Who married Anne of Cleves?

Anne of Cleves (German: Anna von Kleve; 28 June or 22 September 1515 – 16 July 1557) was Queen of England from 6 January to 12 July 1540 as the fourth wife of Henry VIII. Born in Düsseldorf to the House of La Marck, little is known about Anne before 1527, when she became betrothed to Francis, Duke of Bar, son and heir of Antoine, Duke of Lorraine, although their marriage did not proceed.

In March 1539, negotiations for Anne's marriage to Henry began. Henry believed he needed to form a political alliance with her brother, William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, a leader of the Protestants of Western Germany, to strengthen his position against potential attacks from Catholic France and the Holy Roman Empire. Anne arrived in England in December 1539 and married Henry a week later, but the marriage was declared unconsummated after six months and Anne was not crowned queen consort.

Following the annulment, Henry gave her a generous settlement and Anne was thereafter known as the King's Beloved Sister. Remaining in England, she lived to see the reigns of Henry's children, Edward VI and Mary I, and attended Mary's coronation in 1553. Anne outlived the rest of Henry's wives. Upon her death she was interred as a queen in Westminster Abbey.

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Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. After the Pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry passed legislation that severed England and Ireland from the Roman Catholic Church and established the monarch as Supreme Head of the Church of England, initiating the English Reformation. He subsequently married five more times; two marriages were annulled, and two wives were executed.

Henry was born in Greenwich as the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. His elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, was heir apparent until he died in 1502, after which Henry succeeded him. Originally intended for an ecclesiastical career, he instead received an education suited to kingship. Of his six siblings, only Margaret and Mary survived into adulthood.

Henry brought radical changes to the Constitution of England, expanding royal power and ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy. He frequently used charges of treason and heresy to quell dissent, and those accused were often executed without a formal trial using bills of attainder. He achieved many of his political aims through his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour. Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer all figured prominently in his administration.

Henry was an extravagant spender, using proceeds from the dissolution of the monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament. He converted money that was formerly paid to Rome into royal revenue. Despite the money from these sources, he was often on the verge of financial ruin due to personal extravagance and the costs of his largely unproductive wars with France and Scotland. He founded the Royal Navy, oversaw the annexation of Wales to England with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542, and was the first English monarch to rule as King of Ireland following the Crown of Ireland Act 1542.

Henry's contemporaries considered him an attractive, educated, and accomplished king. He has been described as "one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne" and his reign described as the "most important" in English history. He was an author and composer. As he aged, he became severely overweight and his health suffered, and he was frequently characterised in his later life as a lustful, egotistical, paranoid, and tyrannical monarch. He longed for a son and heir, which he finally received from his third marriage to Jane Seymour. Jane's son succeeded Henry as Edward VI. Nonetheless, his daughters by his first and second wives acceded to the throne in turn as Mary I and Elizabeth I.

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