Anne of Cleves was Henry VIII’s fourth wife, though not his first choice for the role by far. His ambassadors searched out all the eligible heiresses of Europe and discovered their king had a very nasty marital reputation. The beautiful Christina of Milan was told of the king’s interest and wittily replied that if she had two heads she would risk it, but she had only one; Marie de Guise, who would later wed his nephew the King of Scots, replied much the same. The tragic tale of his second queen, Anne Boleyn, had kept European gossips busy for three years now.
The king’s poor and disrespectful treatment of his first wife (he was rumored to have bullied Katharine of Aragon to an unhappy death) and the quick end of his third (in his desperation for a healthy male heir, the king was rumored to have ordered Jane Seymour cut open, mangled and killed) only contributed to his low reputation.