Lady Jane Grey, Part 2

Guess who finally remembered to continue with the second part of the Lady Jane Grey posts! I'm sure you all were just dying for me to hurry up and post the second part. In fact, I know such wishful thinking has consumed the majority of your days since the first post. So, as to ease your suffering, here is, lo and behold, part two:

Jane's claim to the throne came through her mother, Lady Frances Brandon, the daughter of Mary Tudor (daughter of King Henry VII of England) and of her second husband, Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The will of Edward VI excluded Lady Frances (I wonder why...what a stuck up swine!) so the succession passed over her and directly to her daughter, Jane. (Ha!)
According to male primogeniture, the Suffolks - Brandons and later Greys - compromised the jr. branch of the heirs of Henry VII. The 1543 Act of Sucession restored both Mary and Elizabeth to line of sucession, although the law continued to regard them both as illegitimate. Furthermore, this Act authorized Henry VII to alter the sucession by his will. His last will reinforced the sucession of his three surviving children, then declared that, should none of these three children leave heirs, the throne would pass to the heirs of his younger sister, Mary. Henry's will excluded the descendants of his elder sister, Margaret Tudor, whose claims had primacy over those of the Suffolks, owing in part to Henry's desire to keep the throne out of the hands of the Scots monarchs, and in part to a previous Act of Parliament of 1431 barring foreign-born persons, including royalty, from inheriting property in England.
Several protestant nobles had become wealthy when Henry VII closed the Catholic monastaries and divided the Church's assests amongst his supporters. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, figured prominantly under Protestand nobility, and in the last years of Edward's reign had acted as Edward's principal advisor and cheif minister. Northumberland, when it became clear that Edward VI would not survive long, led the faction that feared accession by Mary Tudor. This fear stemmed from the knowledge that Mary would certainly revoke the religious changes made by Edward during his reign, and that she might reclaim fromnobility all former church and monastic properties in order to restore them to the Roman Catholic Church. Many Englishmen also feared that Mary favored for herself a Spanish marriage which might bring in Spanish nobles to rule England in place of Northumberland and his colleuges. Northumberland arranged for his son Guildford Dudley to marry the Protestand (and anti-Catholic) Jane, hoping through him to gain control of his new daughter-in-law and the reins of England. When informed of the betrothal by her parents, Jane refused to obey. Apparently, she regarded Guildford Dudley as not only stupid, but ugly. Historians do not know what made this seemingly quiet and obedient girl turn against precedent to refuse her parents' marriage arrangements. Jane's refusal notwithstanding, her parents forced her into submission.

To be continued...