Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's Ugly Wife?

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and I'm doctor cat and no doubt the title of today's video gives you a bit of an idea what I'm going to be talking about but two horribly mis quote and paraphrase Jane Austen it is a truth universally acknowledged that an of cleaves Henry the eighth's fourth wife was the in quotes ugly one is this fair is this reductive are we really willing to believe that an have Cleaves his personal appearance however unpleasant it may or may not have been was sufficiently displeasing to the king that he would derail months of diplomacy and undo his marriage his fourth marriage notably something that would bring about the scorn and derision of all of the other European households because of his much married status is it really as simple as the fact that anne of cleves was so personally repugnant to henry the eighth that he could not bear to be in her presence much less in her bed is it really her ugliness that derails their marriage well today I want to look at it let's look at the key events that led up to their marriage being made and arguably put them on the road to it being a complete disaster let's talk about it [Music] [Music] Anne of Cleves and I share a birthday albeit one that is of course separated by many centuries like an oak leaves I was also born on the 22nd of September however for an Cleese the year was 1515 she was born in Dusseldorf Germany her father was johann or John the peaceful many people have said that Anne of Cleves grew up in a provincial parochial backwater but it is worth remembering that her father was an enlightened prince of his time in fact he was one of the patrons of the great scholar Erasmus he would die in 1538 one year before the marriage negotiations between England and Cleves opened to Marianne to Henry the eighth and was made into a particularly attractive prospective bride Henry the eighth by something but her father chose to do Johan or John and Henry had both decided to remove their lands from papal Authority although there is no evidence that even of them actively became Protestant or Lutheran or Calvinist in their own religious outlook they had separated their nations and lands from papal Authority therefore there was parity in the way these two men attempted to organize and orchestrate the religious identity of their people in 1527 when anne of cleves would have been 11 or 12 years old she was betrothed for the first time to Francois the heir to the Duchy of Lorraine as it would turn out this betrothal would not result in a marriage and both people within this partnership were left free to marry elsewhere this failed betrothal was the first step on the path that would see Anne of Cleves married to Henry the eighth of England for the next step we need to fast-forward a decade and travel from Cleves to England on the 24th of October 1537 Henry the eighth's suffered a personal tragedy his third wife and mother of his surviving son and heir Jane Seymour died at Hampton her death resulted from complications caused by the birth of that longed-for son and heir in bringing Henry son into the world she had sacrificed her own life understandably perhaps for Henry this made her into some sort of maternal superhero the ideal wife against whom all others would be compared and would ultimately be found wanting almost at once there were it seems suggestions that Henry might contract a marriage with one of the doors of Cleves and apparently was suggested however if this prospective marriage was indeed being discussed however tentatively it seems that Henry heard quite poor reports regarding Anne's looks and the matter was swiftly dropped maybe Henry was concerned that he did not want an ugly bride I think it's perhaps more likely at this time that he is so grief stricken by Jane's death that any thought of Mary again is the last thing on his mind just two years later however the need for marriage Alliance with a foreign nation became a pressing one for Henry the eighth's England when at the start of 1539 the holy roman emperor charles v and the French King Francois the first signed the Treaty of Toledo together they made a pact they would make no further treaties with Henry the eighth or his England external support would it seems be a welcome relief the Treaty of Toledo may well have been the inciting incident that placed Henry back on the path to matrimony perhaps he was convinced at the need for a foreign match and the treaty and support that such a marriage would bring allegedly at the behest of Thomas Cromwell and of Cleves was raised once again as a potential spouse and Henry permitted negotiations to begin Thomas Cromwell had he said heard reports of Anne's beauty counter to the negative opinions that Henry had heard a few years previously rather than being unpleasant looking Thomas Cromwell said that Anne of Cleves his beauty excelled even that of Christina of Milan a woman who by all accounts Henry had from very interested in when he'd seen a pic of her but Henry the eighth wasn't going to take reports that Thomas Cromwell had parently heard as the gospel truth as he had done the year previously with Christina of Milan he sent once again the Court painter hands Holbein to Cleves to paint this potential new bride and here is the result of hands whole buying the youngers labor this fantastic portrait of Anne of Cleves by all accounts when Haley received it he was in purakh Sims of joy so much so that on the 4th of October 15:39 so captivated was he by this portrait that Henry confirmed that he would marry Anne and he signed a treaty to allow the marriage to go ahead in relation to Anne's appearance some have said the whole Bynes portrait was overly flattering perhaps even actively deceptive and I would like to caution this point of view is it likely that Holbein would have actively deceived