Early Days in Cleves 1515–1536

Anna von Julich-Kleve-Berg or Anne of Cleves, as she would be known as Henry VIII's fourth wife, was born on 22 September 1515 in the city palace at Düsseldorf on the east side of the Rhine. She was the second daughter to be born to John III, Duke of Cleves and his wife Maria of Jülich-Berg who had married in 1510 at Castle Burg, a fortified hunting lodge in Solingen, perched high on a mountainous plateau overlooking the River Wupper. A place where Anne would spend much of her childhood playing with her siblings; her elder sister Sybilla, who had been born in 1512, William who would join them in 1516 and Amelia in 1517.

Düsseldorf was then the principal city of Cleves and the seat of the ducal court during winter. Cleves was a small duchy in what is now northwest Germany but was then a state of the Holy Roman Empire although ruled independently. Since 1394 Cleves and the nearby county of Mark had been ruled together but when Anne's father succeeded as Duke of Cleves on her grandfather's death in 1521, through his marriage to her mother, Maria, the states of Jülich and Berg joined with Cleves, Mark and Ravensburgh to make up the United Duchies of Jülich–Cleves–Berg. Thus John III ruled a strategic portion of the Lower Rhine.

Anne had an impressive lineage being descended from Edward I of England and King John II of France and the dukes of Burgundy. Her grandfather John II 'the babymaker', rumoured to have had sixty-three illegitimate children, was the grandson of Maria of Burgundy, sister to Philip the Good and through him Anne was distantly related to the Holy Roman Emperor from 1519, Charles V. John III had a good relationship with Charles accompanying him to England on his visit in 1522 when Henry VIII met his nephew 'with much joy and gladness'.

For all her background, Anne was never meant to marry a king. She was a suitable bride for a duke or a prince but her family never entertained the notion that she would be anything else. Instead she stayed close to her mother 'never from her elbow' and learnt from the matriarch of her family. Her devoutly Catholic mother Maria took charge of Anne's education as she did her other children. William, their only son, would later leave her care to be educated as befit a duke's son but the girls were not seen as needing schooling in anything other than how to be a lady. Anne's time was mostly spent on needlework and embroidery. The only language she learnt to read and write was German. Unlike English ladies, music, singing and dance were not a feature in her education. It was reported 'they take it here in Germany for a rebuke and an occasion of lightness that great ladies should be learned or have any knowledge of music'. But Anne's life wasn't entirely without melody. The Cleves court had an orchestra of musicians and her mother was known to enjoy harp music.

Anne's elder sister Sybilla was betrothed in 1526 at Castle Burg and married John Frederick of Saxony in 9 February 1527 at Torgau on the banks of the Elbe in northwest Germany. Her betrothal portrait by Lucas Cranach shows a beautiful young girl with her auburn hair flowing over her shoulders, adorned with a band of flowers and a luxurious feather. Sybilla would join her husband in his interest of religious reformation in a court with one of the largest libraries in Germany which had harboured Martin Luther after the publication of his 95 Theses causing controversial religious debate and leading to his papal excommunication. Her husband's uncle Frederick III when elector had founded the University of Wittenberg where Luther taught. When Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, declared him an outlaw on 25 May 1521, Frederick staged Luther's disappearance and secreted him at Wartburg Castle at Eisenach where he was known only as 'the Knight George' to continue his controversial writings. Luther's teachings remained influential through the next elector's reign and passed down to Sybilla's husband, John.

The same year as her sister married, Anne's betrothal to the younger Francis, heir to the Duchy of Lorraine, was being negotiated. The Duke of Guelders from a neighbouring duchy had no heirs but many claimants to his lands. Anne's father, John III, was one of them and it was agreed that he would pass his claim on to his daughter and Francis of Lorraine (son of the duke's nephew) would become the duke's heir. The marriage contract was signed 5 June 1527 but there was no betrothal ceremony and Anne and Francis did not even meet nor give consent to the match. Francis was only nine at the time and beneath the age of consent so the contract was de futura – a promise to marry at a future date that was only legally binding if consummated. Anne would remain with her mother until she was in her twenties but this marriage contract would be called into question at a later date.

An alliance with England was considered at the Tudor court as early as May 1530 when Sir Herman Ryngk urged Henry VIII to consider an agreement with the Duke of Cleves in case of war with France, Burgundy or Spain as he possessed 'three most powerful duchies and two earldoms, and many towns not only strong but populous. If England were in danger he could alone raise an army sufficient to defend it; and he is descended from the same stock as the kings of England, as will be shown by a genealogy'. Although not specifically stated the negotiations must have included a marriage with William 'fifteen years old, of middle height, brown complexion, sound in body and limbs well learned, and speaks Latin and French' to the Princess Mary as Ryngk discounts Sybilla as being married, Anne contracted and Amelia still in her minority. Ryngk lived in Cologne but was a Hanseatic merchant of the London Steelyard and paid to bring news to Henry's court. His suggestion was followed in 1531 by a visit from Cleves ambassadors to further a marriage proposal. It was just one of several proposals for Henry VIII's daughter that would come to nothing. Though it was raised again in 1538, Mary would not marry until 1554 and then to Philip II of Spain.

