Pick and mix Queens of England

Baby Cambridge is imminent - mid July is here and about to turn into the later half of the month so we can confidently expect a third in line to the throne any moment now.  And that leaves just enough time to have a quick look at the names only ever used by one queen consort of England, a kind of pick and mix of royal peculiarities.  And several of them were very peculiar.

House of Norman - Adeliza

 

Adeliza of Louvain - no babies with her elderly king but a whole castle full with hubby number two

 

Adeliza of Louvain - another Adela/ Adelaide/ Adelheid type name that crops up far more than imagined in royal history.  This one was wife number two of Henry number one and the first proper royal baby making machine.  Henry married her in 1121 just after the death of his only male legitimate heir, William, in the White Ship disaster.  The great king only had a daughter to leave his crown to so within months of William's loss, he had married young, pretty, healthy Adeliza.  And for the next fourteen years they tried to provide England with another heir.  But although Henry had had at least three children with his first wife and dozens of illegitimate children, no royal babies arrived. 

 

He died in 1135 and had that been the end of the story everyone could have blamed Adeliza and that would have been that.  But Adeliza claimed another first.  She was the first queen consort of England to remarry and in 1138 she married William d'Aubigny, one of Henry's main advisers.  The couple had seven children, the last born when the queen dowager was in her early forties.  She died in a convent in 1151.

 

 

House of Lancaster - Joanna of Navarre

 

 

 

Joanna of Navarre married Henry IV when they were both middle aged and he had three adult sons to inherit his crown.  She was the first queen of England to have absolutely no pressure on her to produce children.

 

 

Joanna of Navarre is unique in English royal history.  By the time she married her king both of them had been married before and both had provided a long line of heirs for their respective titles.  So Joanna had no pressure to produce babies, no worries about giving her king a son to wear his crown.  Hers was a second marriage made in royal heaven and she seems to have thoroughly

 

enjoyed it.

 

She met the man who would make her a queen when he was still trying to be a king and she was married to someone else.  Henry Bolingbroke was in exile in France and ended up at the court of the Duke of Brittany where Joanna was in charge as the ducal consort.  In 1399 Henry returned to England to battle for the crown and by September he had won it.  Joanna's husband died two months later, leaving her regent for their ten year old son.  But in 1402 the new king and the dowager duchess married by proxy and a year later Joanna left her now fourteen year old son as Duke of Brittany and headed across the Channel to become Queen of England.

 

There she found a court with four princes in their early teens ready to inherit their father's throne and Joanna, now 37, set about enjoying being queen.  She also enjoyed a good relationship with the four boys so it must have been a surprise to say the least when, after Henry IV's death in 1413, the eldest of them had her arrested on suspicion of witchcraft.  Joanna ended up being locked away in Pevensey Castle and deprived of the rich lands which were hers by right as queen dowager.  She was finally released and died in 1437 in Essex.

 

House of Stuart - Henrietta Maria



 

 

Henrietta Maria of France was daughter of a king, sister of a king, wife of a king, mother of two kings and grandmother of two queen regnants and another king

 

 

Henrietta Maria had one of the most unusual names in British royal history but was always known as Mary, one of the most ordinary in the land.  And yet her life story is anything but ordinary.  She had royal pedigree and royal progeny that remains unmatched and yet her reign was unhappy and her life as dowager perhaps even sadder.  And despite counting five monarchs among her children and grandchildren, her line lost the crown of England within fifty years of her death.

 

Henrietta Maria was the daughter of Henri IV of France and his wife Marie - one of the Medicis.  But she was only about one when her father was assassinated and her brother became Louis XIII.  Marie de Medici was regent of France for the next seven years but by then she was deeply unpopular and Louis was deeply unhappy with her and she was banned from court.  Two years later Henrietta's elder sister married leaving her as the top woman in the French court.  And within a few years Louis' little sister had nabbed a crown of her own when she married England's new king, Charles I.

 

But Henrietta was never popular at her new court.  Xenophobia led to this French queen beginning her reign on a sticky wicket and her cold personality and devotion to her Catholic faith only made her more unpopular.  Charles' reign descended into civil war and in 1649 Henrietta lost her husband when he was executed.  She was said to be devastated despite a frosty and difficult relationship with her king.

 

She had gone into exile in France years before Charles' death and from there she witnessed her eldest son, Charles II, become king when the monarchy was restored in 1660.  She returned to England and played an unhappy part in the marriage of another son, the future James II, to his first wife, Anne.  She didn't live to see James become king, dying in France in 1669.

 

 

House of Hanover - Sophia Dorothea

 

 

Sophia Dorothea of Celle, married to a king but never queen and kept in a tower throughout his reign

 

 

Sophia Dorothea was the wife of a king of England but was never queen and was kept in a tower hundreds of miles away while her husband ruled his kingdom.  Whether we can even count her as a consort is still up for debate but she is as fascinating as any woman who has worn the queen's crown.

