World-System (1450-1650): Anne of Cleves and the German Connection

 

This Sunday on PBS Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell finds a new wife for Henry VIII, Anne of Cleves. Anne is the sister of William of Cleves (William the Rich), a German Duke. Cromwell and Henry wanted a Geopolitical Alliance with Germany for Religious reasons. Henry had just split England from the Catholic Church, but still had conventional religious ideas--except for divorce and annulment. The Protestant Reformation was sweeping through Germany but was too radical for Henry (he had just had John Lambert burned at the stake in 1538 as a Protestant heretic). William of Cleves was a more moderate reformer and Henry needed alliances against Rome. The marriage with Anne of Cleves quickly failed for reasons that are unclear but explored in this episode Wolf Hall. My question is whether Germany would have been a good Geopolitical Alliance for England.

In the graphic above, I have presented alternative growth forecasts for Germany (1450-1640). The dark line is the actual data path and the remaining lines are for the Random Walk (RW), the Business as Usual (BAU) and the World System linkages (W).  All the forecasts are similar. After 1600, the Germany was heading for a steady state economy. As I have shown earlier, England would have better going it alone (BAU) or following the World System (here). In any event, alliance with Germany was a path not taken because Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves quickly failed. Anne was smart enough to take a generous settlement from Henry and she managed to outlive both Henry and Cromwell.

You can explore alternative economic histories for Germany using the DE_L16 model (here) and consult the Boiler Plate (here) for more information about how the state space models were constructed. You can also read my discussion of the German Economy during this period here. And, you can imagine that, rather than Anne of Cleves looks being a factor, John Dee had gotten to Henry with the German growth forecast and convinced him that an alliance was not such a good idea.