Whilst Anne followed the religion of her Catholic mother, her sister was becoming more involved in the Protestant Reformation. In 1531, the Schmalkaldic League was formed of eight Lutheran princes across eleven cities in reaction to Charles V's insistence they return to the Catholic Church and the proposed election of Ferdinand as King of the Romans and the emperor's heir. This defensive league was headed by Anne's brother-in-law John Frederick and Philip, Landgrave of Hesse and commanded a military force of 10,000 foot and 2000 cavalry to protect its members from attack by Charles V and his allies. Trying to gain support from England they sent ambassadors to Henry VIII but for the time being he had no wish to become embroiled in their quarrels. Henry had no love of Luther's teachings. His title 'defender of the faith' had come about from writing his Defence of the Seven Sacraments that lambasted Luther's ideas yet the league might be an ally should England's relationship with the Holy Roman Emperor worsen.

John Frederick became Duke of Saxony after his father's death in August 1532 and encouraged Luther to continue his writings. Anne's sister Sybilla was as committed to reform as her husband was and corresponded with several of the key reformers of the times. One Justus Menius dedicated his work Oeconomia Christiana to her, a book that expounded on the correct way to keep a Christian household.

Anne's mother Maria had a Catholic confessor Dom Joannes Justus Lanspergius, a prodigious writer. Amongst his works were two papers scorning Lutheran beliefs, which Maria may well have shared with her daughter. Anne must have wondered why her sister was so supportive of the controversial reformer with ideals so contrary to her mother's and father's beliefs. Sybilla may have married the head of the Protestant league but her father John, who leant more towards the teachings of Erasmus, banned the writings of Luther as 'vain, wrong and heretical'. Anne never seems to have swayed from her mother's religion. Sybilla would write to Anne all their lives but the girls were very different and on matters of religion they would never agree.

Although Lutheran Protestantism was popular across Germany, Cleves was not overtly protestant and the duke was more concerned with Catholic reform. Anne's father was known as 'the peaceful' or more derogatory 'the simple' for trying to find a middle ground. The Cleves family motto was candida nostra fides – our faith is spotless. Konrad von Heresbach, the humanist scholar, acted as councillor to Anne's father and later as tutor to her brother William. His advice shaped John's revised Church Ordinance of 1533 which was taken to Erasmus for approval and would later earn him a pension from the duke. 'All preaching was to be based on scripture and the early Fathers and to avoid polemics; the preachers should be educated and properly appointed priests'. It was 'a completely Erasmian reform'.

John also reformed court behaviour with various proclamations that would affect Anne's life. He insisted that his court was orderly with no 'spontaneous parties' or excessive drinking. Is it any wonder that Anne would be completely unprepared for life in another country? We could argue that Anne's early years were dull but she may have been quite content to be the devoted daughter who never strayed far from her mother. She may well have enjoyed her simple pastimes but in 1536 she was twenty-one and past marriageable age. She was surely considering who her swan knight would be. This family legend told of how the Cleves family were descended from the swan-knight Lohengrin who came to the rescue of Elsa of Brabant held in a castle in Cleves.

It was the day on which Elsa was to be wedded to her tyrant. She had spent the night in tears and bitter lamentations, and now, weary and distraught, too hopeless even for tears, she looked out from the bars of her prison with dull, despairing eyes. Suddenly she heard the melodious strains and a moment later saw the approach of a swan-drawn boat, wherein lay a sleeping knight. Hope leapt within her, for she remembered the prophecy of an old nun, long since dead, that a sleeping knight would rescue her from grave peril. Directly he stepped ashore the youth made his way to the place of her confinement and, espying her face at the heavily barred window, knelt before her and begged that she would take him for her champion.

At that moment the blast of a trumpet was heard, followed by the voice of the herald as, for the last time, he challenged any knight to take up arms on behalf of Elsa of Brabant. Lohengrin boldly accepted the challenge, and Telramund, when the news reached him of the unexpected opposition, on the very day he had appointed for his wedding, was surprised and enraged beyond measure, yet he dared not refuse to do battle with the stranger knight, because of the Emperor's decree. So it was arranged that the combat should take place immediately. News of it reached the people of Cleves, and a great concourse gathered to witness the spectacle, all of them secretly in sympathy with the persecuted maiden, though these feelings were carefully concealed from the ruthless Telramund.

