Divorced, Beheaded, Survived

In the final part of our series, Henry VIII is three wives down and in search of his next royal bride

- Neil Jones

Part Two The death in 1537 of Henry VIII’s third wife Jane Seymour had cast the King into a deep depression and his marital track record – divorcing his first wife Catherine of Aragon and executing his second wife Anne Boleyn – hardly recommended him to a prospective fourth wife. Nevertheless courtiers, anxious that their sovereign should have a male “spare” to add to his heir Edward, began hunting for another royal bride.

Henry’s closest advisor Thomas Cromwell was particularly keen for a match from Germany in order to create an alliance against the Catholic threat of Spain and France. Anne of Cleves fitted the bill and Hans Holbein was commissioned to paint her portrait in order to persuade the King of her attractiveness; then Anne was duly shipped over. What happened next was pure farce.

Henry, now 48, decided to “nourish love” with his 24-year-old bride by turning up to meet her in the Old Hall behind Rochester Castle dressed in disguise as a New Year’s Day (1540) surprise. Speaking no English, a baffled Anne failed to appreciate the charade and Henry, unimpressed by her looks in person, ungallantly declared, “I like her not”. But no amount of royal wriggling got him off the hook and they were married within the week. Was Anne really the ugly “Flanders mare” of popular history?

Contemporary reports describe her as tall, thin, “of middling beauty, with a determined and resolute countenance”, and even King Henry admitted she was “well and seemly” if not as beautiful as he had hoped. Yet the wedding night was a disaster, with Henry lamenting he could never be “steered to know her carnally”.