Anne of Denmark


Anne of Denmark was Queen of Scotland from her marriage to James VI and I on 20 August 1589 and Queen of England and Ireland from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until her death in 1619.
The second daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark and Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, Anne married James at age 14. They had three children who survived infancy: Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who predeceased his parents; Princess Elizabeth, who became Queen of Bohemia; and James's future successor, Charles I. Anne demonstrated an independent streak and a willingness to use factional Scottish politics in her conflicts with James over the custody of Prince Henry and his treatment of her friend Beatrix Ruthven. Anne appears to have loved James at first, but the couple gradually drifted and eventually lived apart, though mutual respect and a degree of affection survived.
In England, Anne shifted her energies from factional politics to patronage of the arts and constructed her own magnificent court, hosting one of the richest cultural salons in Europe. After 1612, she had sustained bouts of ill health and gradually withdrew from the centre of court life. Though she was reported to have been a Protestant at the time of her death, she may have converted to Catholicism at some point.
Some historians have dismissed Anne as frivolous and self-indulgent. However, 18th-century writers including Thomas Birch and William Guthrie considered her a woman of "boundless intrigue". Recent reappraisals acknowledge Anne's assertive independence and, in particular, her dynamic significance as a patron of the arts during the Jacobean age.

Early life

Anne was born on 12 December 1574 at the castle of Skanderborg on the Jutland Peninsula in the Kingdom of Denmark to Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow and King Frederick II of Denmark. In need of a male heir the King had been hoping for a son, and Sophie gave birth to a son, Christian, three years later.
With her older sister, Elizabeth, Anne was sent to be raised at Güstrow by her maternal grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Mecklenburg. Christian was also sent to be brought up at Güstrow but two years later, in 1579, his father the King wrote to his parents-in-law, to request the return of his sons, Christian and Ulrich,, and Anne and Elizabeth returned with him.
Anne enjoyed a close, happy family upbringing in Denmark, thanks largely to Queen Sophie, who nursed the children through their illnesses herself. Suitors from all over Europe sought the hands of Anne and Elizabeth in marriage, including James VI of Scotland, who favoured Denmark as a kingdom reformed in religion and a profitable trading partner.
James's other serious possibility, though eight years his senior, was Catherine, sister of the Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre, who was favoured by Elizabeth I of England. One reason James set this option aside was Henry's hard requirement for military assistance. Scottish ambassadors in Denmark first concentrated their suit on the oldest daughter, but Frederick betrothed Elizabeth to Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick, promising the Scots instead that "for the second Anna, if the King did like her, he should have her."

Betrothal and proxy marriage

The constitutional position of Sophie, Anne's mother, became difficult after Frederick's death in 1588, when she found herself in a power struggle with the Rigsraad for control of her son King Christian IV. As a matchmaker, however, Sophie proved more diligent than Frederick and, overcoming sticking points on the amount of the dowry and the status of Orkney, she sealed the agreement by July 1589. Anne herself seems to have been thrilled with the match. On 28 July 1589, the English spy Thomas Fowler reported that Anne was "so far in love with the King's Majesty as it were death to her to have it broken off and hath made good proof divers ways of her affection which his Majestie is apt enough to requite." Fowler's insinuation, that James preferred men to women, would have been hidden from the fourteen-year-old Anne, who devotedly embroidered shirts for her fiancé while 300 tailors worked on her wedding dress.
Whatever the truth of the rumours, James required a royal match to preserve the Stuart line. "God is my witness", he explained, "I could have abstained longer than the weal of my country could have permitted, my long delay bred in the breasts of many a great jealousy of my inability, as if I were a barren stock." He wrote to Sophie from Aberdeen that Anne's portrait had "fascinated our eyes and heart" and he had "no higher desire" than to behold her in person. On 20 August 1589, Anne was married by proxy to James at Kronborg Castle, the ceremony ending with a torchlit procession and James's representative, George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal, sitting next to Anne on the bridal bed.

