Anne of Denmark married James VI at fourteen, with 300 tailors on her dress
Before she ever met him, fourteen-year-old Anne of Denmark embroidered shirts for her Scottish fiancé while hundreds of tailors stitched her wedding gown. At their proxy wedding in 1589 the groom was absent; his stand-in sat beside her on the bridal bed. She became queen of Scotland, then of England and Ireland.
Anne was born on 12 December 1574 at Skanderborg castle in Jutland, the younger of two daughters born to the Danish king Frederick II and his queen, Sophie. Her father had wanted a son; her brother Christian arrived three years later. She and her older sister Elizabeth spent early years with their grandparents at Güstrow before returning in 1579, and she enjoyed a warm childhood, her mother personally nursing the children when they were ill.
James VI liked Denmark as a Protestant kingdom and a good trading partner. His alternative was Catherine, sister of Henry of Navarre and favoured by Elizabeth I, but she was eight years older and Henry wanted military help. The Scots first sought Anne's sister, but Frederick promised Elizabeth elsewhere and offered the second daughter instead. After his death in 1588 Sophie drove the bargain through, settling the dowry and the question of Orkney by July 1589. An English spy reported Anne besotted with James, while hinting he preferred men; James himself wrote that he had to marry to secure his line and silence doubts about his fertility. The proxy ceremony took place at Kronborg Castle on 20 August 1589, with George Keith, Earl Marischal, standing in.
They had three children who survived infancy: Henry, Prince of Wales, who died before his parents; Elizabeth, later Queen of Bohemia; and the future Charles I. Anne proved independent, exploiting Scottish factions in fights with James over custody of Henry and his treatment of her friend Beatrix Ruthven. Early affection faded and the couple eventually lived apart, though respect remained.
After the union of the crowns on 24 March 1603 she moved into England and turned from politics to the arts, building a court that hosted one of Europe's richest cultural circles. Illness from 1612 drew her away from public life, and she died on 2 March 1619, officially Protestant though possibly a convert to Catholicism. Once written off as frivolous, or by 18th-century writers as a schemer of boundless intrigue, she is now valued as a major Jacobean patron.
Source: Anne of Denmark
