:07

she kind of got forgotten about by Wilhelm to a

38:09

certain extent. As far as I

38:11

know, there's not too many sources

38:14

about her life afterwards. We do know that

38:16

she corresponded with Wilhelm and with her sister

38:18

Zibilla. Unfortunately, all of her letters that she

38:20

sent out of the country and that she

38:22

received from her family were read. The small

38:25

glimpses that we have, we don't know her

38:27

true feelings very well. There is one letter

38:29

from 1552, I believe, under

38:32

the reign of Edward VI that Anna sends

38:34

home to Wilhelm where she says that the

38:37

English are English and we're still strangers here.

38:39

So she was unhappy, I believe, under the

38:41

reign of Edward VI. And of course, when

38:43

Edward becomes king, he has no reason to

38:45

really care about Anna. I suspect

38:48

that Anna and Edward were more so

38:50

strangers than Anna would have been with

38:52

Mary or Elizabeth. And he

38:54

starts taking away Anna's properties and

38:57

whether it was him or his uncle, as you can really say,

38:59

but starts taking away Anna's

39:01

properties and she just kind of becomes

39:03

an afterthought and Wilhelm is forced

39:06

to send ambassadors repeatedly to England

39:08

to ask that Anna's monies that

39:10

she was to receive as Henry

39:12

VIII's beloved sister, that she actually

39:14

receives those. So I heard

39:17

a seminar once and I've not been able to

39:19

verify this at all and I frankly, I haven't

39:21

pursued it too heavily, but I'm under the impression

39:23

that at one point, she might've been forced to

39:25

sell some of her clothes at auction to pay

39:27

her bills. On the other

39:29

hand, she was free to come and go. She

39:31

did have her own territories. She was

39:33

able to hunt, which was a pastime that

39:35

she very much enjoyed. She was

39:38

able to be German,

39:40

if you will. There are some remarks

39:42

over her cooking, which was

39:44

thought very odd for a noblewoman in

39:46

England. And of course, as we

39:48

discussed earlier, that's one of the primary skills that she

39:50

would have learned. She would have been

39:53

very well equipped to run her own household, again,

39:55

because of her German upbringing. So I

39:57

think she was okay under Henry VIII. I

40:00

think that her biggest obstacles under

40:02

Henry VIII's reign was of course watching

40:04

her homeland be destroyed by

40:07

Charles V and then watching her sister,

40:09

Cibilla, also face the army of Charles

40:11

V in 1547, right

40:14

after, I suppose, right after Henry died. But

40:17

those would have been her main obstacles, I think, would

40:19

have been heartbreak for her homeland under Henry VIII and

40:21

then never knowing where

40:24

her finances were going to be under

40:26

Edward VI. One

40:31

bright light in all this was Anne's

40:34

enduring friendship with her stepdaughter, Mary. They

40:36

had a very close relationship. At

40:39

first. Valerie Schute. Mary

40:41

met Anne very early on whenever she first came

40:43

to England. I think her and Elizabeth were even

40:45

in the reception party that met them at Greenwich,

40:48

although there's conflicting accounts what royal women

40:50

were actually there. They did seem to

40:52

keep up a type of relationship. There

40:55

are letters shared between the two women.

40:57

Anne went to visit Mary and Mary

40:59

went to visit Anne. Now, we still

41:01

only get very few glimpses in the

41:03

records. Sometimes these meetings

41:06

between women aren't always captured

41:08

or seemed important enough to

41:10

be lost or simply mentioned

41:12

in a sentence, but

41:14

they did connect. They did

41:17

write letters during Edward's reign.

41:19

Elizabeth would go to Mary

41:21

when she felt she was being mistreated to see if Mary could intervene

41:24

on her behalf financially whenever Edward started

41:26

to take Anne's properties away from her.

41:30

And when Mary came to the throne,

41:32

Anne was in the procession for the

41:34

coronation with Princess Elizabeth right behind Mary.

41:37

They were acknowledged as

41:40

the two most powerful women in the

41:42

country. And I think that was very important. And

41:45

whenever Mary was even looking

41:47

for a husband, Anne suggested one of her

41:49

own relatives. She continued

41:51

to be involved in Mary's life.

41:53

And I think, too, the women

41:55

shared a religious interest and

41:58

would have been brought up Catholic and for all inte... We

42:00

don't know if she ever converted to Church of England,

42:02

and it doesn't seem like she did. Her

42:05

funeral was Catholic, that's what she requested,

42:07

and Mary took that over and had

42:09

her buried with a Catholic ceremony at

42:11

Westminster Abbey. So it seems

42:13

like the two women enjoyed a close relationship.

42:18

Anne died 17 years after the

42:21

annulment in July 1557. It

42:24

is because of her friendship with the then Queen

42:26

Mary. Heather Darcy concludes

42:28

that the woman who was Henry's wife

42:31

for the briefest of times has the

42:33

most queenly of tombs. If

42:37

you go to Westminster today, if

42:39

you stand at the main altar to

42:41

your right, you see this low tune

42:43

that's engraved with the lion of Eulish,

42:45

which is for her mother, and then the

42:47

eschar bunkle of Cleese, which is that gear

42:49

shape that we see, and her initials.

42:52

It's not spoken about on the audio tour, if you

42:55

listen to that. I've only used the audio tour. But

42:57

on the other side, there is a plaque that says,

42:59

Anne of Cleese, 1515 to 1557, but Mary organizes for

43:01

Anna a

43:06

proper Duchess's burial. There

43:08

is a huge funeral train, there's

43:10

all the heraldry of her family,

43:14

and all the proper steps are taken

43:16

for her to be properly honored for

43:18

her station, and then she's

43:21

buried where she is in a very, very prominent

43:23

place. So I think that that shows that

43:25

Mary and Anna had to have had a

43:27

close relationship, because why would Mary have gone

43:30

to all that trouble out

43:32

of her own pocket to bury this woman if

43:34

they were not friendly with each other? We

43:36

also have a record that Anna and

43:38

Elizabeth rode together in a chariot behind

43:41

Mary's chariot when Mary rode through London

43:43

during her coronation. And again,

43:45

I'm not sure why Mary would have included Anna

43:47

in that if they were not friends with each

43:49

other. Anne

43:51

was just 41 at her death. Young,

43:54

even by Tudor standards, she

43:56

was the last of Henry VIII's queens to die.

44:00

please survive them all. Next

44:10

week I'll be discussing the woman who ousted

44:13

her, Katherine Howard. Was

44:15

she a victim or a victim?

44:23

Thanks to you for listening to Not

44:25

Just the Tudors from History Hit and

44:28

also to my researcher Alice Smith, my

44:31

producer Rob Weinberg and Ella Blacksaw

44:33

who edited this episode. We're always

44:35

eager to hear from you so

44:37

do drop us a line at

44:40

notjustthetudors at historyhit.com

44:43

or on X formerly known as

44:46

Twitter at... Welcome

44:52

to Sincerely Sloane presented by Uninterrupted.

44:55

I'm your host, professional tennis player,

44:57

wife, parent, and entrepreneur Sloane

44:59

Stevens. As an athlete

45:01

and as a person my journey has had

45:04

a lot of twists and turns. From moments

45:06

of adversity and doubt to unimaginable triumph and

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I'm joined by some of the biggest names

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in sports, entertainment, culture, and a few members

45:14

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conversations keep it real and push it

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Join me on my journey of self discovery and

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many many lasts along the way.

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Sincerely Sloane. The

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Ashley for the love of

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home. Not

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just Tudors. And do remember

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