Marriage

Anne set sail for Scotland within 10 days, but her fleet under the command of Admiral Peder Munk was beset by misadventures. At Elsinore a naval gun backfired, killing two gunners. The next day, a gun fired in tribute to two visiting Scottish noblemen exploded, killing one gunner and injuring 9 of the crew. Storms at sea then put the fleet in severe difficulties and one report had Anne's ship missing for three days. Two of the ships in the flotilla collided, killing two more sailors. Anne's ship, the Gideon, sprang a dangerous leak and put into Gammel Sellohe in Norway for repairs, but it leaked again after setting sail. The fleet then put in at Flekkerøy, by which time it was 1 October and the crews were unwilling to try again so late in the year. Anne was forced back to the coast of Norway, from where she travelled by land to Oslo for refuge, accompanied by the Earl Marischal and others of the Scottish and Danish embassies.
On 12 September Lord Dingwall had landed at Leith, reporting that "he had come in company with the Queen's fleet three hundred miles, and was separated from them by a great storm: it was feared that the Queen was in danger upon the seas." Alarmed, James called for national fasting and public prayers, and kept watch on the Firth of Forth for Anne's arrival from Seton Palace, the home of his friend Lord Seton. He wrote several songs, one comparing the situation to the plight of Hero and Leander, and sent a search party out for Anne, carrying a letter he had written to her in French: "Only to one who knows me as well as his own reflection in a glass could I express, my dearest love, the fears which I have experienced because of the contrary winds and violent storms since you embarked". Anne's letters arrived in October explaining that she had abandoned the crossing. She wrote, in French;
In what Willson calls "the one romantic episode of his life", James sailed from Leith with a three-hundred-strong retinue to fetch his wife personally. He arrived in Oslo on 19 November after travelling by land from Flekkefjord via Tønsberg. According to a Scottish account, he presented himself to Anne, "with boots and all", and, disarming her protests, gave her a kiss, in the Scottish fashion.
Anne and James were formally married in hall of the Old Bishop's Palace in Oslo, then the house of Christen Mule, on 23 November 1589, "with all the splendour possible at that time and place." So that both bride and groom could understand, Leith minister David Lindsay conducted the ceremony in French, describing Anne as "a Princess both godly and beautiful ... she giveth great contentment to his Majesty." A month of celebrations followed; and on 22 December, cutting his entourage to 50, James visited his new relations at Kronborg Castle in Elsinore, where the newlyweds were greeted by Queen Sophie, 12 year-old King Christian IV, and Christian's four regents. Anne and James may have repeated their marriage ceremony at Kronborg, this time by Lutheran rites, on 21 January 1590. The couple moved on to Copenhagen on 7 March and attended the wedding of Anne's older sister Elizabeth to Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick on 19 April, sailing two days later for Scotland in a patched up "Gideon". They arrived in the Water of Leith on 1 May. After a welcoming speech in French by James Elphinstone, Anne stayed in the King's Wark and James went alone to hear a sermon by Patrick Galloway in the Parish Church. Five days later, Anne made her state entry into Edinburgh in a solid silver coach brought over from Denmark, James riding alongside on horseback.

Coronation

Anne was crowned on 17 May 1590 in the Abbey Church at Holyrood, the first Protestant coronation in Scotland. During the seven-hour ceremony, her gown was opened by the Countess of Mar for presiding minister Robert Bruce to pour "a bonny quantity of oil" on "parts of her breast and arm", so anointing her as queen. The king handed the crown to Chancellor Maitland, who placed it on Anne's head. She then affirmed an oath to defend the true religion and worship of God and to "withstand and despise all papistical superstitions, and whatsoever ceremonies and rites contrary to the word of God".
When the Danish ambassadors left Scotland on 25 May 1590, James VI wrote a letter to the Lords Deputies of Council who ruled Denmark as guardians of Christian IV, with his resolve to "maintain perpetually and inviolably" the connection between the nations.

Household in Scotland

Anne brought servants and courtiers from Denmark, including the ladies-in-waiting and chamberers Katrine Skinkel, Anna Kaas, and Margaret Vinstarr, the preacher Johannes Sering, a page William Belo, and artisans such as goldsmith Jacob Kroger, the carpenter Frederick, her cooks Hans Poppilman and Marion, and her tailors. Her Danish secretary Calixtus Schein had two Scottish colleagues, William Fowler and John Geddie. The head of her first household was Wilhelm von der Wense. Servants from her home country provided familiarity and bridged a cultural divide.
At first, observers like William Dundas thought the queen led a solitary life, with few Scottish companions. Later in 1590 more Scottish noblewomen were appointed to serve her, including Marie Stewart, a daughter of Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox, Margaret Wood, and members of the Ochiltree Stewart family. James invited Scottish lairds including Robert Mure of Caldwell to send gifts of hackney horses for the queen's ladies to ride. Anne bought her ladies and maidens of honour matching clothes and riding outfits, made by her Danish tailor Pål Rei and furrier Henrie Koss, and the Scottish tailors Peter Sanderson and Peter Rannald supervised by her master of Wardrobe, Søren Johnson. She had an African servant, noted in the accounts only as the "Moir", who was probably a "page of the equerry", attending her horse. He was dressed in orange velvet and Spanish taffeta. When he died at Falkland Palace in July 1591, James paid for his funeral. The German physician Martin Schöner attended Anne when she was ill or in childbed.
Two Danish favourites, Katrine Skinkel and Sofie Kass wore velvet hats with feathers to match the queen's, made by an older gentlewoman in the household, Elizabeth Gibb, the wife of the king's tutor Peter Young. Anne gave her ladies wedding gowns and trousseaux when they married, and even arranged a loan for the dowry of Jean, Lady Kennedy. When, in December 1592 the widower John Erskine, Earl of Mar married Marie Stewart, James VI and Anne of Denmark attended the celebrations at Alloa and there was a masque in costume in which Anne of Denmark performed. Materials for Anne's masque costumes included lightweight silks and ribbons and "plumages" of feathers. Her court musicians in Scotland included John Norlie, an English lutenist.
In 1593, Anne told the English ambassador Robert Bowes that she would like to meet Queen Elizabeth, and wanted to have a young English gentleman or maiden of "good parentage" join her household. Bowes passed this request to Cecil to consider. She made another overture of friendship to Elizabeth I in May 1595, asking for her portrait. There was no response and Bowes had to reiterate her request. Finally, in February 1596 Elizabeth condescended to grant Anne's "earnest desire" and send her a picture.