Anna of Kleve, the Princess in the Portrait

by Alison Weir

  Anna nodded her head reluctantly. She waited while the doctor summoned his young son to make water, and held her breath as he slapped the wetted cloth, still warm, on her breast.

  “We will try this daily until the sore improves,” Dr. Symonds said. “There’s plenty more where that came from!”

  * * *

  —

  Anna refrained from checking herself every day to see if the sore was better. Instead, she tried to focus on her financial affairs. She had engaged Sir Richard Freston in Jasper’s place, on Mr. Carew’s recommendation, but he was nowhere near as efficient as Jasper had been, and lacked the authority to impose economies. Once again, she was low in funds.

  Late the previous year, when she had asked the Council for help, they had merely taken back The More, saying it would save her money to have one house fewer to keep up. They’d also suggested she exchange Westhorpe for another property, but she had resisted. Now, Sir Richard Freston and Mr. Throckmorton were urging her to part with it, and she was seriously considering going ahead. What need did she have of a great palace like Westhorpe, when she had Dartford and Penshurst and the use of Bletchingley?

  She did not like to look into her mirror these days. The last time, she had been shocked to see herself looking so pale and thin. Her clothes were now hanging on her, even when laced to the fullest extent. Her strength was failing, she knew it. She had noticed her household fussing around her more than usual, alert to every little need.

  Word had reached the Queen that she was unwell. She was informed, by Lord Paget in person, that Mary was sorry to hear it.

  “Her Majesty has granted you the use of the palace of Chelsea,” he said, and there was in his eyes a rare gentleness. “It is in a healthy, rural location by the Thames, and has beautiful gardens, which should be looking their best at this time of year.”

  “I am deeply touched by her Majesty’s kindness,” Anna told him. “Chelsea might be just the tonic I need.”

  “The Queen thought it would be an excellent place in which to rest and recover,” Paget said. “For my part, I wish your Highness a speedy return to health. May God have you in His keeping.”

  * * *

  —

  A change, she reckoned, might do her a power of good. In May, as soon as the keys to Chelsea were in her hands, she ordered her household to make ready for the move.

  If only Otho could be here with her, she thought, as she beheld the exquisite little palace, its mullioned windows glinting in the sunshine. The longing for him was a constant piercing ache, worse than the pain in her breast. How he would love this place! It was a peaceful haven, and she began to hope that, living in this healthful air, she would at last be cured.

  “I will walk awhile before exploring the house,” she said. “The gardens are in glorious bloom.”

  Alighting from her litter, she took Johann’s arm and strolled slowly along the path to her privy garden, savoring the heady scent emanating from the banks of rosemary, the borders of lavender, the damask roses, and the privet hedges. There were cherry trees, filbert and damson trees, even peach trees.

  “Didn’t Queen Katharine live here with Admiral Seymour?” she asked Sir John Guildford, who was following behind with her other officers and her ladies. Mother Lowe was waddling along, leaning on her stick and admiring the flowers.

  “Yes, Madam, and then it was leased to the Duke of Northumberland’s widow. I believe it has been in the Crown’s hands since her death last year.”

  The palace was built of brick. It had three halls, three parlors, three kitchens, and fine chambers on the ground floor. Upstairs, Anna found three withdrawing rooms and seventeen bedchambers. The apartment she chose for herself was a summer bedchamber overlooking the Great Garden.

  By the time she had finished the tour, she was exhausted, and lay down on her bed to sleep, with a breeze from the open window playing on her face. “Otho, my beloved,” she murmured. “Please come soon!”

  * * *

  —

  She awoke to pain. The sore on her breast was throbbing as never before. She caught her breath, wincing.

  Mother Lowe was sitting by the bed, peering at her anxiously. She was old now, and weak, so Anna had not confided in her how bad her malady was. But those faded eyes missed little.

  “I’m not blind, you know,” Mother Lowe said. “I can see you are suffering. You’ve not been well for some time, have you?”

