Anna of Lorraine

Anna of Lorraine (25 July 1522 – 15 May 1568) was a princess of the House of Lorraine. She was Princess of Orange by her first marriage to René of Châlon, and Duchess of Aarschot by her second marriage to Philippe II of Croÿ.

Anna of Lorraine (Jan van Scorel, 1542)

Life

Anna was the daughter of Antoine the Good, Duke of Lorraine and Renée of Bourbon-Montpensier. Her maternal grandparents were Gilbert of Bourbon, Count of Montpensier, and Clara Gonzaga. Her brothers were Francis I, Duke of Lorraine and Nicolas, Duke of Mercœur.

Her father – Antoine, Duke of Lorraine – was originally promised Mary Tudor, the younger sister of King Henry VIII of England, as a bride by King Francis I of France after the death of Francis' predecessor, King Louis XII of France, on 1 January 1515. However, Mary Tudor married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk instead. After the death of Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, on 24 October 1537, potential new brides were suggested to him: Christina of Denmark, Louise of Guise, Anne of Cleves, Amalia of Cleves, and Anna of Lorraine.

Hans Holbein the Younger was dispatched to Lorraine to paint a portrait of Anna for the King. Henry VIII chose Anne of Cleves as his new bride, and married her on 6 January 1540, only to have the marriage annulled on 12 July 1540. Henry VIII swiftly remarried Catherine Howard on 28 July 1540, ruling out Anna of Lorraine as a potential bride.

Anna of Lorraine married René of Châlon, Prince of Orange on 22 August 1540 at Bar-le-Duc. They had a single daughter, Maria, born in 1544, who only lived three weeks and was buried in the Grote Kerk at Breda.

René died in 1544, and all of his lands were inherited by William the Silent, his cousin. Anna remarried to Philip II, Duke of Aarschot, on 9 July 1548. They had one son, Charles Philippe de Croÿ, born on 1 September 1549 in Brussels. He was the Prince of Croÿ and in 1580 married Diane de Dommartin (1550 – after 1635), Countess of Fontenoy-le-Château. He died on 25 November 1613 in Burgundy.

She died in Diest.

Sources

• Bietenholz, Peter G.; Deutscher, Thomas Brian, eds. (1995). "Rene of Chalon". Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation. Vol. 3. University of Toronto Press.

• Scarisbrick, J. J. (1997). Henry VIII (2nd ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 0-3000-7158-2.