SOURCE: Mathew, David. Lady Jane Grey: The Setting of the Reign, pp. 126-58. London: Eyre Methuen, 1972.

In the following excerpt, Mathew recounts the details of Grey's succession and imprisonment, as well as her education and religious preoccupation.

Lady Jane Grey

The Marchioness of Dorset had brought up her eldest daughter for a great position. She herself was a cold-hearted Protestant; life had gone sour on her. The elder daughter of the Queen of France and in consequence the senior English niece of Henry VIII, she had had an unsatisfactory marriage with her cousin Dorset, the head of the senior line of the Greys. The blood of his stock was failing, his will was weak. Her last pregnancy, after her two daughters, had produced a dwarf, the Lady Mary. What could be done with the Lady Jane could only come through her mother's efforts. It is these, perhaps, that...