102 



Some Notice of William Herbert, 



was soon after made that Lord Guildford Dudley, fourth son of 

 Northumberland, a boy of seventeen, had married the Lady Jane 

 Grey ; and Pembroke's eldest son, the still more youthful Lord 

 Herbert, her sister, the Lady Katharine. According to the will of 

 Henry VIIL, it will be remembered that these sisters Grey were 

 next heirs to the crown, after his own children. That the duke had 

 secured a powerful supporter in the Earl of Pembroke, was no longer 

 doubted. The king rapidly got worse, and died July 6th, 1553. 

 The announcement of her succession to the throne was made to the 

 Lady Jane by Northumberland, attended by Pembroke and others. 

 The Earl of Pembroke, as he approached, knelt to kiss her hand. 

 A very few days sufficed to show that Northumberland's attempt to 

 change the succession by implicating the members of the council 

 was of no avail, the popular feeling was running strongly against 

 him, and Mary's accession was secured. This marriage — in form 

 only — between Lord Herbert and the lady Katharine Grey was 

 hastily broken off and declared invalid. 1 Her destiny, however, 



1 There are several later accounts of this quasi-mamage, most of them in- 

 correct in some particulars. Sir Robert Naunton, in his Fragmenta Regalia, 

 1641, says, "By the letter written [by Pembroke] uppon his sonn's marriage 

 with the Lady Katharine Gray, he had like utterly to have lost himself e ; but at 

 the instant of consummation as apprehending the unsafety and danger of inter- 

 marriage with the blood royall, he fell at the queen's feet, where he both 

 acknowledged his presumption, and projected the cause and the divorce together. 

 So quick was he at his worke, that in the time of repudiation of the sayd Lady 

 Gray, he clapt up a marriage for his son, the Lord Herbert, with Mary Sidney, 

 daughter of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland ; the blow falling on 

 Edward, Karl of Hertford, who, to his cost, took up the divorced Lady." 



Sir Robert Naunton has placed this event, of the first marriage, in the reign 

 of Elizabeth, instead of Mary ; he also confuses the second and third marriages of 

 Lord Herbert. 



Dugdale, in his Baronage (vol. 2, p. 258) also gives an account of the circum- 

 stances connected with the marriage, and quotes the statement of Sir Robert 

 Naunton, but in his MS. additions to the Baronage (Collectanea Topographia et 

 Genealogica, vol. 2, p. 180) he says, " In this passage S 1 ' Rob. Naunton is some- 

 what mistaken ; for certain it is that upon the repudiation of the Lady Katharine 

 Grey, being not ignorant of Queen Mary's great affection to George, Earl of 

 Shrewsbury, he marryed this his son Henry to Katharine, the daughter of that 

 Earle : which Katharine shortly after departing this life, he speedily matcht 

 himself to Mary, the daughter of Sir Henry Sidney, Kn* of the Garter, by Mary 



