Lady Catherine Grey - Jane Grey and Catherine's First Marriage

Jane Grey and Catherine's First Marriage

In 1553, as King Edward VI was dying, the King and his chief minister, John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, planned to exclude his sister Mary from the succession in favour of Catherine's elder sister, Jane. According to the letters patent of 21 June 1553, Catherine was to be second in the line of succession behind her sister and her heirs male. Jane had been married to Northumberland's son, Guilford Dudley, on 25 May 1553. On the same occasion, Catherine was married to Henry Herbert, the son and heir of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke at Durham House. After the wedding, Catherine went to live with her husband at Baynard's Castle on the Thames. Catherine Grey had been betrothed to Henry Herbert sometime before August 1552. When Jane's accession failed due to a lack of popular support, Henry's father, the Earl of Pembroke, sought to distance himself from the Grey family by separating his son from Catherine and seeking the annulment of the marriage. He succeeded in 1554, the union having never been consummated. Meanwhile, Catherine Grey's sister, Lady Jane, and her father, the Duke of Suffolk, had been executed in February 1554 after the collapse of Wyatt's Rebellion.