 

Sophia Dorothea of Celle married George of Hanover in 1682 when she was just 18 and after she had come close to marrying the future king of Denmark and a German duke who was dumped by her family as a prospective bridegroom on the day the engagement was due to be announced.  Sophia Dorothea didn't want to marry George any more than he wanted to marry her and the bride to be had a series of fainting fits including a swoon of non romantic origin when she first met her future husband.  But marry they did, he encouraged by her gigantic dowry and she forced into it by her family.

 

They were miserable together, rowed constantly and only stopped shouting long enough to have a son and a daughter.  Soon after the birth of their youngest child George began a new affair and reveled in showing off his mistress to such an extent his family told him to reign in his bad behavior but he refused.  Sophia then formed a friendship with Philip Christoph von Konigsmarck, a Swedish count, which intensified into a romantic relationship which led to him being barred from Hanover.  She attempted to escape her husband's country in 1694 and the count died soon afterwards, presumed murdered.

 

But poor old Sophia Dorothea had worse to come.  Hubby was not happy despite his own infidelities and divorced her before locking her up in the Castle of Ahlden where she lived for the rest of her days.  When he became king of England in 1714, Sophia Dorothea stayed put in her tower and there she remained.  She died in 1726, a year before her husband.  Their son became George II.

 

So there we are - a real pick and mix of one use only names for queen consorts of England.  None of them are likely to be chose by the Cambridges if they do have a girl but for romance, intrigue and a bit of individuality these four queens take some beating.





'Anne' outside bet - the most favoured name for a royal princess?

It means favoured and it's certainly that when it comes to Queens of England.  The name Anne has been used for more queens, regnant and consort, than any other.  But it's not been borne by a monarch for almost 300 years now - could this be its moment to take the throne again?

 

Anne

 

There have been one Queen Regnant and five Queen Consorts called Anne.  But like Elizabeth, most of the royal holders of the name have made some kind of mark on history and there are very few royal Annes we don't know about.  Aside from our six queens, there have been four royal princesses with the name - a grand total of ten - so although it was one of the most used names for women in England for centuries it's never been an all conquering royal favourite.  Perhaps because the six women who have worn the crown were encountered more than their fair share of tragedy.  Here's a run down of the queens called Anne.

 

 

Anne Boleyn

 

Let's get the most famous one out of the way.  The rise, fall and continuing fascination with Anne Boleyn is among the best documented tales in English history.  Other queens are talked about in terms of marriage contracts or romances but Anne was a career woman and she made a pretty good job of her ambitions and desires until 1536 and historians still don't really understand why the dynamic duo of Henry and the Boleyn Girl fell apart then.  Was it the lack of a male heir - after all, Anne had been pretty invincible until she failed to fill the nursery with princes?  Or was it something deeper?  Through their six year courtship and most of Anne's three year tenure as Queen of England, she and Henry had worked closely together and she was one of his chief advisers.  Several of his other closest confidantes went the way of the axe - was Anne just more political capital?

 Anne Boleyn - one of the most famous people in British history. 

 

Anne was the second child of Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Elizabeth Howard, and she had two paternal great grandmothers called Anne - possibly the reason she was given the name.  The controversy caused by her relationship with Henry and the long and public battle he fought to divorce his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, to marry Anne meant she was never popular - even complaining to Henry on the day of her coronation that there were too many caps still on heads and not much noise as she made her way through the City of London.  To highlight their dissatisfaction with their new queen, many called her Nan Bullen.  Nan was a common abbreviation of Anne and Bullen the original form of her surname.  While her family gained power at court and she ruled Henry's heart, she ignored the sniping and reveled in being Queen Anne.

Natalie Dormer as Anne Boleyn in The Tudors - almost 500 years after her death, Anne's story continues to fascinate

 

In fact, Anne's end was the beginning of the restoration of her reputation.  She was queen for three years but the lack of a son and continued machinations at court pulled apart her relationship with the king.  However, his decision to try her on charges of adultery, treason and witchcraft and her execution were truly shocking events.  She was beheaded on May 19th 1536 at the Tower of London and for the next twenty two years her daughter, Elizabeth, lived in the shadow of her siblings while trying to avoid plots that could lead to her own death.  But Anne's daughter went on to be one of England's most famous monarchs and Anne continued to cast her fascination as the centuries drew on.  The first woman to be elevated to the peerage in her own right, as Marquess of Pembroke, she is now credited with far more political involvement in Henry's reign than ever before.

