Anne of Cleves' Marriage With Henry VIII Was Much Nastier Than You Thought

Walk into Westminster Abbey, south side of the high altar, and you'll find an unfinished monument. Her initials. Cleves emblems. Stonework nobody completed. Anne of Cleves is the only one of Henry VIII's wives buried in England's coronation church. Everyone remembers the punchline — the Flanders Mare. That phrase appears nowhere in 1540. It first surfaces in a bishop's history published a hundred and thirty years after she died. What actually survives is uglier: a king's sworn statement about handling her body, read aloud to clergymen. Cromwell wrote his version from the Tower. Her replacement was her own maid of honour. Start with the phrase, because the phrase is the whole problem.