his patron in this way and gone unpunished how would he have been able to maintain his life in England his work at court which certainly did happen after Anne arrived in England and indeed after the marriage was annulled I don't think it is likely and so therefore we must consider that this painting is a fairly accurate representation of the way that Anne of Cleves looked looking at this portrait I certainly do not see an ugly woman rather I would say that she is attractive if not actually beautiful but I wonder what you think do you think that this portrait is clearly overly kind and somehow Holbein got away with it do you think this portrait shows an unattractive woman or do you agree with me then what we have in front of us is a fairly accurate depiction of what Anne of Cleves look like that Holbein has done the job he was tasked with doing and he has served his patron and as such what we see is the beauty that Anne of Cleves actually was as I said this portrait was sufficient evidence as far as Henry is concerned that Anne of Cleves was a beautiful woman fit to be his wife he was willing to sign a marriage treaty and put the wheels in motion to bring her to England in late 1539 and set off for her new land an of Cleves would not meet her future husband until New Year's Day 1540 as it turned out this was to be an ill-fated meeting which took place at Rochester Castle many have argued that the marriage was doomed from this meeting and I think that in part it's because the greatest cause of confusion disappointment and problems that emerge from this meeting was caused by the fact that Henry the Eighth knew it was happening and anne of cleves didn't Anna clears throat sir Castle was a stop on her journey to meet her future husband but Henry the Eighth had long been fascinated with the chivalric tradition of disguising and masquerading he was firm in his belief that even disguised true lovers would recognize each other for who they really were as a young man Henry arguably one of the most beautiful Prince's in Christendom a head taller than all of his courtiers slim and athletic would frequently donned the clothes of the lower orders he would dress in homespun and play Robin Hood as a lover but that wasn't Henry anymore he was still tall but this aging King through injury and ill health was now a lot fatter than he used to be the wound on his leg scarcely healed and frequently smelt very bad without his kingly garments dressed perhaps once again in homespun a King disguised burst in with a group of friends so the story goes he went straight up to his bride-to-be and kissed her Anna Cleaves was apparently horrified both perhaps by the lack of protocol a stranger kissing her when she was the future wife of the King of England and maybe also a bit of personal revulsion at this rather unattractive man pouring at her Henry was embarrassed enraged and ultimately disappointed in what he found he is said to have burst out of the room turned to Cromwell and said I like her not I like her not it would appear that there was no coming back from this some have suggested that Henry wasn't just put off by Anne of Cleves inability to play the game of the English Court rather he may also have been dissuaded of her attractiveness because of her difference from his previous wives Henry's three previous wives had been relatively petite women small bones someone described an of Cleves what the portray didn't show is that she may have been a woman of quite tall stature big boned with strong features perhaps this difference was enough to put Henry off in such a profound way however it is also worth mentioning that that well-known phrase about Anne of Cleves that she was quote a flawed as mayor is never said by Henry as Tracy Bauman has pointed out this comes from a much later 17th century description of her by Bishop Gilbert Burnett after this disastrous meeting Henry the eighth was keen to do anything he could to get himself out of the Gordian knot of this marriage he didn't want to go through with it unfortunately for Henry he had tasked Thomas Cromwell that arch legal mind with being involved with drawing up the treaty and the contract no matter what Henry put forward it was ironclad he was going to have to go through with it and so he did on the 6th of January 1540 he went complaining and it seems that the wedding night did not go much better the next day on the morning of the 7th of January 1540 he complained of his new bride to Thomas Cromwell saying that he could not bring himself to consummate his marriage with his new wife because she was smelly fat and it had sex before I rather liked Susanna Lipscomb's analysis of this in which she says in that bed that night there certainly was one person who was smelly fat and not a virgin but it almost certainly wasn't an of many people search a conversation the anne of cleves was said to have had with her ladies not long after her marriage as proof of her virginity and actually her lack of knowledge about anything sexual in conversation with her lady she talked about how her husband Henry the eighth would come to bed with her he would kiss her and say goodnight sweetheart and the next morning he would kiss her again and say good morning darling she asked is this not enough upon hearing this from their new queen one of her ladies rather saucily responded that they would need to be more than that or else it would be a very long time before they welcomed her Duke of York which all the nations so heartily desired what we can say for sure about Henry the eighth is that he is frequently very good at turning feelings into facts and and getting what he wants and what he wants at this present time is for the recognition that his marriage to Anne of Cleves is invalid it has not been consummated and it won't be consummated he ensures that his doctor dr. Butz tells the world that he is perfectly capable of having sex