Tag: "A Moment in Time" with Dan Roberts.

Content: After mourning the loss of Queen Jane Seymour Henry set out to replace her. As a husband the King of England left much to be desired. He was fat, had the gout, was overbearing, and had an unsavory reputation among the royal families in Europe at the time. After all he had dismissed his first wife in the middle of great international dispute, married his mistress, chopped off her head, and then married her lady-in-waiting. Perhaps it was the jokes currently in fashion that made the search for a fourth royal wife seem so difficult. The young Duchess Christina of Milan may not have actually said, as it was rumored, that if she had two necks, the King should have one of them, but such a myth was consistent with the general trend of gossip abroad at the beginning of 1538. Mary de Guise of France might not actually have reacted to Henry's expressed interest in her voluptuous figure by remarking that she might be a big women, but she had a very little neck. As you can see, Henry had a problem.

He was also in trouble diplomatically. France and Spain signed a peace treaty in June of that year. That meant England was isolated and in need of an ally. The logical place to turn was Protestant Germany and hence the candidate for Queen came from the duchy of Cleaves in the Rhine Valley. Anne was the sister of the Duke and the match was advocated by the King's first minister, Thomas Cromwell, as an ideal diplomatic marriage. Unfortunately, Cromwell neither knew the person of the bride nor considered the expectations of the groom. From the moment the two met in a confused scene in which Henry, tired of waiting, paid a surprise visit to the candidate in her quarters, they did not get along. Henry did not like the way she looked (he considered her more than a little dowdy) or acted and it was downhill from there. They were married on January 6, 1540, an apprehensive bride and a disappointed groom. They probably did not consummate the marriage and it was over in six months. To be sure Henry was generous with Anne, called her his "good sister" and she ended her life in comparative comfort. She was buried in 1557 in Westminster Abbey.

Europe was astonished at the divorce but by that time Henry was in love again and had moved on to wife number five.

At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

Resources

Dowling, Maria. "A Woman's Place? Learning in the Wives of Henry VIII," History Today (Great Britain), 1991 41 (June): 38-42.

Fraser, Antonia. The Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Knopf Publishing Company, 1992.

Mattingly, Garrett. Catherine of Aragon. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1941.

Scarisbrick, J.J. Henry VIII. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.

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