  “No,” Anna admitted. “I did not want you to fret about me, as I knew you would do. But I have felt so poorly lately, and I don’t seem to be getting any better. In fact, I feel worse as each day goes by—and I’m frightened!” She gripped Mother Lowe’s hand.

  “Hush now,” the nurse soothed, stroking Anna’s hair. “Tell me what’s the matter.”

  “It’s this.” Anna unlaced her bodice and pulled down her chemise. She watched Mother Lowe recoil, saw the horrified look on her face, quickly masked by a reassuring smile.

  “Well, we’d better get Dr. Symonds to have another look at that,” she said, her voice hoarse.

  The doctor came quickly and examined the sore, tight-lipped. Anna summoned the courage to peer at it, and wished she hadn’t, for it was livid and blackened, with a rough surface.

  “The urine cure didn’t work,” she whispered.

  There was a pause. “No, my lady, but there are others we can try. I recommend a poultice of oil of roses, burnt lead, and camphor, and will have it mixed in a mortar. Applied to the sore, it will corrode the acrimony of the evil humor.”

  She prayed he was right. Mother Lowe stood by as the pungent-smelling ointment was applied, and Anna offered up fervent prayers for its efficacy.

  * * *

  —

  That month, Anna learned that Sir Thomas Cawarden had been incarcerated in the Fleet prison. Sir John did not know why, but feared it was to do with some heresy. Anna prayed for Cawarden’s deliverance. He was his own worst enemy, for certain, reckless and indiscreet. She would wager he had been involved in every plot against the Queen.

  But gradually, as the summer days lengthened, Sir Thomas, the world, and its superficial affairs seemed increasingly far away. By June, Anna’s universe had narrowed down to her summer bedroom, for she no longer had the strength to leave her bed. The ointment had been of no use, yet still Dr. Symonds labored indefatigably to cure her, or at least alleviate some of the pain she was suffering. It was eating into her now. Her surgeon, Mr. Blundey, bled her as often as he dared, to balance her body’s humors and rid it of the poison that had invaded it.

  Mother Lowe was in constant attendance, insisting on doing even the most menial nursing chores herself, and Anna’s ladies and maids were ever at the ready to perform the smallest task for her. Meister Schoulenburg served up the choicest fare, in small portions, for she could eat little, and all her officers and servants took great pains to see to her comfort. She felt surrounded by love. But the love she needed most was denied her.

  By the middle of July, she knew she was dying. She could barely endure the pain, which no medicine could relieve, and could only pray that the end would come soon. There had been no good news from Kleve, and she knew now that, short of a miracle, she would never see her beloved Otho again in this world. All she had left of him was their son, whom she rarely saw now, since his duties did not often bring him into the sickroom. How she missed the constant sight of him!

  In her dreams, she was whole again, and she and Otho were lovers, untrammeled by convention or the cruel decrees of others. They were such vivid dreams that when she awoke, she thought they had been real. It was a misery to her to be dragged back into her woeful existence.

  * * *

  —

  It could not be long now, she knew it. She sent for a lawyer, and dictated to him her will. It took four days, since the effort tired her so much.

  “I bequeath my
soul to the Holy Trinity. My body is to be buried where it shall please God,” she instructed. “I pray that the Queen’s most excellent Majesty will ensure that my debts are paid; and I ask that my executors be good masters to my poor servants, to all of whom, as well as to my faithful officers, I give and bequeath one whole year’s wages, and as much black cloth as will make every one of them a mourning gown with a hood and coat. Ooh…”

  The pain was so bad that she could not go on.

  The next day, she felt a little better, and directed the lawyer to draw up a list of bequests to be given to Mother Lowe and the gentlewomen of her privy chamber for the great pains they had taken in serving and, latterly, nursing her. She rested after that, and partook of a little pottage. In the afternoon, she enumerated the bequests to her gentlemen, her yeomen, and her grooms, insisting that one pound each be left to all the children of her servants.