Elsa's swan-knight would remain with her on the condition she never asked his true identity. But before long curiosity got the better of her and she asked him who he was. "Oh, Elsa," he said sorrowfully, "thou knowest not what thou hast done. Thy promise is broken, and to-day I must leave thee for ever". And with that he blew a blast on his silver horn and the boat he had arrived on returned, pulled by two white swans, to take him away from his wife and sons.

The tale was one of Germanic Arthurian literature first written by Wolfram van Eschenbach in Parzival, an epic poem c.1210. As with tales of myth and folklore there are many different versions but a later story linked the legend more directly with Cleves when Beatrice the only daughter of Dietrich, the Duke of Cleves, saw a boat being pulled along by a white swan with a gold chain carrying the knight Helias towards her. He married her and became Duke of Cleves but as with the earlier legend she broke their bond by asking who is was. He left his children his sword, his horn, and his ring before he sailed away. These children would carry on the line of the swan-knight as dukes of Cleves.

Swans were an ever present theme in Anne's life. She had two white swans as her heraldic device and the Schwanenburg, or Swan Castle, was one of her childhood residences used by the family in the spring and summer. Here the impressive 180 foot Swan Tower topped by a golden swan weather vane gave a vantage point from which to look out across the town of Cleve and the countryside beyond. Knights in Cleves joined the Order of the Swan founded by Frederick II of Brandenburg in 1440 and wore a badge depicting a silver swan with a gold chain, symbolism which would later be added to the Cleves coat of arms.

By the end of 1536, the man who was to be Anne's knight had already had two wives; Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn and was married to his third Jane Seymour. Katherine had died in January alone and heartsick from being divorced from the king. Anne had been beheaded in May on trumped-up charges of adultery. One day later Henry VIII became betrothed to Jane Seymour and married her on 30 May. Recent events had changed the king of England from the athletic, glorious specimen of his youth to the fuller, harsher man of middle age he had become. She did not know it yet but Anne would soon be thrown into his world and he would prove to be no swan-knight.

The Search for a Bride 1537–1539

Early in 1537 John Husee, an agent of Lord Lisle's, the governor of Calais, wrote that the king of England hardly went out as his ulcerated leg was so sore. In Tudor times to reach the age of forty was an accomplishment and Henry was now forty-five. Physically he had managed to survive without suffering much illness. He had had bouts of malaria and smallpox and occasionally suffered from constipation. Two jousting accidents had rendered him blows to the head and caused him recurring headaches. He was fastidious about the risk of ill health, moving his court away from areas affected by prevalent disease like the sweating sickness and bubonic plague. He had suffered from ulcers on his leg from 1527 and liked coming up with his own remedies including The King's Own Grey Plaster, a remedy to ease his pain and reduce inflammation. Its ingredients included roots and buds from plants, vinegar, rosewater, ivory flakes, powdered pearls and less savoury ingredients like earthworms, lead, chicken and calf fat.

Mentally the king had been going through one of the toughest times in his life from his divorce to his marriage with his second wife Anne Boleyn and her subsequent trial and execution in 1536. The pope had threatened to excommunicate him and although Henry had promised in 1534 he would not 'decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's church in any things concerning the very articles of the Catholic faith of Christendom', his relationship with Rome would worsen and his people would rise up against him. The Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 was a rebellion that arose in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire due to Henry's policy of dissolving the monasteries, his break with Rome and many other grievances including those against chief minister Thomas Cromwell's policies. Cromwell had worked in Thomas Wolsey's household and risen to become the cardinal's secretary. By the end of 1530 he had joined the Privy Council and Henry made him chief minister and the king's principal secretary officially at the end of 1534. He was instrumental in both the king's divorce from Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn's downfall. Cromwell was Henrys go-to man of 'singular excellence of wit, joined with an industrious diligence of mind' but he was unpopular with the people for his sweeping reformations.

The Pilgrimage of Grace was a well organised uprising that swelled to over 30,000 men and 'After the king's highness was informed of this newly arisen insurrection he, making no delay in so weighty a matter, caused with all speed the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the marquis of Exeter, the earl of Shrewsbury and others, accompanied by his mighty and royal army which was of great power and strength, immediately to set upon the rebels. But when these noble captains and counsellors approached the rebels and saw their number and how they were determined on battle, they worked with great prudence to pacify all without shedding blood'. In fact Henry's army was no match for the rebels and Norfolk persuaded their leaders to accept peace terms with promises of change and redress. It was not to be forthcoming and in July 1537 many of the rebels were executed.