On this day in 1540 King Henry VIII of England married Anne of Cleves. This was part of the schemes of Cromwell and Cranmer to tie Anglicanism to the Reformation. It did not work, in the short range, tho in the longer, its failure lead to the even greater failure of Norfolk to tie him to the Catholic cause by marrying the King to Catherine Howard. I have never been able to track down the story of Cleves, but apparently the marraige also failed to resolve the diplomatic difficulties of the Duke, who evened Hanks ability to dispose of wives and, according to the unconfirmed story I heard, attempted bigamy, was denounced as heretic by fellow Prots, and ultimately was so unsuccessful Cleves returned to the Catholic fold. Brief contrafactual spec. If the marraige was successful enough to give Henry another heir, even if it was a girl, would not an indisputably legitimate princess have taken precedence over her two illegitimate elder sisters? Certainly after Mary, whom the Catholics never stopped considering the rightful heir after the legit Edward, a Princess Anne might have been more diplomatically secure than Gloriana. Even if Gloriana HAD still been given precedence, another princess would have given her another card in the Great Game of Bedrooms and Battles. In the long range, the Tudors might have been followed by someone other than the Stewarts. How long could Scotland have survived then as sovereign? And how might England under a House of Orange or Oldenbourg fared? Alternatively, a marraige to a catholic could have resulted in an alternate line of Pretenders, which might at least have made James VII (Scots reckoning)more hesitant about adopting a religion which proclaimed him a usurper. The fourth episode of the 1970 BBC series Six Wives of Henry VIII Anne of Cleves is my fav part of all depictions I have seen of Hank Tudor. It is available on Netflix but is impossible to find on Youtube. So here is a song referencing Hank, from Pete Seeger. https://youtube/watch?v=pBan_lC0r9I
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 19:05:20 +0000
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