Anne of Cleves Dies: Henry VIII's Smartest Survivor

Anne of Cleves outlived all of Henry VIII's other wives by accepting an annulment after just six months of marriage, negotiating a generous settlement that made her one of the wealthiest women in England. Henry had agreed to marry her based on a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, but when he met her in person he was reportedly repulsed, calling her a "Flanders mare" and refusing to consummate the marriage. The political alliance with the German Protestant states that had motivated the match collapsed almost immediately. Thomas Cromwell, who had arranged the union, lost his head over it — literally, executed on Tower Hill in July 1540 on charges of treason and heresy that were widely understood as punishment for the disastrous marriage. Anne kept hers. She agreed to testify that the marriage had never been consummated, accepted the annulment without public complaint, and received a settlement that included Hever Castle, Richmond Palace, and an annual income that exceeded most English noblemen's. She was granted the title "the King's Beloved Sister" and given precedence over every woman in England except the queen and the king's daughters. She attended court functions, played cards with Henry, and watched from a comfortable distance as Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, was executed for adultery in 1542. She lived through the remaining years of Henry's reign, the brief reign of Edward VI, the nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey, and the accession of Mary I. She outlived Henry himself by a full decade, dying peacefully on July 16, 1557, at approximately forty-one years old, likely at Hever Castle in Kent. Her pragmatic acceptance of an impossible situation spared her the fates of Catherine of Aragon, who died in isolation, Anne Boleyn, who was beheaded, and Catherine Howard, who followed Boleyn to the block. Of all six wives, she played the worst hand and won the best outcome, trading a loveless marriage for a lifetime of wealth, comfort, and freedom that no other Tudor woman of her era managed to secure on her own terms.