At five o’clock in the afternoon of 27 December 1539 a young
German princess, Anne of Cleves, stepped onto the shore at Deal in Kent. She
was met by Sir Thomas Cheyne, who took her to Deal Castle – a rather Spartan fortress
on the south coast of England. The castle, which was newly built, was
inadequate for a royal visit and was merely used as a base for Anne and her
retinue to change their clothes and refresh themselves.
Shortly after Anne’s arrival, Henry VIII’s brother-in-law,
the Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Catherine Willoughby, arrived, as did the
Bishop of Chichester and a large knights, esquires and ladies. Everyone was
curious to meet the princess. She presented herself well, greeting them
cordially and allowing her visitors to take her to the more comfortable Dover
Castle, a little further down the coast. She arrived at eleven o’clock that
night and gladly retired to her bed for her first night in a country that would
be her home for the rest of her life.
Everyone in England was interested in the young woman who
had sailed from Calais that morning, enjoying an uneventful and speedy voyage.
Anne, who was twenty-four years old and the sister of the Duke of Cleves, was
to become the fourth wife of Henry VIII, a man who, by 1539, was the most
notorious husband in Europe. She had not, in fact, been Henry’s first choice as
a bride.
When Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, died following
childbirth on 24 October 1537, the king found himself in the unusual position
of not having a new bride ready and waiting. Within days of her death Thomas
Cromwell, the king’s chief minister, had written to the French ambassadors
suggesting that either the French king’s daughter or his kinswoman, Mary of
Guise, would make suitable replacements. At the same time, the Imperial
ambassadors offered the king the princess of Portugal.
Although Henry had known all three of his previous wives
before marriage, it was never in doubt that his fourth would be a diplomatic
match. This was, after all, the usual way that royal marriages were arranged
and would help to ally England with a foreign power. By the end of 1537
ambassadors had been instructed to search the courts of Europe for a potential
bride. John Hutton, the English ambassador to the Netherlands, provided an
early report from Brussels, listing the eligible women in the Holy Roman
Empire. As well as their accomplishments. He ended, rather unflatteringly, with
the comment that ‘the duke of Cleves has a daughter, but there is no great
praise either of her personage or her beauty’.
This was the only time that Anne would be mentioned in
negotiations until 1539. Instead, Henry first looked for a French bride,
seeking to marry Mary of Guise, who was already engaged to his nephew, James IV
of Scotland. Upon receiving reports of the tall and beautiful Mary Henry was
mitten, declaring that ‘he was big in person and had need of a big wife’. He
was unsuccessful in his attempts to win Mary, however, with her soon marrying
the King of Scots.
Henry next considered Mary’s sister, who was reported to be ‘as
beautiful and graceful clever and well fitted to please and obey him as any
other’, while the French ambassador assured him that ‘France was a warren of
honourable ladies’.
Henry perhaps took the invitation to take his pick of the
French ladies too literally when he requested that they all be brought to
Calais so that he could select the woman that he liked best. Such a request was
met with outrage by the French king, who declared that they were not horses to
be made to promenade on show. When Henry insisted, the scandalised French
ambassador asked whether he also wanted to try out the ladies before he made
his choice, causing the English king to blush with shame.
With his failure to secure a French bride, Henry instead
looked towards the family of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. His choice fell
on the beautiful fifteen year old, Christina of Denmark, widowed Duchess of
Milan, who was the Emperor’s niece. While Henry was charmed by her portrait,
the princess was less than certain, declaring that ‘she had but one head, if
she had two, one should be at his Majesty’s service’.
On 12 January 1539 Francis I of France and the Emperor
Charles V signed the treaty of Toledo, making peace with each other. This meant
that England was dangerously isolated and, with no possibility of a French or
Imperial marriage, Henry instead looked around for other allies. His choice
fell on Cleves.
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