Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/112

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returned to London, where he died in Holford Square, Pentonville, 4 July 1864, aged 44. He married, in Edinburgh, Jane Ellen, second daughter of Alexander Young, but left no family.

[Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. xviii. (1865) 101; Lower's Worthies of Sussex (ed. 1865); Brit. Mus. Cat.]

L. C.

DUDLEY, Lady JANE (1537–1554), commonly called Lady Jane Grey, was eldest surviving daughter of Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset, afterwards duke of Suffolk, by Frances, daughter of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and of Mary, younger sister of Henry VIII. She was thus the cousin of Edward VI, and about the same age, being born at Bradgate, Leicestershire, in October 1537. She had two younger sisters, Catherine and Mary. The beauty of her person was equalled by that of her mind and character; and her learning and acquirements were remarkable. Fuller states that her parents treated her with great severity, ‘more than needed to so sweet a temper.’ John Aylmer [q. v.], afterwards bishop of London, was employed by her father as his children's domestic tutor, and Lady Jane proved an exceptionally apt pupil. When barely nine she entered the household of Queen Catherine Parr, and until Queen Catherine's death, in September 1548, was much in her society. The child was chief mourner at her mistress's funeral. Queen Catherine's second husband, Lord Thomas Seymour of Sudeley, purchased Lady Jane's wardship of her parents soon after he became a widower, and she stayed with him at Hanworth or Seymour Place till his fall in January 1548–9. He had promised Lady Jane's father that he would assist him in marrying the girl to her cousin, the young king. But Seymour's brother, the protector Somerset, was planning a union between Edward VI and his own daughter Jane, while he destined Lady Jane for the hand of his son, the Earl of Hertford. The complications which followed these opposing schemes partly account for Seymour's tragic fate, for while Lady Jane remained in Seymour's custody Somerset was powerless to pursue his own plans. After her guardian's execution Lady Jane returned to Bradgate to continue her studies under Aylmer. In the summer of 1550 she was visited there by Roger Ascham [q. v.], who relates how he found her reading Plato's ‘Phædo’ while the rest of the family were hunting in the park (Schoolmaster, ed. Mayor, pp. 33, 213). To him she rehearsed the severity of her parents, who requited ‘with pinches, nips, and bobs’ the defects of her deportment or of her embroidery needle; and the relief which she felt in the gentleness of her tutor Aylmer, who opened to her the treasures of the ancient world. On 14 Dec. 1550 Ascham wrote to his friend Sturm of her almost incredible skill in writing and speaking Greek. She promised to send Ascham a Greek letter, and he wrote to her from Germany (18 Jan. 1550–1) expressing anxiety to receive it. At fifteen she was adding Hebrew to Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, and corresponding with Bullinger, the learned pastor of Zurich. Her three letters to Bullinger are now preserved in Zurich Library. With them was originally sent a piece of embroidery worked by herself, but this is now lost. Her feminine accomplishments were no less celebrated than her graver studies. John Ulmer, or ab Ulmis, a Swiss pupil of Bullinger whom Lady Jane's father protected in England, wrote admiringly to his friends abroad of her learning and amiability, and confidently predicted in 1551 her marriage with Edward VI. In the autumn of 1551 Lady Jane's father became Duke of Suffolk. Thenceforth she was constantly at court and in the society of the Princess Mary as well as of the king. She was in attendance (in October 1551) on Mary of Guise, queen-dowager of Scotland, on her visit to London.

After the fall of Somerset, the Duke of Suffolk allied himself with John Dudley [q. v.], duke of Northumberland. In 1553 he brought his family to his house at Sheen, in close proximity to Sion House, the residence of the Dudleys. A marriage between Lady Jane and Guildford Dudley [q. v.], fourth son of Northumberland, was proposed as part of the well-known plot for altering the succession from the Tudors to the Dudleys upon the decease of Edward VI. The young king was the readier to accede to this project, which set aside his sisters, because of his attachment to Jane. The marriage took place on 21 May 1553 (Whitsunday) at Durham House, the Dudleys' London house. At the same time and place Lady Jane's sister Catherine married Lord Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke's son, and Lord Guildford's sister Catherine married Lord Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon's son. According to a Venetian visitor to England, Lady Jane had vehemently resisted the match, and only yielded to the personal violence of her father. It has been urged that Lady Jane's intercourse with her husband before marriage produced something like affection, but no evidence on the point is accessible. It had been suggested that after the marriage Lady Jane should continue to reside with her mother, but her husband's family insisted on her residing