Control, Marriage, and Power in 16th-Century Germany

Posted on February 15, 2026 by tudorqueen6

Eberwin III (1536 – 19 February 1562) was a German nobleman of the elder line of the House of Bentheim-Steinfurt. He ruled Bentheim and Steinfurt from 1544 until his death. From 1557 onward, he was also Count of Tecklenburg and Lord of Rheda — by marriage.

In 1553, at age 18, he married 21-year-old Anna of Tecklenburg-Schwerin, the heiress of Tecklenburg.

She was not a decorative bride.

She was a ruling heir.

When her father, Conrad of Tecklenburg-Schwerin, died, a dispute erupted over who held authority.

Anna asserted her right to rule suo jure — in her own name.

Eberwin claimed authority jure uxoris — by right of his wife.

This was not a marital disagreement.

It was a constitutional conflict over sovereignty.

Arrested for Ruling

When Anna refused to relinquish control of her inheritance, Eberwin escalated the matter dramatically.

He had her arrested and confined in her own residence, Tecklenburg Castle.

A ruling countess — imprisoned for asserting legal authority over her own lands.

Anna of Tecklenburg-Schwerin was confined in Tecklenburg Castle during her dispute with Eberwin III over whether she ruled suo jure (in her own right) or he ruled jure uxoris (by right of marriage).

And yet.

During her tenure, the castle underwent significant structural transformation under Anna’s direction.

The castle in the 17th century as seen from the Kahler Berg, based on the Solms engraving

What Changed Under Anna:

Outer windows were enlarged — increasing light and comfort. A new access road (today’s Schlossstrasse) was constructed. A new north-eastern entrance was created. The castle shifted from fortress mentality to stately residence.

In doing so, Tecklenburg lost some of its defensive strength.

Part of a bastion was buried beneath the embankment created for the new approach road.

That buried bastion wasn’t rediscovered until 1944 — accidentally uncovered while digging an air raid shelter.

Later, in the 17th century, the Mauritz Gate (Mauritztor) was built at this new entrance under Count Mauritz. Its lower levels and coat-of-arms frieze still survive.

Release from Imprisonment

She was released only after intervention by Christopher of Oldenburg.

Following her release, the nobility of Tecklenburg sided with Anna. Eberwin was accused of adultery. Anna accused him of reckless financial excess — including luxury horses and the commissioning of his 1560 portrait by Hermann tom Ring.

Portrait: Count Eberwin III of Bentheim-Steinfurt (1560), painted by Hermann tom Ring. Currently displayed at the LWL State Museum in Münster.

After mediation by neighboring rulers, the couple agreed to a legal separation a mensa et thoro — “from bed and board.”

The Outcome

The conflict ended in 1562 when Eberwin died of syphilis at age 26.

He was succeeded by his infant son, Arnold III of Bentheim.

Under Anna’s regency.

Anna — the woman he attempted to confine and override — ultimately governed.

Why This Matters

This case illustrates a fundamental tension in early modern Europe:

When a woman inherited power in her own right, marriage did not automatically erase her sovereignty — but it could trigger conflict.

Anna of Tecklenburg asserted that inheritance did not dissolve into her husband’s authority.

And despite imprisonment, political pressure, and marital collapse, she retained her position.

Control, marriage, and power were deeply intertwined in the 16th century.

But Anna’s story makes one thing clear:

Women who ruled suo jure were not anomalies.

They were legal realities — even when challenged.

Power Struggles

Anna fought for suo jure authority in the 1550s.

But within decades, Tecklenburg’s autonomy would face larger structural threats from regional consolidation powers like Cleves where Queen Anne of Cleves was born.

It’s a classic small-county vs. rising territorial-state pattern in the Empire.

You see the long arc of:

Female inheritance dispute → male contestation → dynastic instability → regional consolidation pressures.

By the later 16th century, the Duchy of Cleves (Jülich-Cleves-Berg) was expanding influence across the Lower Rhine–Westphalia region.

Tecklenburg was a smaller but strategically important county.

After Anna’s regency period and the succession struggles involving her son Arnold III, Tecklenburg became entangled in territorial disputes with stronger neighboring powers — including Cleves.

Visibility and Power in 16th Century Portraits

In the 16th century, portraiture wasn’t just vanity — it was political propaganda. When someone like Eberwin commissions a formal portrait (like the 1560 one by Hermann tom Ring), he’s doing more than decorating a wall. He’s saying:

I rule. I possess status. I possess wealth. I control the narrative.

Anna, despite being the suo jure heiress, doesn’t get the same monumental visual legacy attached to her name.

That absence is telling.

Women who ruled in their own right often:

Appeared in smaller devotional portraits Were depicted within marriage imagery Or were visually erased unless politically necessary

Meanwhile, men in jure uxoris claims rushed to commission grand, standalone, armor-or-velvet portraits to solidify authority.

It’s narrative control in oil paint.

And here’s the irony in Anna’s case:

He commissions the portrait.

He spends lavishly.

He tries to imprison her.

He dies at 26.

She governs.

History kept her power, even if the canvas didn’t.

Sources

• Wikipedia (with regret, sigh) don’t do it kids! 😂

The Elizabeth & Thomas Soap Opera

Posted on January 19, 2025 by tudorqueen6

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BRAVO @katherineparrsociety!!

The “Elizabeth and Thomas” Soap Opera we dare not discuss. Did Parr try to protect Elizabeth? What did Kat Ashley mean when she confessed that the Dowager Queen held Elizabeth? We’ve discussed it so many times. And Parr’s name has been dragged through the gutter by so many. What really happened?

