Lady Mary Grey

She was a minor historical figure, but I feel a great tenderness for Mary Grey and I wish to know her better than I do by now.

Her life was very sad. Henry Dorset and Frances Brandon were not proud parents for Mary, their third daughter (a third daughter is never welcomed when both the father and the mather wished a male heir). She was probably a fragile creature. When she grew up, they found that the third girl was not clever as Jane or pretty as Catherine. Mary was a ugly girl, a hump-backet dwarf (only four foot tall and deformed by kyphosis).

Mary had eleven years when her elder sister Jane and their common father Dorset were beheaded. Just three weeks after her father´s execution, the mother remarried her steward, fifteen years younger than herself. I suppose that Catherine and Mary Grey were shocked by all this changes in their family´s circle. Frances, Catherine and Mary remained at the Court due to the fact that Queen Mary tried to left the past behind. Queen Mary encouraged the friendship between Catherine Grey and young Jane Seymour, a daughter of Somerset.

The secret marriage contracted by Catherine and Edward Seymour, brother of Jane, was a very dangerous thing. Queen Mary was dead, queen Elizabeth was at her moment of glory. Elizabeth became furious when she knew that her cousin Catherine was married to Edward without permission. Both Catherine and Edward spent many years imprisoned, their marriage annulled and their two sons reputed as bastards.

It´s very strange to me that Mary Grey, knowing well the ill fate of her elder sisters Jane and Catherine, and her brothers-in-law Guildford and Edward. wished to marry Thomas Keeyes. They married secretly, but the secret was broken and Mary lived under house arrest... Why she married Thomas? And how dared Thomas to marry a lady Grey?

Thomas was a a widower, with children, I think. I can only think that Mary was in love with him, or thought she was, when she married him. In spite of the fact that the marriage (combined with her physical state) made sure that Mary's days as a claimant to the throne were over, Elizabeth treated the both pretty harshly. After a few years of exile from court, Mary was allowed back, and Elizabeth gave her a new year's present in 1578, I think.

Do you have more info about Thomas, Lieven? As far as I know, he had very humble origins, and he was the gatekeeper at the Palace of Westminter. He was a middle-aged widower, with several children. He paid the price for his secret wedding with Mary, he was sent to Fleet Prison while his wife was under house arrest. I think that Mary had several guardians, including the widow of her paternal grandfather Charles Brandon, Catherine Willoughby d´Eresby, and later sin Thomas Gresham...but I´m not sure. Mary wrotte a large number of letters to her cousin Queen Elizabeth, and she claimed permission to raise up all her stepsons and stepdaughters...I suppose she felt guilty about the fate of poor Thomas Keyes. He must have been in love with Mary, if not I don´t understand that he had assumed the risk to marry her. Their life together finished in not more than two weeks and they never met again.

Thomas was a 'serjeant porter' (whatever that is) and was treated terribly in Fleet Prison. He said he was given meat which had been soaked in water dogs were washed in to eat, or something like that. He was very ill there, but I don't think he was as in love with Mary as she was with him - I think he swore to never see her again if he was let out.

I think he swore to never see her again if he was let out.

But this is understable, Lieven! Poor man...he had children from his first wife. I wonder what happened with all the children, their mother dead, their father imprisoned. Thomas must have been felt guilty to his children...

Remember also the Mary's mother, Frances Brandon, and her step grandmother/guardian, the dowager
duchess of Suffolk (née Katherine Willoughby) both married servants!

Lady Mary Grey

Lady Mary Grey

Assuming that portrait wasn't an idealized one, she didn't look at all like I pictured her! She has an attractive, very Elizabethan face, and the dress is great. Do you have a date for this?

I've never seen that painting either! If that's really how she looked, why on earth did they call her "ugly"? (I mean...just look at that whey-faced Jane Seymour with those school-marm pursed lips--she looked like she'd just bit down on something sour, but she was Henry's "great love"!!  )

Then again, it may have been the fact that Mary was born a dwarf. People in those times were incredibly cruel to anyone who was "different" in any way, if poor Mary hadn't been born into the nobility she probably would have ended up in some kind of Elizabethan sideshow or something. 

I just picked up the portrait from a website which cannot recall now but here you have another version from
http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/MaryGrey.htm

And here is Catherine Grey (Mary&Jane sister)