Henry VIII had a habit of marrying in haste and repenting at leisure, but no royal bride illustrated that truth more vividly than Anne of Cleves. When the king finally met the German princess he had chosen as his fourth wife on the basis of Hans Holbein’s portrait, he was allegedly so repulsed that he complained she was not as beautiful as rumor had claimed. Within months, he engineered an annulment, and Anne went down in history as the queen he rejected. Yet modern historians have increasingly questioned whether her looks were really the problem, pointing instead to a meeting that may have doomed the marriage before it ever began.
Anne came from a fiercely independent family. Her father, John, Duke of Cleves, was a controversial figure in the Protestant Reformation, publicly irritating the Pope and Catholic monarchs across Europe. Anne and her siblings were raised to think for themselves and to value their own judgment. By the time she reached adulthood, Henry, who had broken from Rome and divorced Catherine of Aragon, saw her as a politically useful bride.
His alliance with German Protestant states required it. But Anne had little interest in the match. She was devoted to her mother, and her family’s household, dominated by women, had been a sheltered refuge. Her mother reportedly tried to block the marriage altogether.
Henry could hardly have been a more unsuitable suitor. At twenty-four, Anne was mature for a royal bride, but Henry was nearly twice her age. He even considered courting her younger sister, Amalia, instead. In the late 1530s, he sent his court painter, Hans Holbein, on an unusual mission: he was to paint both sisters, without flattery, so the king could decide which to marry.
Holbein struggled because both sisters wore veils according to conservative German custom. He had to win their trust before they would reveal their faces. When he returned with the portraits, Henry chose Anne over her sister, though many historians suspect his reasons were practical. As the elder daughter, Anne carried stronger inheritance rights.
Holbein’s instructions to paint honestly also undermine the popular legend that the artist tricked the king with a flattering image. Unfortunately for everyone involved, a portrait could not reveal compatibility. Anne, though tall and fair-haired, had a stern expression that made her look older than her years. Henry’s first glimpse of her was a disaster of diplomatic theater.
While her procession stopped at Rochester for the New Year celebrations of 1540, Anne watched bull-baiting from a window. A huge, muscular man suddenly burst into the room. It was Henry in disguise, hoping to catch a romantic first sight of his bride. According to varying accounts, Anne either coolly ignored his advances or was so unsettled by a strange man’s unwanted attention that she rejected him outright.
Either way, Henry stormed off furious and humiliated. Some historians believe that moment sealed her fate. If she was not impressed by him even in disguise, Henry would not be impressed by her, whatever happened next. The marriage went ahead anyway, for the political alliance could not easily be abandoned.
Henry complained bitterly that Anne was not as attractive in person as in her portrait and blamed both Holbein and his minister Thomas Cromwell, who had pressed him into the match. The wedding night proved equally disastrous. By morning, Henry reportedly claimed he had been more impressed before the marriage than after it. He went further, alleging that Anne’s body repelled him and that he found her scent so unpleasant he could hardly bear to be near her.
Whatever the truth of these accusations, Henry was desperate to escape. He reached for a legal technicality. Years earlier, in 1527, the eleven-year-old Anne had been briefly betrothed to Francis of Lorraine. Henry and his advisers argued that this prior contract made her legally unable to marry him.
To avoid any suggestion that he was impotent, the king produced a physician who testified that Henry suffered from nightly emissions even while sleeping beside Anne without consummating the marriage. The marriage was formally annulled on July 9, 1540. It had lasted barely six months, Henry’s shortest marriage. Anne, relieved to escape with her life and sanity intact, agreed to the annulment without resistance.
Henry rewarded her cooperation generously, granting her estates, a royal income, and the title of the king’s beloved sister. She was made the highest-ranking lady in England after the queen and the princesses. Anne remained on good terms with the king throughout her life, apparently aware that her survival depended on it. When Henry swiftly married the young Catherine Howard within weeks of the annulment, Anne showed no public jealousy.
At the New Year celebrations in 1541, she presented the new queen and her former husband with horses and joined them in dancing. Yet she still faced suspicion. In November 1541, rumors spread that Anne had secretly given birth to a child, possibly the king’s. The rumors were likely false, but Henry nonetheless launched an investigation and arrested two people who claimed Anne was his true wife and that the marriage had been consummated.
Anne’s position remained delicate. When Henry turned against Catherine Howard for alleged adultery, he lashed out at Anne too, ordering her to return a royal ring Catherine had given her. Even after Henry executed his fifth queen in 1542, Anne kept her ambitions hidden. Evidence suggests she hoped Henry might remarry her, but instead he chose Catherine Parr as his sixth wife.
Anne may have lacked her family’s encouragement in music and dance, the very arts Henry loved, leaving the couple with little to talk about even when she mastered English quickly. What she lacked in charm, however, she made up for in strategic friendship. She sent gifts to Prince Edward, formed a close bond with Princess Mary, and impressed Princess Elizabeth, who later left her part of her jewel collection. Anne outlived Henry and indeed all his other wives.
She cultivated close ties with Mary, likely attending her coronation at Westminster Abbey. After Henry’s death, she retired to a quiet life, wealthy and independent. She died on July 16, 1557, just a few months before her forty-second birthday, probably of cancer. Although her marriage had been annulled, her tomb at Westminster Abbey bore the inscription Anne of Cleves, Queen of England.
She remains the only one of Henry’s wives buried there. The king who rejected her had nonetheless, in his peculiar fashion, granted her a measure of safety and honor that most of his queens never enjoyed.