Monday, May 14, 2012

Question from David - Anne of Cleves' German ladies

Are you able please to let me know the names of Anne of Cleves's German ladies in waiting who came over to England with her?

Thank you

1 comment:

Foose said...

Letters & Papers identifies them as Lady Palant, Lady Keteler, "also the widow of the late lord of Wissem, sister to Willik, steward of Cleves, who is "howmestrinne," i.e., governor to the other gentlewomen, with five servants; five other young gentlewomen, one being a baron's daughter called Swartzenbroch, with three to wait on them."

The gentlewomen are possibly the ones identified in the same source as "Swartzenbroch, Brempt, Ossenbruch, Loe, and Willik."

I'm not sure this squares with the French ambassador Marillac's count of "12 to 15 damsels," but possibly he might have been including the servants to the women.

I can't find my copy of Warnicke's The Marrying of Anne of Cleves,, but she might provide a more precise list, with the Christian names of the women. I know from Google Books that she indicates that one of Anne's ladies was her cousin or cousin-in-law, Countess Waldeck.

Going back to the listed attendants, it's difficult to precisely identify them or give first names. Looking at German Google, Swartzenbroch (spelled also Schwarzenbroich or Schwarzenburg) and Ossenbruch (spelled also Ossenbrock or Ossenbroich) appear to be of Juliers families (Anne's mother was the heiress of Berg and Juliers), while Brempt is identified as a Berg name.

Loe and Willik are von/van Loe and van/von Wylick/Wylich, connections of "Willik," described in L&P as "steward of Cleves." This was Adolph van Wylick/Wylich, a highly influential courtier and adviser of the Duke.

The steward's sister is the "widow of the late lord of Wissem," another van/von Loe. As mistress of the maids, she is also referred to in L&P as "Mother Lowe," solicited by the Lisles to get a place for their daughter in the Queen's court.

Palant/Pallandt/Palandt is the name of a noble Juliers family, furnishing bishops and counts. A Johanna or Anna von Pallandt was a notable female humanist around 1550, but Anne's attendant appears to be a woman who has married into the family Pallandt, and I can't trace her.

Keteler/Kettler is a more notable name. This lady may be related by marriage to the Kettlers who adopted Lutheranism and seized control of Courland, formerly the property of the Teutonic Order. The family was of Westphalian origin (Cleves is located in that region).

To sum up, the ladies seem to have been proposed by Duchess Maria and by the steward of Cleves, probably with the approval of Olisleger, the chancellor. A very cursory look at German sources suggests that they come from families that were anti-Imperial, Erasmian in religion (except possibly for Keteler, and this lady may have been from another branch of the family) and associated with the Rhineland movement for humanism and reform.