A King's Duty: The Trials of Henry VIII

It appeared Queen Anne of Cleves was pregnant.
Interesting. Very interesting. I wonder how Henry will behave towards the queen now. Assuming that the pregnancy is real, the court must be holding out for a boy. Even if it may mean their own faction suffers, having a less messy succession has to be better for all than the current Charlie Foxtrot.
 
I love the idea of Anne having children.

One of the ironies of Henry's court is that many courtiers considered Anne more attractive than Catherine Howard. Anne wasn't really Henry's type, being tall and swarthy (if blonde) with an hourglass figure, where Henry liked them short, pale, and boyish. But for looks, her only real drawbacks were her apparent age - she looked older than 24 - and her long nose, but that was considered more a sign of royal blood than a flaw. No contemporary writer mentions any other physical flaws, and especially not the pockmarks that land so many actresses who play Anne in the makeup chair for hours.

She did have other drawbacks. She was uneducated (so much so that she didn't recognize the courtly traditions, which is why Henry's first meeting with her was such a disaster), she only spoke German, and she was said to not have the best hygiene - but the last would be a rich complaint coming from Henry, whose scrupulous cleanliness couldn't compensate for the fact that his leg ulcers were so foul-smelling that courtiers could tell how many rooms away he was from the smell.

Did you know that Anne died very young, probably of breast cancer? She was only 41 years old. Did you also know that women who are genetically prone to early breast cancer may develop cancer during or just after pregnancy? Just in case you wanted to get rid of her in a plausible fashion...
 
Actually, by most accounts it was a pretty accurate portrait. Henry lost his temper because... well, he expected young women to swoon over him the way they did when he was younger, and significantly lighter. And so when he arrived incognito to sweep Anne off her feet and she was... less than flattered... well, things developed from there.

Henry loved to play act. Masquing was considered an integral part of the culture of the major courts of Europe. Unfortunately Anne had never been introduced to the courtly traditions, as her parents had chosen to keep their daughters uneducated in all matters other than domestic, so she had no clue what was going on when Henry (although she didn't know who he was at that moment) burst into her room and might even have feared for her safety at that moment.
 
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Sorry it seems like this dropped off the face of the Earth... I broke my ankle and typing hasn't been too practical lately. I get the brace off later this week though and then I'll keep this going. :D
 
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