The Tudor Society
  • #OTD in Tudor history – 21 February

    Engravings of Ambrose Dudley and martyr Robert Southwell

    On this day in Tudor history, 21st February, Pope Julius II died; Katherine Seymour (née Grey), Countess of Hertford, was buried; Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, died, and Jesuit priest Robert Southwell was hanged, drawn and quartered…

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  • February 21 – The burial of Katherine Seymour (née Grey), Countess of Hertford

    On this day in Tudor history, 21st February 1568, Katherine Seymour (née Grey), Countess of Hertford, was buried at Yoxford. Her remains were later re-interred, by her grandson, in the Seymour family tomb at Salisbury Cathedral.

    Katherine was the second daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Frances Brandon, and the granddaughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, Queen of France. She was also the younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, or Queen Jane.

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  • Katherine Grey, Countess of Hertford

    Lady Katherine Grey was born as the second surviving daughter of Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk. Born at Bradgate Park in Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire, Katherine was the offspring of an aspiring and preeminent Tudor family with ambitions at the royal court. Katherine’s maternal grandparents were Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, the youngest surviving sister of King Henry VIII; this gave Katherine, and her two siblings, Jane and Mary, a claim to the English throne through their grandmother. Known popularly as the younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, the tragic young queen who was sentenced to death by the Catholic Queen Mary I, Katherine has become a fashionable topic of discussion in the academic and popular history world. Historians such as Leanda de Lisle have revaluated her life to reveal an equally as resilient and tragic figure to her sister Jane; indeed, Lady Katherine’s short life witnessed a number of tumultuous and unexpected events. This article intends to put forward a condensed examination of her life, which will include: her marriage, imprisonment, claim to the throne and downfall.

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