Note 476 — Chapter VI

The representative of the title of Mary Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, that is, the person on whom the claim has descended, according to the rules which determine the succession of the crown, on the supposition that Hertford was duly married to Catherine Grey, is the present Duchess of Buckingham; upon the contrary supposition, the Marquis of Stafford. This is, of course, if we may take for granted the accuracy of common books of genealogy. I have not adverted to one objection which some urged at the time, as we find by Persons's treatises, Leicester's Commonwealth, and the Conference, to the legitimacy of the Seymours. Catherine Grey had been betrothed, or perhaps married, to Lord Herbert, son of the Earl of Pembroke, during the brilliant days of her family, at the close of Edward's reign. But on her father's fall Pembroke caused a sentence of divorce to be pronounced, the grounds of which do not appear, but which was probably sufficient in law to warrant her subsequent union with Hertford. No advantage is taken of this in the proceedings, which seems to show that there was no legal bond remaining between the parties. Camden says she was divorced from Lord Herbert, "being so far gone with child, as to be very near her time." But from her youth at the time, and the silence of all other writers, I conclude this to be unworthy of credit.