Anne of Kleve The Princess in the Portrait

Anne of Kleve’s is the next wife and book after Jane Seymour that I read. This book wasn’t my favorite but it definitely wasn’t terrible. Anne of Kleve’s was the wife that Henry called “The Ugly One.” They were both unhappy in the marriage and both of them separated after a few months.

Pros & Cons

As always with Alison Weir I learn new details about some of the royal women she wrote about and enjoyed the stuff she created to fill in the blanks that no one knows about. I had no idea that Anne of Kleve’s was a Catholic princess considering this was shortly after Luther spread his religion throughout certain parts of Europe especially Germany. Anne’s brother although Catholic was leaning towards reform and he joined the German Princes League or something or other which was predominantly Protestant. So that must be where everyone including myself thought Anne was a Protestant. Anne was also well taken care of by Henry after her divorce and enjoyed her independence.

I surely enjoyed Anne’s reaction to Henry kissing her not knowing that the fat man in front of her was indeed the King Henry. My reaction would have matched hers as well. It’s sad that Anne never married a man she could choose after being forced to marry Henry by her brother. I always love it when Alison filled in the gaps of history that no one knows for sure about, this time it seemed a bit far-fetched even for the time period like hiding the fact that Anne had a child with a bastard cousin named Otho and had to give him up. If Henry felt that she had given birth before either he would think its good news and he would get sons out of her, or he would be very angry and demand she tell the truth and then decide her fate. Really the reason he wanted to divorce Anne was because she was ugly.

Overall

Overall the book was okay. It wasn’t my favorite of Alison Weir’s but it wasn’t the worst book I’ve read either. It was just a bit bland and a bit far-fetched.