Elizabeth was welcomed into the household of the Dowager Queen in 1547 at Chelsea Manor. The Queen had remarried to Sir Thomas Seymour, now 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, months after King Henry died. Weep some more. Henry only gave her a few months to mourn Lord Latimer. She could do what she wanted at this point. She didn’t have to remarry. She could have retained her status at court, but chose to retire to Chelsea after they made it clear she was no longer needed.

In the 16th century—the age a girl could get married was 12.

In 1508, Lady Maud Parr married Sir Thomas who was about 30 yrs old.

Lady Elizabeth Parr, daughter to the Baron FitzHugh, niece of the Kingmaker, married before 14 to King Edward IV’s friend, Sir William Parr. This gave the Parrs royal blood. Elizabeth’s birthdate needs to be researched further.

The Duchess of Suffolk was married to 40 something, Charles Brandon, at 14.

Lady Margaret Beaufort, grandmother to Elizabeth, was only 12.

Lady Anne Vaux, the aunt of the Queen and older sister of Lady Maud Parr, married Sir Nicholas, Baron Vaux who was born around 1460. See above for Maud’s marriage date and age.

Marriage contracts were made as early as 2 yrs old.

It’s a Sign of the Times.

We have evolved. We live longer now. We know more about the human body and the human brain. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Jersey Portrait of Queen Katherine Parr: sold for £3.4 million

Posted on July 7, 2023 by tudorqueen6

By Meg Mcgath

Sotheby’s *The frame for a Portrait of Katherine Par*r

A rare portrait of Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII and an accomplished woman in her own right, shattered records yesterday (June 5) to become the most expensive Tudor painting of all time. Selling to a U.K. collector at Sotheby’s Old Master & 19th Century Paintings Evening Auction, the work realized $4.4 million, more than four times its initial high estimate.
Observer: A Rare Portrait of Henry VIII’s Sixth Wife Breaks Auction Records

The Jersey portrait is one of only two surviving contemporary portraits of Queen Katherine Parr, the other being the slightly earlier, related full-length in the National Portrait Gallery previously mentioned. In both, the Queen’s jewellery is of further significance in identifying the sitter. In the 1960s both paintings were identified as likenesses of Lady Jane Grey by Strong, largely on the basis of comparison with an engraving in Henry Holland’s Herwologia Anglica of 1620, and a portrait at Seaton Delaval – which appears to be a derivation of the present work, on canvas, dating to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and erroneously called ‘Lady Jane’.⁴Throughout the nineteenth century and until Strong’s publication, the Jersey portrait was in fact also erroneously identified as Queen Mary I. Both portraits were correctly reidentified in 1996 by Susan James (see Literature) on account of the jewellery the sitter is shown wearing, specifically the distinctive crown-headed brooch which appears on her bodice (fig. 2). This brooch, which may have been made for Katherine by her favourite goldsmith, the Dutch jeweller Peter Richardson, is traceable through three Tudor lists of jewels dating to before, during, and after Katherine’s time as Queen, one of which is entitled: ‘The Quene’s Jewells in a cofer having written upon it, “the Quene’s Juelles”’ [sic], and for all of which there is good evidence pointing to Katherine Parr’s ownership (the earliest list of 1542 is an inventory of the jewels belonging to Catherine Howard, which subsequently passed to her successor).⁵

The last list, from 1550, describes the brooch as ‘one ouche or flower with a crown containing two diamonds, one ruby, one emerald; the crown being garnished with diamonds, three pearls pendant.’⁶ Interestingly, overpaint in the full-length portrait at the National Portrait Gallery now means that the square-cut emerald there appears red, but the brooch’s true character is plainly obvious in the present painting, where all the precious stones are clearly distinguished from one another. The accuracy of the depiction of the brooch – thus underlining the portrait’s royal status and sovereignty of the sitter – is further corroborated by its description in the jewel list of Elizabeth I, to whom the brooch passed with the rest of the royal jewellery in 1587, which specifies that the crown is ‘garnished with XV small diamonds’⁷ – all fifteen stones are clearly discernible here. At Elizabeth’s death the brooch passed to Anne of Denmark, queen of James I; it is found in her jewellery inventory of 1606, but an annotation recounts that in 1609, having lost the two triangular-cut diamonds, the brooch was broken up for ‘the making of Gold plate’.⁸

In the full-length portrait, and in a slightly later half-length portrait from the late sixteenth century, previously attributed to William Scrots (also in the National Portrait Gallery; fig. 3),⁹Katherine wears a pendant – probably another brooch adapted to be worn on a necklace – which may be identified as that described in the 1542 list of Catherine Howard’s jewels: ‘oone other Ooche of Golde wherein is averey feir large ruby and a rounde diamond with a verey feir peerle hangyng at the same [sic].’¹⁰ The pendant in the present portrait, by contrast, would appear also to include an emerald; nor does the sitter wear the girdle of antique cameos that appears in the full-length painting, and which is also identifiable in the 1542 list. Instead, here Katherine’s waist is encircled by a belt of large pearls and diamonds in gold settings, with pomanders and small antique urn-shaped pendants, which, together with the matching adornment to the line of her bodice across the chest and the pattern of her necklace, bears a remarkable similarity to that in a portrait of Elizabeth I, when Princess, in the Royal Collection, at Windsor.¹¹The portrait of Princess Elizabeth and the Jersey portrait of Katherine also share similar embroidery in the sleeves and both sitters wear almost identical diamond rings, which display the latest styles in diamond cutting – the table-cut and pointed cut – which were symbolic of fidelity, though the pattern of their display follows that in the the portrait of Katherine in the National Portrait Gallery. Unlike either of these other two portraits, however, the jewels in Katherine’s cuffs, and the pomanders on her girdle, in the Jersey portrait are all inscribed multiple times with the words ‘LAVS DEVS’ (‘praise God’).
Sotheby’s