  On the third day, feeling herself growing weaker, she directed that Wilhelm be given her gold ring with the diamond shaped like a heart. To Wilhelm’s wife, she left a ruby ring, and to Emily another diamond ring. She thought too to remember the Duchess of Suffolk, who had been a friend to her in the past; she was to have a gold ring with a table diamond. She left a ring to Lord Paget too, because he had shown kindness to her when they last met.

  That was enough for now, she told the lawyer. The pain was gnawing, so badly she could barely speak. She looked down at her wasted body; it was so slight under the light counterpane. She was fading away.

  * * *

  —

  That evening, she felt able to resume. She directed that her plate, jewels, and robes be sold with her other goods to pay her debts, legacies, and funeral expenses.

  She remembered Dr. Symonds and Mr. Blundey. They must be well rewarded for their pains. Nor did she forget her chaplains, whom she asked to pray for her, or her old laundress. She left money for the education of the alms children she had succored out of charity, and for the poor people of Richmond, Bletchingley, Hever, and Dartford.

  It grieved her that she could not openly acknowledge Johann, or give him more than his fellow servants; she had to content herself with leaving him the same sum they would receive. To Otho she left twenty pounds, all she could afford. It was a small price to pay for his devotion over the years, and all that he was to her, but he would understand, and it would help him to start a new life in Kleve.

  On the fourth day, Anna remembered everyone else she wanted to benefit from her will. Mindful that her German servants might wish to go home to Kleve, she left money to assist their passage.

  “And lastly,” she murmured, “I earnestly desire our most dear and entirely beloved sovereign lady, Queen Mary, to be the overseer of my will, and to see it carried out as shall seem best for the health of my soul. In token of the special trust and affection I have in her Grace, I wish her to have my best jewel. And because her Majesty’s late father of most famous memory, King Henry the Eighth, said to me that, if I died, he would account my servants his own, I beseech her to accept them in this time of their extreme need. And I would like the Lady Elizabeth to have my second-best jewel.”

  A few more bequests to her executors, and it was done. The lawyer gave her the document and shakily she wrote, “Anna, the daughter of Kleve.”

  He looked at her, his eyes full of compassion. “My lady, I have drawn up many wills in my time, but I have never seen one that contains such kindness and compassion for others. May God bless you, and ease your pain.”

  * * *

  —

  Her chaplains stayed with her all that night, kneeling by her bed and praying. She felt death drawing near, yet there was one more thing she must do before she left this world. Lying there feeling her strength ebb away, she had thought long and hard on the matter, and now her mind was made up.

  “Send for Johann,” she bade Sir Otto Rumpello, interrupting his prayers. “This will not wait.”

  He gave her a searching look, but rose from his knees and hastened away.

  When Johann came, looking plainly shocked to see her so ill, she sent the chaplain away and reached for his hand.

  “I am dying,” she said gently, “and I wanted to see you one more time.”

  “No!” he protested, his eyes wet with sorrow. “No, you cannot be dying.”

  She squeezed his hand to still his distress. “It is God’s will,” she said, “and we must bow to His pleasure. I have left you a bequest. It is not enough, and I want you to know why. You see, my dear Johann, even now I have to keep it a secret…” She was so weak with emotion she could barely continue, and lay for a few moments just gazing at his beloved face. Then she made a great effort to speak. “My darling boy, you are my son, and Otho von Wylich is your father.”

  He stared at her, his eyes brimming with tears. “Am I dreaming?” he asked. “In faith, I am speechless.”

  “Do not be angry with me for failing to tell you,” she pleaded. “When I am gone, go to your father in Kleve, and he will explain all. I want you to know that I have loved you with all my heart, all your life, and that it has been a tragedy to me that I could never recognize you as my own. But I have loved you, and watched over you, and longed for you, and you will take that love with you wherever you go. It is my true bequest to you.”

  To her joy, Johann bent forward, tears streaming down his cheeks, and gathered her gently in his arms. “My mother,” he said wonderingly. “In some way I must have known it, for truly I have loved you too.”

