Anne of Cleves (DNB00) |←Anne (1507-1537)||Dictionary of
National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 01 Anne of Cleves
(1515-1557) |Anne of Denmark→| ANNE of Cleves (1515–1557),
fourth queen of Henry VIII, was the daughter of John, duke of
Cleves, surnamed the Pacific. Her mother, Mary, was the only
daughter of William, duke of Juliers, and her father was
consequently possessed of that duchy also in her mother's right.
She herself was born on 22 Sept. 1515. She had an elder sister,
Sybilla, who was married in 1527 to John Frederic, duke of
Saxony, the leader of the Smalcaldic league; and a younger
sister, Amelia, who remained single. She had also a younger
brother, William, who, by an arrangement made at Nimeguen,
became duke of Gueldres in 1538, and united that duchy after his
father's death to those of his inheritance. In 1533 her father
established Lutheranism throughout his dominions. He was the
most powerful supporter of protestantism in the west of Germany,
and it was not unnatural that after Jane Seymour's d