Paying for King Henry VIII's carnal desire

I've always wondered about this- This is the portrait referred to in the article.

It is bad enough being put to death by your husband – a fate met by two of King Henry VIII’s wives – or dying in childbirth, or being divorced by your husband – as happened to two of Henry’s other wives – but to find yourself so repugnant to him that he annulled the marriage six months after the wedding – now that is an ignominious fate, especially in the mid-16th century.

Yet that is what befell Henry’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, this week in 1540.

The story is an interesting one. In 1538, after his third wife Jane Seymour died in childbirth, Henry was, for the first time in his reign, a carefree bachelor. His marriage to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, had been a political necessity, cementing as it did the alliance between England and Katherine’s native Spain. His second marriage to Anne Boleyn had been a marriage of lust, and, not incidentally, she was already pregnant. And his marriage to Jane Seymour had been one of infatuation – the attractive Seymour had been one of Anne Boleyn’s attendants.

But now he was free to marry for whatever reason he wished, including diplomatic considerations, and having broken with the Roman Catholic Church, and establishing the Anglican (Protestant) Church, over his divorce of Katherine and marriage to Anne Boleyn, he was looking for Protestant allies who would support him in his break with Rome. Anne of Cleves was the daughter of a powerful German Protestant family, so diplomatically Henry found the match attractive.

Never having seen Anne, he decided to send his favorite portrait painter, Hans Holbein, to Germany to paint her portrait, and upon viewing Holbein’s handiwork he pronounced himself so pleased with her countenance that he told his top minister, Thomas Cromwell, to begin the marriage negotiations.

As it happened, however, Holbein (as court portraitists were known to do) painted a somewhat overly flattering portrait of Anne, neglecting to portray, for example, her pockmarked face from a case of smallpox. Thus when Henry and Anne finally met, he found her physically repulsive, and although he went ahead with the marriage, six months with her was all he could stand, and he ended it. Also, reverting to form, Henry had become infatuated with the young niece of one of his dukes, Catherine Howard, whom he later made his fifth wife.

Although she received a generous settlement for agreeing to the annulment, Anne was never able to live down the shame. But at least she lived, which (as with half of Henry’s wives) is more than can be said for Thomas Cromwell. Having first suggested that Henry marry Anne, Cromwell took the brunt of Henry’s displeasure, and paid with his life.

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/husband-84076-bad-king.html