  “Say you forgive me!” Anna begged, using the last of her strength to embrace him as tightly as she could.

  “I would forgive you anything, my lady mother, you know that,” he wept. “I am sure you had your reasons. And I am proud, proud to be your son!”

  The pain struck then, like a knife in Anna’s bosom. She cried out, clutching herself, and Johann shouted for help. They came running, the chaplain and the doctor and the women, even Mother Lowe on her creaking legs. Soon the whole household had crowded into the bedchamber.

  Sir Otto gave Anna the last rites of the Church, as everyone knelt around the bed. Anna was barely aware of making her peace with God, the pain was so vicious. When she had received the final blessing, and been anointed with holy oil for her final journey, she lay there trying to rise above the agony, with Mother Lowe and Johann holding her hands, one on each side of the bed. She could hear her people weeping. But they should be glad for her. Her ordeal would soon be over.

  And then, suddenly, the pain was gone, and he was there, coming through the door, her handsome, shining Otho, and he was standing beside Johann, and they were a family at last, as they had never been before, and her heart was soaring with joy. He had come back for her, as he had promised.

  Author’s Note

  Anna of Kleve was the only one of Henry VIII’s queens to be accorded the honor of burial in Westminster Abbey. On August 3, 1557, she was interred, by Queen Mary’s order, in the south transept, with great ceremony. The Queen invited Anna’s countryman, the stonemason Theodore Haveus, to come over from Kleve and fashion a monument, which bears the earliest examples of a skull and crossbones to appear in England. It remained unfinished a century after Anna’s death. Today, it consists only of a freestone base of three bays divided by paneled pedestals, elaborately carved with Renaissance ornament, Anna’s initials, and the crowned arms of Kleve. The tomb is obscured by two others from the late seventeenth century.

  Mary I did not long survive Anna. She died on November 17, 1558, and was succeeded by her sister, Queen Elizabeth I. Mary was buried not far from Anna, in a tomb in one of the side chapels of the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey, where Elizabeth’s body would also be laid to rest when the Tudor dynasty became extinct in 1603.

  Anne of Cleves, as she is commonly known, signed herself “Anna,” which is why I have used that form here. Although English sources usually call her Anne, Henry VIII c
ame to refer to her as Anna. Correctly, she should be called Anna von Kleve. Kleve is the German name of the town and duchy, Cleves the anglicized form.

  It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what it was about Anna that aroused such distaste in Henry VIII. He was realistic enough to accept that a monarch had to marry for the good of his realm, yet toward Anna he professed to feel such an abhorrence that he was ready to put his own needs before the benefit of his kingdom—and risk alienating her brother and the German princes whose friendship he needed.

  It is often said that he found her unattractive, and that she was not like her portrait. In painting her full-faced, Holbein undoubtedly chose the most flattering angle. Wotton thought it a good likeness, and there is no record of Henry VIII complaining that Holbein had deceived him. However, portraits in which Anna is shown three-quarter-faced are less kind to her. One, in St. John’s College, Oxford, portrays her as having a more angular face with a prominent pointed chin, heavy-lidded eyes, and a long pointed nose. Recent X-rays of this portrait reveal an even longer nose. Another portrait, in Trinity College, Cambridge, shows a coarser-featured Anna. She was probably no great beauty—the French ambassador Marillac’s reports bear that out. Yet Henry VIII himself was to concede that she was “well and seemly” in person. Others even described her as beautiful or handsome.

  Henry was a fastidious man, and after his wedding night, he complained that his bride had “very evil smells about her,” which probably accounted for his distaste. He may also have been disappointed by her lack of education, wit, and musical ability, accomplishments he greatly esteemed in women. But no contemporary source supports Bishop Burnet’s assertion, made in the late seventeenth century and repeated by Tobias Smollett in the eighteenth, that the King likened Anna to “a great Flanders mare.”