Thomas Grey, second Marquess of Dorset was an English peer, courtier, soldier and landowner, the grandfather of Lady Jane Grey, briefly Queen of England. Grey was the third son and eventual heir of Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, at the time England’s only marquess, and his wife, Cecily Bonville, the daughter and heiress of William Bonville, Baron Harington. His mother was in her own right Baroness Harington and Bonville and the richest heiress in England. The first marquess was the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, so a stepson of King Edward IV and half-brother of Edwars, Prince of Wales, later King Edward V.

According to some reports, the young Grey attended Magdalen College School, Oxford, and he is uncertainly said to have been taught by the future Cardinal Wolsey.

Amoung the Queen of England’s closest relations, Grey and his younger brothers Leonard and Edward where welcome at court and became courtiers and later soldiers. In 1494 Grey was made night of the Bath and in 1551 knight of the Garter. Also in 1501 his father died and the younger Thomas inherited his titles and some of his estates. However much of the first Maquess’s went to his widow and not his sons, who didn’t come into his full inheritance until the death of his mother in 1530, shortly before his own death.

Later in 1501 he was chief answerer at the marrage of Arthur Prince of Wales to Catherine of Aragon. And was presented with a diamond and ruby Tudor rose at court. But in 1508 he was sent to the Tower of London and later a gaol in Calais under suspision of conspiracty against Henry the VIII, Grey was attainted and lost his title. However  in 1509 he was pardoned and returned to court, and was summoned to parliment as Baron Ferrers of Groby. In 1511 he was summoned as Marquess of Dorset.

From 1509, Dorset was again an active courtier and took part with great distinction in many court tournamants, on one occasion in March 1524 nearly killing the king.

In 1514, with Charled Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Dorset escorted Henry VII’s daugher Princess Mary Rose to France for her wedding to King Louis XII.

Dorset owned land in 16 English counties and was a justice of the pease for several of them. In 1516, during a rivalry in Leicestershire with George, Baron Hastings, and Sir Richard Sacheverell, Dorset unlawfully increased his retinue at court and was brought before the Star Chamber and the Court of King’s Bench. He was bound over for good behaviour. As part of this rivalry, he greatly enlarged his ancestral home at Bradgate, Leicestershire.

In 1520, at the Field of Cloth of Gold, Dorset carried the sword of state. In 1521 he met the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at Gravelines on the coast of France and escorted him on a visit to England. He helped with the entertainment of the court by maintaining a company of actors.

In 1521 Dorset sat in judgement on the Duke of Buckingham, despite being related to him by marriage. After is father’s death Dorset’s mother had married a brother of the Duke. Henry VIII rewarded Dorset with 3 of Buckingham’s Manors.

In 1524, Dorset’s Leicestershire feud with Lord Hastings turned into a fight between hundreds of men, and Cardinal Wolsey took action. Both rivals had to put up a bond for good behaviour of one thousand pounds, and Dorset was sent to Wales as Lord Master of Princess Mary’s Council.

In 1528, Dorset became constabel of Warwick castle , and in 1529 of Kentilworth Castle.

In 1529, recalling his role as ‘chief answerer’ at the marriage of Arthur , Prince of Wales, Dorset was a critical witness in favour of Henry VIII’s divorce of catherine of Aragon. He strongly supported the King’s contention that Arthur and Catherine’s marriage had been consummated.

In 1530, in the final months of his life. he assissted the King in the condemnations of Cardinal Wolsey.

Grey was the son and heir of Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, and his wife, Cecily Bonville, daughter and heiress of William Bonville, Baron Harington and of Lady Katherine Neville and granddaughter of Alice Neville, 5th Countess of Salisbry. Cicely Dorset’s maternal uncles included Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (called ‘Warwick the Kingmaker’), John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu and George Neville, Archbishop of York and Chancellor of England, while her aunts had married Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick, William FitzAlan, 16th Earl of Arundel, Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, and John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford. Cecily Grey succeeded her father as Baroness Harington in 1460, and 2 months later succeeded her great-grandfather William Bonville as Baron Bonville. After the death of her  first husband, Cecily Dorset married her late husbands’s first cousin Henry Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, the younger son on Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and of Catherine Woodville, Dorset’s aunt.

The younger Thomas Grey’s peternal grandparents were Queen Elizabeth Woodville and her first huband Sir John Grey of Groby, son and heir of Elizabeth Ferrers, Lady Ferrers of Groby, so his father the first marquess was a stepson of King Edward IV and half-brother of King Edward V. His grandfather Sir John Grey was killed at the Second Battle of St Albans, fighting on the Lancastrian side. His grandmother Elizabeth Woodville was the eldest daughter of Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, widow of John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford. Following his grandmother’s marriage to Edward IV, members of her family gained advantages and made prosperous marriages. Elizabeth’s brother John Woodville, at the age of 20, married Catherine Neville, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, then in her late sixties.

Through Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Dorset was descended from Eleanor of England, the daughter of King John and Isabella of Angouleme, and from several other European royal familes.

Thomas Grey first marriage was to Eleanor St John, a daugher of Oliver St John of Lydirard Tregoze, Wiltshire and of his wife Elisabeth Scrope, daugher of Henry le Scrope, 4th Lord Scrope of Bolton. Grey’s fathe-in-law Oliver St John (also known as Oliver of Ewell) was the son of Margaret Beauchamp, the great-great granddaughter of Roger Beauchamp, 1st Lord Beauchamp of Bletso, Keeper of Devizes Castle, and heiress to the Beauchamp estates. After the death of her first husband, another Oliver St John, she married John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset.

In 1509, Thomas Grey married secondly Margaret Medley, daughter of Sir Robert Wottom of Boughton Malherbe, Kent and the widow of William Medley. She had 2 notable brothers, Sir Edward Wotton, treasurer of Calais, and NIcholas Wotton, a diplomat who in 1539 arranged the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. With Margaret, the younger Thomas Grey had four sons and four daughters, incuding Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk. His second wife survied him and died in or after 1535.

His younger brother Leonard Grey, 1st Viscount Grane served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1536 to 1540.

Dorset’s son Henry succeeded him as Marquess of Dorset, married Lady Francis Brandon, a granddaughter of King Henry VII, and in 1551 became Duke of Suffolk, by way of a new creation.

Dorsets granddaughter was Lady Jane Grey and successor of King Edward VI for 9 days. In 1554, together wiht Dorset’s other surviving sons. Lord John Grey and Lord Thomas Grey, Suffolk took part in Wyatt’s rebellion against Mary I’s marriage to Philip of Spain and in support of Lady Jane Grey. When this rebellion failed, all three were arrested, and Suffolk and his brother Thomas were executed, as were Lady Jane herself and her husband Lord Guilford Dudley. Lord John Grey survived, and in July 1603 his youngest son Henry Grey, was restored to the House of Lords by King James I as Baron Grey of Groby.

Dorset Died on 10 October 1530, and was buried in the collegiate church at Astley in Warwickshire. When he dies he held estates in London and in 16 counties, amounting to over  100 manors, and was one of the richest men in England. His grave was opened in the early 17th century and measurement of his skeleton suggested a height of 5″8′