Warnicke, the author acknowledges the unsubstantiated nature of her claim but points out, per a separate blog post for the Tudor Times, that while “the evidence is not conclusive, … you may find it convincing or that it makes you think again, as I did.” In a 2018 interview with The New York Times, Weir explained that her theory stems from a “hitherto unnoticed thread of evidence that merited further investigation.” Citing the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, as well as biographies by Elizabeth Norton, Mary Saaler and Retha M. Anne, from then on known as the “ King’s beloved sister,” spent the rest of her days in England, outliving not only her former husband, but both of the wives that followed her and her one-time stepson, Edward VI. Declaring “I like her not! I like her not!” after his first meeting with her, the English king only went through with the wedding to maintain diplomatic ties with Anne’s home, the German Duchy of Cleves, and other Protestant allies across the European continent.Īfter just six months of marriage, Henry, eager to replace his short-reigning queen with the young, vivacious Catherine Howard, had the union annulled on the grounds of non-consummation and Anne’s pre-contract with Francis, Duke of Lorraine. The traditional story widely accepted by historians is far less scandalous: Henry, enchanted by a flattering Hans Holbein portrait of his bride-to-be, was repulsed by the “ tall, big-boned and strong-featured” woman who arrived in England at the beginning of 1540. As Sarah Knapton reports for the Telegraph, Weir’s Anna of Kleve: The Princess in the Portrait, the fourth installment in the non-fiction and fiction writer’s Six Tudor Queens series, theorizes that the notoriously mercurial king ended his marriage after discovering his new wife had already conceived a child with another man. A new novel by Tudor historian Alison Weir outlines a controversial alternative to the oft-cited account of Henry VIII’s divorce from his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.
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