Anne of Cleves

by Julia Hamilton

The story of Henry VIII's fourth wife.

Genres: History, Historical

Mass Market Paperback

First published May 12, 1972

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
See this thread for more information.

A pseudonym used by Julia Fitzgerald.

Reviews

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

We start off, as we so often do with an Anne of Cleves story, with Hans Holbein and Anne of Cleves chatting about how awesome sexy Tudor England is as he paints her portrait in prim and proper Lutheran Germany. He tactfully tries to let her know that German fashions are quite different from English fashions, and she tries to wrap her mind around the idea that wearing a dress without a neck covering doesn’t mean a woman is a prostitute.

She then gets the news that the deal has been finalized and she is definitely going to be queen of England. Her remarkably practical response is to sit down with a history book of English queens and study up on what her new job will entail.

I cheered for both Anne and the author as Anne is absolutely disgusted that these stupid male historians had nothing more to say about these woman than they were good at embroidery, as she can quite clearly see these women were surrounded by people and events that suggest they were doing a lot more than just sitting quietly in a corner with a needle. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

Still, she’s excited about the idea of being a queen rather than a duke’s sister, and is ready to trade in her rustic country castle with its rather lack of resources for palaces, feasts, libraries, gorgeous wardrobes, and royal jewelry. She’s a cool, snarky, geeky bookworm – but she also wants to live it up. You go girl. Also, um, brace yourself, because it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Then each chapter going forward keeps switching around point of view, and we see what this marriage means not just to the bride and groom but to several other key people around them.

Anne heads to England, determined to be just the best queen ever – and disaster strikes when Henry walks in on her while she’s wearing the 16th century equivalent of face cream, hair rollers and a house coat.

Anne knows she currently looks as bad as possible, and, worse, giving no warning about Henry’s approach, she is horrified to see just how gross he really is, and with all their equal horror at each other’s looks, the whole marriage is dead before it even has a chance – and Hamilton makes a case for the idea that under different circumstances the marriage might actually have worked.

But alas, no, they go through the motions, but both know this is going to be a disaster.

I did, however, giggle snort over the fact one of the few English words Anne manages to learn is ‘charming’ - which she proceeds to repeat like a stunned parrot over everything she sees and everyone she meets, getting some odd side eye from Henry, who clearly wonders if she doesn’t have all her marbles on top of not being the fashion plate he expected.

There is a LOT of info dumping – entire pages where the action and dialogue grind to a screeching halt so the narrator can fill us in on a few decades of history – but, personally, I think it works for this particular style of historical fiction writing. Yes, it’s very mid-20th century, but it has an appeal. There is also a lot of not just foreshadowing but out right ‘Cromwell would be on the chopping block in six months’ or ‘Elizabeth would go on to be the greatest queen ever.’ I want to make a joke about spoiler alerts, but it’s so dated it’s gone all the way over to charmingly quaint.

The book is very short – only 150 pages and a dead stop right after the wedding, with two rather bizarre epilogues in which both Mary I and Elizabeth I reflect on their respective coronation days what an awesome step-mom Anne was and how much she influenced them. And no Katherine Howard! I was shocked she isn’t mentioned once, not even in passing, hanging out in the background. All that reveals about future events and not a word about her? Wow. I was very surprised by this.

One other thing that I think most would criticize, but I found hilarious, was Hamilton uses the word ‘galaxy’ several times in place of ‘many’ or a ‘a lot’. The idea of Anne of Cleves having a ‘galaxy of dresses’ was so funny and cool that I was both laughing and envious.

So, I can see why this didn’t make the rank of ‘classic’ but I still loved every minute of it.

[Gloria Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1972, here's an account of Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.

Anne comes from a boring background in a run-down palace where she is expected to spend her days embroidering. She hopes for a more mentally stimulating life when her brother decides to marry her to the King of England.

Anne knows almost nothing about Henry VIII but reads up on England, its customs. She's smart, witty, and warmhearted. Unknown to Henry, who expects a princess of surpassing beauty, she is also plain.

We get a rather distant look at daughters Mary and Elizabeth and the King's only son. Mary's mother had been exiled, Elizabeth's mother beheaded, and the young boy's mother died in childbirth. Henry is appalled at Anne's appearance, and Anne is likewise appalled at the King's. I liked Anne and hoped she would survive the royal marriage. She very cleverly does.

Learning about the characters is interesting, but I wanted to skip through the pedigrees and the minute detail of costumes. It was enough to learn the costumes were covered in jewels and gold and one dress took more than one person to lift. Pedigrees involved intrigue and lost me.

Nevertheless I value what I learned about Henry VIII, his motives, his temperament, his expectations and disappointments and neglect of his daughters, who would become famous. I particularly liked learning about Anne, her character, her disadvantage at being a female, and her escape from a king's wrath.

[Mavis Hewitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Also covers Mary, Elizabeth & Edward during her lifetime, so not much about her. Long passage from documents describing in detail who was there & what they wore, not very interesting unless you are researching that. Time line jumps around a bit, irritating