that he has had nocturnal emissions or wet dreams the problem isn't with him of course it's with anne of cleves matters only get worse because after spring 1540 henry has got his eyes set on somebody else one of his wife's ladies-in-waiting doesn't that sound familiar this time it is the young nubile Catherine Howard and Days as Queen on numbered on the 24th of June 1540 Anne of Cleves was banished from court she was sent away from her husband's side and ordered to remain at Richmond Palace on the 9th of July 1540 her marriage to Henry the eighth was declared illegal three days later Parliament granted the couple an annulment on the 28th of July 1540 Henry the eighth married his fifth wife Catherine Howard on the very same day the man who had brokered the marriage of Anne of Cleves to Henry the eighth his longtime advisor and and Thomas Cromwell was put to death by the time of his fifth marriage and had completely submitted to her former husband she willingly accepted the annulment of their marriage and Henry modified that he had at last found a woman who would do exactly what he wanted rewarded her handsomely she was given a pension and many fine houses including Richmond Palace Bletchley Manor and later the family home of Anne Boleyn Hever Castle as a further act of his gratitude for her compliance Henry determined that he referred to her henceforth as his own sister she would have precedence over every woman in England excluding of course his wife and daughters and had been wonderfully pliant in fact she was welcomed back to court as well she spent time with the newlywed couple with Henry the eighth's and his new bride Catherine Howard it is said that on occasions she and Catherine Howard danced together before the king the former Queen and the new Queen mistress and former servant seemed to be working in concert for once Henry had a former wife who would do as she was told it must have felt like a blessed relief Anne of Cleves easy manner and her capacity to please ensured that she is one of the great survivors of Henry's Court and indeed the Tudor dynasty she lived out the rest of Henry's reign in comfort security and also honor moving between the various houses he had given her and enjoying her pension from him she outlived Henry and indeed all of his wives despite what the old children's rhyme might say divorced beheaded died divorced beheaded survived she was the true survivor as far as I'm concerned she saw Henry's son and heir Edward come to the throne she was also there when Mary the first ascended and in fact she and Elizabeth occupied places of honor at the coronation all too often Anne of Cleves is a figure of sympathy the ugly slighted wife cast aside and left in the country never to Mary always ignored but that simply isn't true after her ready acceptance of her annulment from Henry the 8th she was welcomed back to court she danced with the Queen and for me this is yet more evidence that she was actually rather attractive she couldn't have been as ugly as people make out part of the points of the royal court part of the way that you gain entry is not simply by being noble all courts require people to be an ornament and that includes physical beauty there is an expectation that the people of Court will be beautiful they will be skillful they will be entertaining and witty they have to be quadruple threats somebody who is repulsive looking unless of course they are the king or the queen it's not going to get much traction at court the king is not going to host anybody who is that repulsively ugly he could quite simply have paid her off sent her to the countryside and kept her there by inviting her back to court at least in some way she proved to be an ornament as far as he was concerned something that he wished to add to his court and it doesn't seem that she had a natural aptitude the other things that would have made her an ornament to the English court life in Cleves while there was access to great scholars like her asthma's on behalf of her father was not the same as the English Court it was not deemed fitting or meet for a young woman of noble birth to be engaged in learning foreign languages dancing the other flighty pastimes that made up the court of England and their entertainments Anne had not had this education from childhood it was not her natural skill rather it was said that you would most often find her at her needle so she isn't an ornament for court because of what she adds as a dancer or a card player or a linguist so for me it's because she is a pleasant temperament and also not unpleasant to look at that she finds herself welcomed back to court despite the fact that she is discarded wife a potential source of embarrassment for Henry clearly she has something to offer that me is that he keeps bringing her back but I'd love to know what you think of Anne of Cleves her beauty or otherwise and more generally of this video topic so let me know in the comments section or you can come and find me over on my social media as always I'll be leaving the links to my Instagram and Twitter in the description box follow me there and we can continue this conversation I do hope you enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did then please let me know by hitting the thumbs up please also subscribe to this channel and while you're there why not hit the notification bell next subscribe button so that YouTube tells you what i'v next uploaded I hope you're gonna have a great day whatever you're doing and I look forward to speaking to you in my next video take care of yourselves bye bye for now [Music] [Music]

Channel: Reading the Past

Views: 402,547

Rating: 4.9362559 out of 5

Keywords: Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII, Six Wives, Tudors, Flanders Mare, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance

Id: NAV17A36imQ

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 06 2020