Anne of Cleves

 

The next queen with the name, Anne of Cleves, had an almost subliminal reign so short was her marriage to the much married Henry VIII.  But she certainly made an impression, albeit a negative one.  Like Henry's first Queen Anne, she had two great grandmothers called Anne or Anna and was most likely given the name in their honour.  But that is where the similarities end.  The first Anne had a powerful hold over Henry.  The second one barely held his hand.

We only have one image of Anne and that's what caused all the problems.

 

 

 Anne of Cleves looking rather jolly in a picture that won her a king's hand in marriage

 

Henry gambled on making her Queen number four because of Hans Holbein's famous portrait of her.  Sadly for Anne, Hans and most of all, Thomas Cromwell, Henry far preferred the picture to the real thing.  When she arrived in Rochester at the start of 1540 to marry the king he declared 'I like her not'.  We do know that wife number five, Catherine Howard, was also there as a lady in waiting to the queen.  Whether or not Henry had already caught sight of a woman who would obsess him we don't know.  We do know that he said he liked wife number four even less after their wedding night and that he himself declared the marriage was never consummated with all blame being heaped on Anne's lack of physical attraction for the king.  The marriage was annulled at the beginning of July that year with Anne receiving a rather nice settlement in return for her relegation to the role of King's Sister.  Cromwell's enemies took their chance to plot against him and just weeks after his choice of royal bride was divorced, he was executed.

 

So far we have the sexiest and the least sexy queens of England as arguments for the name, Anne.  The other three queen consorts with the name aren't nearly as exciting. 

Anne of Bohemia

The first with the name was Anne of Bohemia who came to England in 1382 to marry the still teenage king, Richard II.  She had no grannies, great grannies or aunties with the name but interestingly her father's two previous wives had been called Anne or Anna.  And dad was very influential.  He was pretty powerful in Europe at the time and Richard ended up paying him a dowry as part of a complex power trade off that resulted in the choice of royal bride being very unpopular.  To her credit, Anne turned public opinion around and she's recorded in the chronicles as being kind and generous, interceding for the common people on many occasions.  Poignantly, she is noted as being kind and concerned about pregnant women despite never having a child of her own.  Anne is credited with introducing horned headdresses to England and popularizing riding side saddle.  Given her short reign and lack of heir, she made a fairly big impression in her time.  She died in 1394 of the plague, leaving her husband devastated.  Some historians point to her death as a crucial moment in Richard's reign.  Losing his sensible, good hearted first wife is seen as turning point in his rule - from there on, he lost some of his grip on reality.  Less than five years after Anne's death, he had lost his throne.

 

 

 Anne of Bohemia and her husband, Richard II, who is said to have lost his way after losing his youg wife to the plague in 1394

 

 Anne Neville 

 



The next Queen Anne was the wife of the next King Richard and again the daughter of a powerful man who was used to getting his own way.  Anne Neville was the youngest child of the most powerful man in England, the Earl of Warwick.  Sadly for dad, another Richard by the way, he didn't have any sons so had to use the marriages of his two daughters to solidify his hold on the throne. 

Anne was named after her mother, Anne de Beauchamp, who had actually inherited the tile of Earl of Warwick but who was barred from bearing it because she was a woman and had to make do with letting hubby be earl while she was countess.  Anne de Beauchamp was one of the wealthiest women in England and her inheritance, to be shared between her daughters, was one of the reasons her girls were so highly sought after on the marriage market.

 

Daughter number one, Isabel, wed the middle York brother.  George, Duke of Clarence was next in line to the throne of Edward IV for almost a decade until the birth of the king's son, another Edward.  Isabel came close to being queen on more than one occasion before dying in mysterious circumstances.  Daddy Warwick liked to back his horse both ways and married his youngest girl to another claimant of the crown. Anne's first husband was Edward, Prince of Wales - a title he held because he was the eldest and only son of the deposed Lancastrian king, Henry VI.  When Warwick decided to try and get back the power he had lost as Edward IV's confidence as king grew, he joined forces with the Lancastrians and Anne cemented the alliance.  But it was short lived as was Edward - killed in the Battle of Tewkesbury six months after their marriage.  Warwick had died at the Battle of Barnet two months earlier and Anne was now the widow of a traitor.

 

 

Anne Neville, Queen Consort of England 1483 - 1485.  She packed a lot into her short life but it was littered with tragedy throughout.

 

She was rescued by a man who went on to be one of the great villains of English history.  But for Anne he was a real knight in shining armour, saving her from a long widowhood in disgrace.  Richard III was the plain old Duke of Gloucester and the youngest brother of Edward IV when he married Anne in 1472, around a year after her first husband had been killed.  They had a son, another Edward and presumably named after the duke's brother rather than the now duchess' dead hubby.  But Anne's life took another tragic turn in 1483.  Her brother in law died and Richard seized power claiming that he dead king's wife was trying to rule the country along with her family, the Woodvilles.  But his early protestations of trying to protect the inheritance of his nephew, the boy king Edward V, soon faded away and in the summer of 1483 the boy and his brother disappeared I the Tower of London. Anne had seen her husband turn from romantic hero to alleged king killer.

