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English noblewoman

Katherine Seymour, Countess of Hertford ( Lady Katherine Grey; 25 August 1540 – 26 January 1568) was a younger sister of Lady Jane Grey. A granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, she emerged as a prospective successor to her cousin, Elizabeth I of England, before incurring Queen Elizabeth's wrath by secretly marrying Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford. Arrested after the Queen was informed of their clandestine marriage, Katherine (as Lady Hertford) lived in captivity until her death, having borne two sons in the Tower of London.

Lady Katherine was born on 25 August 1540 at Bradgate Park, near Leicester, the second surviving daughter of Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, by his marriage to Lady Frances Brandon. She was the younger sister of Lady Jane Grey and elder sister of Lady Mary Grey. Katherine Grey's maternal grandparents were Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France, youngest surviving daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Through their grandmother, the Grey sisters had a close claim in the line of succession to the English throne. They were preceded in the line of succession only by Henry VIII's three children – Prince Edward, Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth – and the descendants of Princess Margaret, the elder daughter of Henry VII and Queen Consort of Scotland, after 1542 represented by Mary, Queen of Scots. However, Henry VIII had excluded the Scottish regal line from the English succession in his Will, placing the Grey sisters next in line after his own children.

Some time before August 1552, Katherine Grey was betrothed to Henry, Lord Herbert, heir apparent to William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke. In 1553, as King Edward VI was dying, the King and his Chief Minister, John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, planned to exclude Edward's sister Mary Tudor from the succession in favour of Katherine's elder sister, Lady Jane Grey. According to the Letters Patent of 21 June 1553, Lady Katherine was to be second in the line of succession behind her sister and heirs male. Lady Jane had been married to Northumberland's son, Lord Guildford Dudley, on 25 May 1553. On the same occasion, Lady Katherine was married to Lord Herbert at Durham House. After the wedding, Katherine (now Lady Herbert) went to live with her husband at Baynard's Castle beside the Thames. When Lady Jane's accession to the throne failed, Henry's father sought to distance himself from the Grey family by separating his son from Lady Katherine and seeking the annulment of the marriage; this was probably achieved in early 1554, as the union had not been consummated. Meanwhile, her sister (Lady Jane Grey) and her father (the Duke of Suffolk) had been executed in February 1554 after the suppression of Wyatt's Rebellion.

During the first phase of Queen Mary I's reign, Lady Katherine was senior heir in line to the throne as Mary was yet unmarried and her younger sister Elizabeth was regarded as illegitimate. Demoted when Elizabeth was declared heir, Lady Katherine's claim came to the fore again when Queen Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne in November 1558. At one point the Queen was apparently contemplating Lady Katherine Grey as a potential Protestant heir, with rumours of a possible adoption, but any such development was terminated upon Lady Katherine's clandestine marriage to Lord Hertford.

After the birth of Katherine's second child in 1563, the enraged Queen ordered her permanent separation from her husband and elder son. Katherine was removed to the care of her uncle, Sir John Grey, at Pirgo. She stayed there until November 1564, when she was transferred to the charge of Sir William Petre. For two years she was in his custody, and probably resided at Ingatestone Hall; then she was removed to the care of Sir John Wentworth (a kinsman of Petre's first wife) at Gosfield Hall, and after seventeen months' confinement there was taken to Cockfield Hall, Yoxford, in Suffolk.

The following chart illustrates Lady Katherine Grey's relationship to the House of Tudor and other claimants to the English throne. Italics indicate people who predeceased Edward VI; Arabic numerals indicate the line of succession to Edward VI at the time of his death according to Henry VIII's will; and Roman numerals indicate the line of succession at the time of Edward VI's death according to Edward's will.