The FUNERAL of ANNE OF CLEVES, fourth wife of Henry VIII and often remembered as the Flander’s Mare (something Henry never called her) took place on 4 August 1557 at Westminster Abbey, two and a half weeks after her death at the age of 41 at her home, Chelsea Manor in London. Many of the extended royal family during this era died under a cloud, often being executed for real or imagined crimes and with no state funeral to send them on their way, but of the four wives Henry discarded, Anne was the only one who lived out her days in comfort and on good terms with her former husband and his successors. Her funeral therefore showed what happened when royalty died in Tudor England and the individual wasn’t in disgrace. Anne’s send-off was a grand affair, fit for a former Queen and a woman, who, at the time of her death, was the third woman in England, after Queen Mary I and her half-sister, Elizabeth Tudor. In this latest addition to my six wives of Henry VIII playlist, today on History Calling, we’re going to delve into this episode in Tudor history to learn what Anne’s funeral was like and what it can tell us about the woman herself, particularly about whether Anne of Cleves was Protestant or Catholic. We’ll look at her last will and testament to see what she requested be done with her remains and at a contemporary description of the lying in state and funeral arrangements of the only one of Henry’s wives to be buried in the Abbey.
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