 

Her own son died the next year and in 1485 Anne became ill - she was 29 years old.  And even in her dying days life became harder still.  Her husband, by now mistrusted and disliked in equal measure, was said to be lining up his own niece to replace his wife.  When Anne died in March 1485 Richard III is said to have wept at her funeral.  He was forced to deny any plans to marry his brother's daughter.  But his queen passed unnoticed into history - she was buried in Westminster Abbey but no memorial was erected there until 1960.

 

 

A romantic interpretation of Anne Neville - her own life story had a less than happy ending

 

 



 Anne of Denmark

 

Last on the list of Queens called Anne is the consort of James I of England.  And like Henry VIII's two Annes, she had two great grandmothers called Anne before her.  She is a pretty much forgotten queen, dismissed by some as frivolous and passed over in the history books for the more dramatic sagas of her son and daughter in law, Charles I and Henrietta Maria.

 

Anne was the daughter of the king of Denmark and apparently thrilled by the prospect of marrying James when the wedding was proposed in 1589.  That was despite the rumours that James had male lovers - something the then fourteen year old Anne was not aware of.  She is said to have embroidered shirts for her future husband as a token of love.  On her marriage she became Queen of Scotland and fifteen years later, Queen of England, when the childless Elizabeth I named James as her successor.

 

 

Anne of Denmark nagged her husband and staged sit ins when she didn't get her own way

 

As a queen Anne was a great patron of the arts and commissioned plays as well as expanding the royal art collection.  She also liked to throw her weight about at home, once refusing to get out of bed for two days after her husband dismissed some favourite ladies in waiting and writing to a French envoy that the king was a bit too partial to a drink or three for her liking.

 

Her legacy is largely over shadowed by the sad story of the House of Stuart and the execution of her son, Charles I, in 1649.  By then, Anne was dead.  But through her daughter, Elizabeth, she secured the British throne once more when a lack of heirs threatened it.  Elizabeth's descendants were the Hanoverian kings of England.

 

Queen Anne

 

Just one Queen Regnant has been called Anne.  Queen Anne came to the throne in 1702 after the death of her brother in law, William III.  He had ruled alongside her sister, Mary II, and the couple had been childless.  Anne had seventeen children but none lived to adulthood and she was without an heir at the time of her own death in 1714.

 

Queen Anne was named after her great grandmother, Anne of Denmark, and her mother, Anne Hyde. Anne Hyde was the daughter of prominent politician Edward Hyde and his second wife, Frances.  They named their little girl after Edward's first wife, Anne. 

 

The woman who would be queen of England was the youngest daughter of James II but for most of her early adult life she was a royal accessory and never expected to be Queen.  She married Prince George of Denmark in 1683 when she was third in line to the throne and confidently expected to remain a Princess of Denmark all her life.

 

 

Queen Anne while Princess of Denmark

 

 

The birth of a male heir to her father, James II, in 1688 and his determination to bring the child up as a Catholic led to the Glorious Revolution which put Mary and William on the throne and made Anne their heir. 

 

When she took power in 1702 she proved popular and able but was always under a shadow of possible over influence from her friends and advisers, particularly the Duchess of Marlborough.  In her reign, Britain enjoyed some of its greatest success on the battlefield in Europe and a renaissance in arts and culture.  But Anne is perhaps best known for the tragedy of her family life.  She had seventeen pregnancies but only one child lived beyond infancy and he died aged eleven, before his mother ever became Queen.

 



Other royal Annes

 





The Queen's decision to use the name for her only daughter in 1950 was a surprise and although Anne's own daughter and eldest granddaughter have it as a middle name it's not caught on in royal circles since.  The Princess Royal's daughter, Zara, has it as a middle name as does the princess' eldest grandchild, Savannah Phillips.  And that's it. The three other princesses called Anne, out of interest, were Queen Anne's second daughter who lived for nine months after her birth in 1686, a daughter of Charles I who died aged three and the eldest daughter of George II who became Princess Royal.

 

 

 

Princess Anne, the Princess Royal and aunt of William, Duke of Cambridge

(photo Graham Grinner Lewis)

 

Anne - the case for

 

• It's been the name of more Queens in English history than any other
• It's not been used by a queen for over 300 years
• Princess Anne is regarded as one of the hardest working members of the Royal Family - a good role model for the future queen

 

And against

 

• All the queens called Anne have had their fair share of tragedy
• Queen Anne is best known now as a style of furniture
• And there is a Queen called Anne already in Europe - Anne Marie is the wife of the ex king of Greece, Constantine

 

Anne-Marie of Greece

(photo Allan Warren)