Page:The Queens of England.djvu/355

ANNE OF CLEVES. The character of Anne of Cleves differs from that of the greater number of English queens. Neither distinguished for her personal beauty nor brilliancy of talent, our attention is arrested by a queen who was gifted with such an extraordinary serenity of mind, such indifference or insensibility to the gifts of fortune, whichever it might be, as to assume a regal diadem without ostentation, and to relinquish it without a sigh. One is naturally interested in investigating the history of such an individual ; and though the particulars of Anne's life prior to her marriage with Henry the Eighth, have not been much dwelt on by historians, the little which has reached us is not unworthy of notice. Anne, whose father was John, the third Duke of Cleves, was born September 22d, 15 17, and educated with her sisters Sybilla and Amelia, under the care of their mother Marie, a daughter of William, Duke of Juliers, Berg and Ravensburg. The young princesses were brought up in the Lutheran faith, but though well instructed in reading and writing their own language, they were ignorant of any other. We are also informed they were very skillful in needlework, but that music and dancing were not suffered to constitute a part of their studies, it being the opinion of their country that such pur- suits only tended to lightness and frivolity of character. Even during the lifetime of her father, Anne had been sought in marriage by her future husband, King Henry, who after vainly endeavoring to form an alliance with some French princess, whose high birth would consolidate his own dignity and security, had turned his thoughts to those ladies who were nearly related to the Smalcaldic League. In fact, Henry had found the utmost difficulty in procuring a wife among foreign princesses. He had an evil reputation for a husband, which, though it did not daunt Englishwomen, certainly made foreign ladies shrink aghast. After the divorce of one wife, the 3'5