Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England

Anne of Bohemia, future queen consort of King Richard II of England, was born on 11 May  1366, the eldest daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor (who was also King of Bohemia), and his fourth wife, Elizabeth of Pomerania.

Even though her father was emperor of half of Europe, she didn’t have a big dowry. There were too many other half-siblings and siblings for that, and her father was too busy using the royal coffers to fund crusades and sustain the boarders of the empire. Although she would bring no money to a marriage, she would bring political and socioeconomic clout – LOTS of it. Under Charles IV Bohemia was thriving, and Prague had become the center of art and culture in Europe. Furthermore, Anne of Bohemia was related to every powerful family on the continent.

It was her connections, rather than her purse, that inspired Michael de la Pole, 1st Earl of Suffolk, to suggest her as a bride to the teenage King Richard II. Additionally, the union of Richard and Anne would irk the French, who were on the other side of the Western Schism in the Papacy than the Holy Roman Empire. However, many members of Richard’s court wanted him to wed Caterina Visconti, a rich heiress from Milan, in order to refill England’s vaults. The trade concessions and diplomatic benefits that came with wedding Anne weren’t impressive enough, in their opinion. To make matters worse, Anne’s brother, King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, wanted the equivalent of 4 million pounds to be paid to HIM for her hand.

Richard, always a contrarian, nevertheless followed Suffolk’s advice, forked over the gold, and contracted a marriage with the Imperial princess in 1381. Then the 15 year old Anne started the long and dangerous journey to her new husband, with the French doing everything they could to prevent the match. Fortunately, Anne was under the protection of her relatives, the Duke and Duchess of Saxony, for much of the overland trip. The duke – known as Albert the Bold – was too much of a military badass for anyone to interfere with his charge. He then handed her over to the safekeeping of Louis II, Count of Flanders and titular Duke of Brabant, who was to get her over the English channel to Dover.

Louis, though the maternal grandson of Philip V of France, didn’t have the military chops of Albert the Bold. Thus he had to go the diplomatic route when twelve armed vessels were sent by the French to keep her from reaching England. Pressure from the duke and rising political tensions finally cleared the way for Anne to cross the channel. The young king-in-name-only, Charles IV of France, saved face by saying he was backing down because he loved his cousin Anne, not because he was afraid of international retaliation from an Anglo-Imperial coalition.

Anne of Bohemia landed in Dover on 18 December 1381. Poor Anne had no idea that she was already unpopular in England before she ever set foot in it.  The nobles were irked that Richard had followed the advice of de la Pole, who was the scion of an up-jumped trading family recently elevated by his friend the king, and were willing to take it out on the teen girl coming to wed the king. Thus, most of the British chronicles of the time refer to Anne of Bohemia in negative terms, with one famously calling her “a tiny scrap of humanity.” It was also considered very il-omened that the ships that had carried her to England were destroyed in a storm shortly thereafter.

I would have thought it would have been MORE inauspicious to have them sink before she disembarked, but that’s me.

Anne and her 15 year old groom were wed on 20 January 1382 in Westminster Abbey, and the bride was crowned as queen two days later by William Courtenay, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a cousin of the king. In spite of the detractors of the marriage, lavish performances and tournaments were held to celebrated the new union. It is believed that Richard gave her an illuminated manuscript, the Liber Regalis, for Anne to use at her coronation, indicating he was aware of her reputation as an educated princess.

The teenagers appear to have fallen deeply in love with one another. The people of England also came to love Anne as well, for her kindness and charity. She frequently begged the king to be lenient against criminal wrongdoers, and because he loved her, often softened or dismissed the punishments. In this way, Anne got him to pardon several participants of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and “made several high-profile intercessions in front of the king.” The queen’s “most famous act of intercession was on behalf of the citizens of London in the ceremonial reconciliation of Richard and London in 1392.”

Although the sweet-tempered Anne was less successful as an advocate when she was not appealing to the king, she would still try. She did her best to save the king’s favorite, Simon de Burley, from the Merciless Parliament of 1388, but poor Burley was beheaded anyway.

Sadly, Anne and Richard didn’t have any children in the 12 years they were married. This has led to spurious accusations of homosexuality against Richard, but the idea that king was in love with (or bumping uglies with) anyone other than his wife seems to be merely spiteful gossip. When he found out she was ill in 1394 he rushed to be by her side at at Sheen Manor.  He was crushed by her death on 7 June, and his grief was so strong that he ordered Sheen Manor destroyed.

The king ordered an magnificent tomb for his beloved wife to be created and placed in the chapel of St Edward the Confessor, next to tomb of his grandfather, King Edward III. Such was his love for her that he had copper smiths Nicholas Broker and Godfrey Prest create “the first double royal tomb” with two gilt bronze effigies of Richard and Anne holding hands throughout eternity. “The effigies are stamped all over with patterns and Plantagenet badges – the broompod, white hart and sun-burst on the king’s figure and knots, crowned initials A and R and chained ostriches on Anne’s effigy … the queen wears a cote-hardi, from which the buttons are missing, an enriched girdle and long cloak. She has waist length hair.”

Her epitaph in Latin says:

“Beneath a broad stone now Anna lies entombed; when she lived in the world she was the bride of Richard the Second. She was devoted to Christ and well known for her deeds; she was ever inclined to give her gifts to the poor; she calmed quarrels and relieve the pregnant. She was beauteous in body and her face was gentle and pretty. She provided solace to widows, and medicine to the sick. In 1394 on a pleasant seventh day of the month of June, she passed over. Amen”