Mary Grey

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What happened to Lady Mary Grey?

-- Kathy C. (smilingfeather@catsrule.garfield.com), January 21, 2001

Answers

Lady Mary Grey followed her sister Lady Katherine Grey and contracted an inappropriate marriage with a Sergeant at Arms - Thomas Keys. He was extremely tall - I think somewhere around the 6 foot mark whilst Mary was very small - under 5 ft! Quite odd pair really! Elizabeth was furious as Mary was a Princess of the Blood Royal (by descent of her grandmother Mary Rose Tudor, and also as by this point she was the only one of the Grey girls left! Mary was kept under "house arrest" and I think died in the 1570s though I am not certain. She was not sent to the Tower, but I think Thomas Keys did have a spell in Newdigate Prison for a while. Elizabeth was worried that a child (mainly a boy) would be born of the marriage which was pronounced legal and binding unlike Katherine Grey's marriage to the Earl of Hertford. Mary's reason for marrying without permission was that she did not think herself important enough to be a threat to the Monarch due to her small stature and being the youngest of the Grey girls.

-- Elizabeth Chilver (allen.chilver@ntlworld.com), January 24, 2001.

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