Tudor History with Claire Ridgway

Who would agree to become Henry VIII's fourth wife?
By late 1537, Henry VIII was back on the marriage market. Catherine of Aragon had been banished, Anne Boleyn had been executed, and Jane Seymour had died shortly after giving Henry the legitimate son he had longed for.
Now the 46-year-old king needed another queen.
And so began an extraordinary search across Europe.
In this video, I'm giving Henry VIII's search for wife number four the Tudor Blind Date treatment as we meet some of the women considered by Henry and his government.
There was Christina of Denmark, the young widowed duchess whose portrait by Hans Holbein delighted Henry; Marie de Guise, a tall French widow who had already produced sons; her younger sister Louise; Anna of Lorraine; and, eventually, two sisters from Cleves: Anne and Amalia.
Along the way, ambassadors were dispatched, portraits were commissioned, diplomatic negotiations unfolded and Hans Holbein found himself travelling around Europe painting prospective queens.
But finding Henry VIII a suitable wife wasn't simply a matter of finding a woman he liked. Marriage was foreign policy, and every prospective bride came with dynastic connections, diplomatic advantages and complications of her own.
So who would win Tudor Blind Date and become Henry VIII's fourth wife?We already know the answer.But the story of how Henry ended up with Anne of Cleves is far more interesting than you might think.
#HenryVIII #AnneOfCleves #TudorHistory #HansHolbein #TheTudors

One of the most famous quotations attributed to Mary of Guise is her alleged reply to Henry VIII's proposal of marriage:
"I may be a big woman, but I have a very little neck."
It's a wonderful story, cleverly alluding to Anne Boleyn's execution and Henry VIII's reputation. But did Mary of Guise really say those words?
In this video, I investigate the evidence by examining contemporary diplomatic correspondence, including the dispatches of the French ambassador Castillon, along with the works of John Knox, John Lesley, George Buchanan, Agnes Strickland, Antonia Fraser, John Guy and other historians.
Can this famous quotation be traced to a contemporary source, or has it become accepted simply through repetition?
Join me as I follow the evidence and explore one of Tudor history's most intriguing quotation mysteries.
If you enjoy evidence-based Tudor history, please like, subscribe and let me know your thoughts in the comments. And if you've come across a contemporary source for the quotation, I'd genuinely love to hear about it.
#TudorHistory #HenryVIII #MaryOfGuise #AnneBoleyn #MaryQueenOfScots #TudorEngland #Tudors #BritishHistory #HistoryMystery #HistoryFacts #MedievalHistory #HistoryLovers

It's one of the most famous stories surrounding Henry VIII's fourth marriage. Hans Holbein the Younger was supposedly sent to Cleves to paint Anne's portrait, produced an image that made her look far more attractive than she really was, and Henry agreed to the marriage - only to be bitterly disappointed when he finally met Anne in person.
But is that actually what happened?
In this podcast, I'm going back to the evidence from 1539 to investigate what Henry VIII really knew about Anne of Cleves before they met.

Did Christina of Denmark really tell Henry VIII, "If I had two heads, one would be at His Majesty's disposal"?
It's one of the most famous quotations associated with Henry VIII's search for a fourth wife. Christina, the young widowed Duchess of Milan, was considered as a possible bride for the Tudor king in 1538, and the story goes that she responded to Henry's interest with this wonderfully cutting remark.
But did she actually say it?
This question came up in the comments on my recent video about Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves, when someone claimed that the famous quotation first appeared in Martin Hume's 1905 book, The Wives of Henry VIII.
I knew I'd seen it earlier than that, so I went down a historical rabbit hole to see just how far back I could trace it.
In this video, I follow the quotation through nineteenth-century histories to a fascinating seventeenth-century account by German artist and art historian Joachim von Sandrart, who had actually seen Hans Holbein the Younger's famous portrait of Christina in England.
But Sandrart's version isn't quite the quotation we know today.
I also look at the contemporary diplomatic evidence surrounding Henry's proposed marriage to Christina, including what Thomas Wriothesley reported about Christina's attitude towards the match, and a wonderfully dry comment made by Christina's aunt, Mary of Hungary, about Henry VIII's treatment of his wives.
So, did Christina of Denmark really make the famous "two heads" remark? Or are we looking at a story that developed long after the events of 1538?
Join me as I follow the evidence and try to find out.
The National Gallery's current scholarly catalogue likewise describes the two-heads story as apocryphal and identifies Sandrart as the first known source for it.
Sources include: Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (1675) Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII Calendar of State Papers, Spain Henry William Herbert, Memoirs of Henry VIII of England (1856) The Herald and Genealogist (1863) Martin Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII (1905) Retha M. Warnicke, The Marrying of Anne of Cleves Susan Foister, National Gallery catalogue entry for Holbein's Christina of Denmark
National Gallery: Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan

Did Henry VIII Have Erectile Dysfunction? The Anne of Cleves Bedroom Mystery
Did Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves ever actually "do it"?
Henry claimed that his marriage to Anne was never consummated because he found his new wife so unattractive that he simply couldn't bring himself to have sex with her.
But what if we've spent nearly 500 years looking at the wrong person?In this video, I take a fresh look at the contemporary evidence surrounding Henry VIII's short-lived marriage to Anne of Cleves. From their awkward first meeting at Rochester and Henry's extraordinary complaints about Anne's body, to intimate testimony from his physicians, allegations about his sexual performance that surfaced at George Boleyn's trial, and Anne's supposedly naïve conversations with her ladies.
Could Henry have been experiencing intermittent erectile dysfunction? Could wounded pride, lack of attraction and performance anxiety have played a part? And what can Henry's subsequent relationship with the young Catherine Howard tell us?Perhaps there was nothing wrong with Anne of Cleves at all.Perhaps Henry VIII couldn't have sex with Anne... and Anne got the blame.
Join me as I delve into the evidence and share my own theory about what may really have happened in Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves's royal bedchamber.What do you think? Let me know your theory in the comments.