Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/194

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Grey
186
Grey

where he was taken two months later, and executed on 27 April. Suffolk disbanded his followers, giving each a sum of money, and he and his youngest brother, John, hid themselves in a gamekeeper's cottage on the duke's estate of Astley Cooper, Warwickshire. His keeper, one Underwood, betrayed him. Suffolk, who was very ill, was found hidden in a hollow tree. Both brothers were kept prisoners three days at Coventry, and then escorted by the Earl of Huntingdon, who had been sent against them, and three hundred horsemen, to London (10 Feb.), where they were sent to the Tower. Suffolk was arraigned for high treason at Westminster Hall (17 Feb.), the Earl of Arundel, brother of his repudiated first wife, being the judge, and some have needlessly ascribed Suffolk's death to Arundel's desire to avenge his sister. He was found guilty of high treason and condemned to death. He was executed on Tower Hill on Friday, 23 Feb. 1554, and met his end with more courage and dignity than he had usually shown in life (see full account of trial and execution, Queen Jane and Queen Mary, pp. 60-3; Stow, &c.) Whatever his virtues his weakness and ambition are undeniable, though Holinshed gives him credit for gentleness, placability, and truthfulness. He had some learning, and was a liberal patron of all learned men. He hospitably entertained many foreigners, amongst others Bullinger, with whom he afterwards corresponded (Original Letters, Parker Soc., 2nd ser.p.3, 21 Dec.1551),and who, in March 1551, dedicated the concluding portion of his decades to him. Throughout his life he remained a firm protestant, and was a disciple of the most uncompromising' of the reformed teachers. By his wife, Frances Brandon, he had five children, two of whom died as infants. Jane was the eldest surviving [see Dudley, Lady Jane]; the second, Catherine, was imprisoned by Elizabeth for her marriage with Edward Seymour [q. v.]; and the third, Mary, fell under (Elizabeth's displeasure for her marriage with Thomas Keys [see Keys, Mary]. The duchess remarried Adrian Stokes, her master of the horse, very soon after the duke's execution. There is a portrait of Grey, by Joannes Corvus, in the National Portrait Gallery, and another at Hatfield is engraved in Lodge's `Portraits,' pl. 25.

[The chief authorities for the life of Henry Grey are, besides the State Papers. Dom. Lemon, 1547-80, Addenda, 1547-65; Wriothesley's Chronicle; Holinshed; Stow's Annals; Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary (Camden Soc); Rapin's abridgment of Rymer's Fœdera. iii. 359, 361; Foxe's Acts and Monuments, ed. Townsend, vi. 384, 413, 537, 543, &c.; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 666-73; Dugdale's Baronage. i. 721, and History of Warwickshire, p. 112; Strype's Annals. Clarendon Press. ed. 1824, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 420; Strype's Memorials, vols. ii. and iii., ed. 1843; Cranmer, pp. 299, 434, ed. 1822; Hayward's Annals; Burnet's Reformatian; Tytlor's Edward VI and Mary; Lady Jane Grey and her Times, by George Howard, 1822, and other histories of Lady Jane and of the reign of Edward VI.]

E. T. B.

GREY, HENRY, ninth Earl of Kent (1594–1651), born on 24 Nov. 1594, was the son of the Rev. Anthony Grey, eighth earl of Kent (1557–1643),rector of Aston Flamville, Leicestershire, by Magdalen, daughter of William Purefoy of Caldecote, Warwickshire (Doyle, Official Baronage, ii. 286–7), He became Lord Ruthin on 21 Nov. 1639. From 1640 to 1643 he represented Leicestershire in parliament. On 4 June 1642 he was chosen by the parliament first commissioner of the militia in Leicestershire (Commons' Journals, ii. 604). He succeeded his father as ninth Earl of Kent on 9 Nov. 1643, and on the 28th of the same month was substituted for the Earl of Rutland as first commissioner of the great seal (ib. iii. 323). Clarendon (Hist. ed. 1849, iii. 263, 306) calls him a man of far meaner parts than Lord Rutland, and says that the number of lords who attended the parliament was so small that the choice was very limited. On 16 Aug. 1644 Grey became a commissioner of martial law (Commons' Journals, iii. 592), lord-lieutenant of Rutlandshire on the 24th of the same month (ib. iii. 606), and speaker of the House of Lords on 13 Feb. 1645 (Lords' Journals, viii. 191). He was resworn first commissioner of the great seal on 20 March 1645, and continued in office until 30 Oct. 1646, when the seal was given to the speakers of the two houses (ib. viii. 223). Grey, who was custos rotulorum of Bedfordshire, accepted the lord-lieutenancy of that county on 2 July 1646 (Commons' Journals, iv. 597), and the speakership of the House of Lords on 6 Sept. 1647 (Lords' Journals, ix. 422), becoming one of the committee of the navy and customs on 17 Dec. following (ib. ix. 582). In that month he was one of the lords commissioners to take the four bills to the king at the Isle of Wight, and had to bring them back unsigned. He was renominated on 17 March 1648 chief commissioner of the great seal in conjunction with another lord and two commoners (ib. x. 117), but neither he nor his colleagues took any part in the trial or death of the king. He remained in office until the commons, on 6 Feb. 1649, voted the abolition of the House of Lords, and two days after placed the seal in other