GREY 



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GREY 



due to him in no small degree that Canada 

 won responsible government when it did. The 

 first Earl Grey (1729-1807) was a British gen- 

 eral who held high commands in America dur- 

 ing the Revolutionary War, and the second 

 Earl, grandfather of the fourth Earl, was the 

 famous Prime Minister. G.H.L. 



GREY, CHARLES, second Earl (1764-1845), an 

 Kngiish statesman, whose greatest work was 

 the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832. Ho 

 was born at Fallodon, in Northumberland, 

 studied at Eton and at King's College, Cam- 

 bridge, and like most young men of his class, 

 completed his education by traveling on the 

 Continent. In 1786 he entered Parliament, 

 where he at once joined Charles Fox, to whom 

 he ever afterward remained faithful. He 

 helped to manage the impeachment of Warren 

 Hastings, and as early as 1797 began to bring 

 forward petitions for electoral reform. In the 

 "all talents" ministry of 1806 he was first lord 

 of the admiralty, and on Fox's death Secretary 

 of State for Foreign Affairs, and he helped to 

 put through the bill for the abolition of the 

 slave trade. 



From 1807 to 1830 he was a member of the 

 Opposition in the House of Lords, to which 

 he had been admitted in 1807; but in 1830 he 

 came into power as Premier. At once he began 

 the struggle to put through a reform bill which 

 should equalize suffrage and do away with the 

 so-called "rotten boroughs," but opposition 

 was fierce, and disturbances throughout the 

 country were the result. Twice the bill was 

 passed by the Commons and rejected by the 

 Lords, and in 1832 Grey demanded of King 

 William IV that he create enough new peers 

 to put through the bill. William consented, 

 but the mere threat of such action was enough 

 to change the attitude of the Lords, and on 

 June 4, 1832, the Reform Bill was passed. 



Grey retired from office in 1834 and spent the 

 rest of his life in retirement. While not rank- 

 ing with the greatest statesmen England has 

 produced, he holds a permanent place in the 

 history of his country. A.MC c. 



GREY, EDWARD, VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODEN 

 (1862- ), until 1916 known as Sir Edward 

 Grey, a British statesman and diplomat, ap- 

 pointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 

 in 1905. The appointment was severely criti- 

 cized at the time, for Grey was then almost 

 unknown to the public. In 1885, shortly after 

 taking his degree at Balliol College, Oxford, 

 he entered the House of Commons as the 

 Liberal member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, and 



SIR EDWARD GREY 



from 1892 to 1895 he was Under-Secret ary for 

 Foreign Affairs in the Gladstone and Rosehery 

 ministries. His interest in politics, however, was 

 popularly .sup- 

 posed to be some- 

 what languid, and 

 he was better 

 known as an 

 amateur tennis 

 champion, an en- 

 thusiastic fisher- 

 man and a lover 

 of all outdoor 

 sports. Between 

 1895 and 1905, 

 when the Con- 

 servatives were in 

 power, Grey continued to sit in the House as 

 a private member. Always inclined to be 

 reticent, he took small part in the discussion 

 of public questions, except when foreign affairs 

 were under consideration, but he seems to have 

 won recognition for his abilities from his fel- 

 low-members. 



It is no injustice to Grey to state that the 

 public at first had little confidence in him as 

 Secretary for Foreign Affairs, yet within a few 

 years he was recognized not merely as one of 

 the strongest men in the Cabinet but as the 

 commanding figure in European diplomacy. 

 Grey took office at a critical time, and between 

 1905 and 1914, when the conflict did break out, 

 there were several occasions when it seemed 

 as if a general European war were almost un- 

 avoidable. In each of these crises Grey was 

 conspicuous, particularly in 1912, when his in- 

 fluence led to the London conference of the 

 powers to consider the Balkan question. Ho 

 presided at the conference, and to a large 

 degree he was responsible for the agreement 

 concerning Albania. Thereafter he stood sec- 

 ond to none among the diplomats of Europe. 

 In 1914 Grey was called on to play a difficult 

 role in the complicated negotiations preceding 

 the War of the Nations (which see). In 1916 

 Grey was created an earl, but by special per- 

 mission of the king was allowed to take the 

 lower rank of viscount "for personal and fam- 

 ily reasons." It was generally assumed that tho 

 change was made in order to prevent con- 

 fusion with Earl Grey, the former Governor- 

 General of Canada ; the two Greys are not 

 related. W.F.Z. 



GREY, LADY JANE (1537-1554), known as 

 "the nine days' queen," was a woman of rare 

 accomplishments whom misfortune overtook at 



