The English king marries a fourth time in 1540, to the German Anne of Cleves for a political alliance with her Protestant brother, the Duke of Cleves.

He also hopes to obtain another son in case something should happen to Edward.

Anne proves a dull, unattractive woman and Henry declines to consummate the marriage.

He quickly divorces her, and she remains in England as a kind of adopted sister to him.

So he marries again, to a nineteen-year-old named Catherine Howard, but when it becomes known that she was neither a virgin at the wedding, nor a faithful wife afterwards, she ends up on the scaffold and the marriage declared invalid.

His sixth and last marriage is to Catherine Parr, more a nursemaid to him than anything else, as his health is failing (it had declined ever since the jousting accident in 1536).