by Heather R. Darsie
Tradition has held for the last couple hundred years or so that Anna of Cleves, fourth wife to Henry VIII of England, was born 22 September 1515. No proof has ever been put forward to support that date. However, primary source exists which shows Anna’s date of birth as 28 June 1515, making her exactly twenty-four years younger than Henry VIII. To learn more about Anna’s true date of birth and early years, please click here.
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I must admit a date in June makes a lot more sense, unless the convention of being in confinement and Churching was ignored, but that seems hardly credible as the German Court was very traditional and no noble households ignored such conventions. No man would be allowed into the room where a noble mother rested after giving birth and I would go with a contemporary source, especially a German one over speculation by amateurs in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thank you for your research into this and for your carefully presented evidence.
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