Thanks for the info on Anne of Cleves portrait by Holbein. Tudor costume is my big area of interest and Anne of Cleves(by reason of her short tenure as queen consort)has gotten short shift by historians.
Historians have interpreted Henry's reaction to Anne has been interpreted from everything from literal dislike to what he had been informed about Anne to second thoughts about the Cleavian alliance. He has been criticized about being very picky about his wives, having personal contact and knowledge with five of the six well before marriage, which was certainly rare with European monarchs. However his grandfather, Edward IV, certainly married for love/physical attraction, and his father, Henry VII, had the luck that Elizabeth of York fit the mold of physical attractiveness in a queen, even though he had promised to marry her, sight unseen. So there was an recent English tradition of kings marrying for "love" as opposed to the more usual dynastic/foreign relations reasons. And poor Henry was hit with the royal reality of Anne being the antithesis of his mother and grandmother; his grandmother had raised him and a woman with little formal education, a large physical presence, and no points in common interests with Henry, was unlikely to be attractive to him in any case. Cindy Abel _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
