1553

Edward the Sixth, by the persuasion of the Duke of Northumberland, made a will, by which he settled the Crown on the Lady Jane Grey, wife to the Duke's fourth son, Lord Guilford Dudley, and eldest daughter of Henry Grey Duke of Suffolk by Frances daughter of Mary second daughter of Henry the Seventh. Edward the Sixth died at Greenwich on the 6th of July, but his death was kept secret till the 10th, when Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen at London.

The Lady Mary, the heir to the Crown by descent and under Henry the Eighth's will, was at Hunsdon, in Hertfordshire, at the time of her brother's death. From that place she had been summoned to attend him on his death bed, but hesitated to do so, fearing danger from Northumberland, of whose proceedings she was not ignorant. The summons was now repeated as if the King were still alive, and she had advanced within half a day's journey of London, when she received private intelligence of the King's death. She then came to Sawston, seven miles from Cambridge, the seat of Sir John Huddleston, where she heard mass, and whence she proceeded privately (riding behind one of Sir John's servants) to her mansion at Kenninghall, in Norfolk, where she was met by the Earls of Bath and Sussex, Sir Thomas Wharton, Sir John Mordaunt, Sir William Drury, Sir John Shelton, Sir Henry Bedingfield, and many other gentlemen of Norfolk and Suffolk, with all the soldiers they could raise.