Was Anne of Cleves really ugly?

Stereotypically labeled as the Flanders Mare, Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of Henry VIII, has held the reputation of being ugly and unattractive ever since the Tudor king laid eyes on her in 1540! But was Anne really what all the courtiers and historians have labeled her as? To be honest, no courtier could really disagree with the king without the danger of losing his or her's life, and if King Henry disliked her looks, then the court would more than likely have agreed with him.

'Anne of Cleves' by Hans Holbein the Younger

In 1539, two years after the death of Henry VIII's third and quite possibly his favourite wife Jane Seymour, the king sent a member of Thomas Cromwell's household- Christopher Mont- to inspect a suitable candidate for the king to wed. Mont returned to England from Cleves in Germany with the report that everyone praises the young woman on her beauty. This impressed Henry as Anne, the reported German beauty, had already agreed to marry Henry whereas many other ladies had turned him down, one even went as far as saying that she would marry him, if she had two heads! After Mont's return, the king dispatched his most favoured painter, Hans Holbein the Younger, to paint him a portrait of Anne of Cleves. The portrait that was sent back was that of a beautiful young woman. Therefore Henry was incredibly impressed with it and said yes he most defiantly would marry Anne. However when Henry decided to play one of his favourite tricks on his 24 years old bride- to- be, he was shocked at what he saw. he supposedly told his courtiers "I like her not!". The ambassadors had failed to mention that Anne did not speak English, only German, as a result the couple could not communicate. Although Henry had to go through with the marriage in January of 1540, he divorced his wife in the June of the same year. But the king did not abandon her with literally nothing, as he had done with his first wife Catherine of Aragon, he rewarded her with several castles, an annual allowance and the title 'The King's Sister'. For the remaining years of his life, Henry and Anne remained firm friends. Now lets establish some of the reasons why King Henry VIII of England divorced and disliked his fourth wife Queen Anne of Cleves, as well as some theories and myths cooked up by historians and courtiers over the years. 

• According to her fiancé, she was ugly and he unkindly nicknamed her the Flanders Mare.
• Henry also stated that she smelt vile.
• Rumours were spread that the new queen was not a virgin.
• Anne was a strict reformer (aka- Lutheran)
• She produced no children, unsurprisingly, for Henry.
• And finally, the most absurd of all- she was a lesbian and had an affair with Catherine Howard.

To start with, Anne was not considered beautiful in England partly because her dress sense was not the typical English style. We known this because the Holbein portrait pictures Anne with a very different head- dress to the fashion that English noble women were wearing. And as for her being 'frumpy', the German style of dress was again very different, and Anne had grown up with heavier fashion with wider skirts. On their wedding night, Henry had emerged from the chamber complaining about a vile odour, but that is a lot to say for an old man who had a smelly leg ulcer! People believed that Anne was not a virgin due to the size and looseness of her breasts, told by the closest servants and courtiers to the queen. Whether she was a virgin, we will never know. We do know that Anne was a reformer because of reports from the time but her mother was a devout Catholic who closely controlled her daughters' education scheme and her father, although he followed the Lutheran guidelines on how to live, he was apparently more humanist than anything else. There is also no way that Anne could have produced children with Henry in such a short space of time and if she did it would have been reported, especially if it was a boy! Finally, (no offence meant to homosexual people), but if Anne had had an affair with a fellow woman at that time, it would have been considered against the laws of God and goodness knows what fate would have befell the women. 

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