DOROTHEA OF DENMARK, Electress Palatine (1520-1580). Letter signed (‘Dorothea’) to Anne of Cleves (‘Annen konigin zu Ingellant’), ‘Newemarck’ [Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz], 29 December 1539.

DOROTHEA OF DENMARK, Electress Palatine (1520-1580). Letter signed (‘Dorothea’) to Anne of Cleves (‘Annen konigin zu Ingellant’), ‘Newemarck’ [Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz], 29 December 1539.

In German. One page, 285 x 325mm, address panel, papered seal (dampstaining, not affecting legibility). Cloth-covered box.

A desperate appeal to Henry VIII: a teenage Dorothea of Denmark begs Anne of Cleves, soon to be queen of England, to enlist the king’s help to free her father from prison. Dorothea writes to Anne of her wretchedness these past seven years, and the sadness she has carried since childhood, pleading for the aid of her king to secure the release of Dorothea’s father and appealing to Anne’s Christian nature.

Dorothea’s father, Christian II of Denmark (1481-1559), ruled as king of Denmark and Norway from 1513 to 1523 and as king of Sweden from 1520 to 1521, losing the first of these thrones after his uncle deposed him and the latter following the so-called Stockholm Bloodbath. In 1531, when Dorothea was ten years old, he returned from exile in the Netherlands and attempted to reclaim the kingdoms but was captured and placed under arrest, where he stayed for the remainder of his days. As the eldest of Christian’s children to survive to adulthood, Dorothea inherited his claim to the thrones of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, making her a highly desirable marital prospect; after long years of negotiations, she married Elector Frederik II of the Palatine, with whose support she continued to press for her father’s release and for her claims to the Scandinavian kingdoms. The present letter was written by a nineteen-year-old Dorothea to Anne of Cleves just days before the latter’s wedding to Henry VIII on 6 January 1540.