Anne of Denmark (1574 - 1619). Anne of Denmark was Queen consort of Scotland, England, and Ireland by marriage to King James VI and I. The second daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark, Anne married James in 1589 at age 15 and bore him three children who survived infancy, including the future Charles I. She demonstrated an independent streak and a willingness to use factional Scottish politics in her conflicts with James over the custody of Prince Henry and his treatment of her friend Beatrix Ruthven. Anne appears to have loved James at first, but the couple gradually drifted and eventually lived apart, though mutual respect and a degree of affection survived. In England, Anne shifted her energies from factional politics to patronage of the arts and constructed her own magnificent court, hosting one of the richest cultural salons in Europe. After 1612, she suffered sustained bouts of ill health and gradually withdrew from the centre of court life. Though she was reported to have been a Protestant at the time of her death, evidence suggests that she may have converted to Catholicism at some point in her life. Historians have traditionally dismissed Anne as a lightweight queen, frivolous and self-indulgent. However, recent reappraisals acknowledge Anne's assertive independence and, in particular, her dynamic significance as a patron of the arts during the Jacobean age. Anne was born on 12 December 1574 at the castle of Skanderborg on the Jutland Peninsula in the Kingdom of Denmark to Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow and King Frederick II of Denmark. In need of a male heir the King had been hoping for a son, however Sofie gave birth to a son, Christian IV of Denmark, three years later. With her older sister, Elizabeth, Anne was sent to be raised at Güstrow by her maternal grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Mecklenburg. Compared with the roving Danish court, where King Frederick was notorious for heavy eating and drinking and restless behaviour, Güstrow provided Anne with a frugal and stable life during her early childhood. Christian was also sent to be brought up at Güstrow but two years later, in 1579, the Rigsraad successfully requested his removal to Denmark, and Anne and Elizabeth returned with him. Anne enjoyed a close, happy family upbringing in Denmark, thanks largely to Queen Sophie, who nursed the children through their illnesses herself. Suitors from all over Europe sought the hands of Anne and Elizabeth in marriage, including James VI of Scotland, who favoured Denmark as a kingdom reformed in religion and a profitable trading partner. James' other serious possibility, though eight years his senior, was Catherine, sister of the Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre, who was favoured by Elizabeth I of England. Scottish ambassadors had at first concentrated their suit on the oldest daughter, but Frederick betrothed Elizabeth to Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick, promising the Scots instead that for the second Anna, if the King did like her, he should have her. The constitutional position of Sophie, Anne's mother, became difficult after Frederick's death in 1588, when she found herself in a power struggle with the Rigsraad for control of King Christian. As a matchmaker, however, Sophie proved more diligent than Frederick and, overcoming sticking points on the amount of the dowry and the status of Orkney, she sealed the agreement by July 1589. Anne herself seems to have been thrilled with the match. On 28 July 1589, the English spy Thomas Fowler reported that Anne was so far in love with the King's Majesty as it were death to her to have it broken off and hath made good proof divers ways of her affection which his Majestie is apt in no way to requite. Fowler's insinuation, that James preferred men to women, would have been hidden from the fourteen-year-old Anne, who devotedly embroidered shirts for her fiancé while 300 tailors worked on her wedding dress. Whatever the truth of the rumours, James required a royal match to preserve the Stuart line. God is my witness, he explained, I could have abstained longer than the weal of my country could have permitted, my long delay bred in the breasts of many a great jealousy of my inability, as if I were a barren stock. On 20 August 1589, Anne was married by proxy to James at Kronborg Castle, the ceremony ending with James' representative, George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal, sitting next to Anne on the bridal bed.