Jane Grey (Staresmore) - Source for Jane Staresmore

Meant to say above Protestant family. Have been going back and forth between Henry, Mary, Elizabeth for about. 6 months. Just tracking Henry's executions is impossible, up to 72,000 people. Sad.

I'm wondering if Lenton was a stepfather. That's how I've often seen an "alias" name in fact: a child raised (and known) under their mother's new husband's name.

I'm even wondering if she was really illegitimate - just had that as the story to protect the mother's family during Queen Mary's reign.

Vincent Skinner is not who I expected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Skinner. Looks like a mercantile family, more than landed gentry?

A very interesting study.

My impression is she was well raised: educated, sophisticated, with backbone, and loyal / helpful to her husband.

https://books.google.com/books?id=XCQFAAAAQAAJ&lpg=PA81&ots...

Not particularly illuminating, will have to go further back to figure out why Margaret called him cousin.

1. He was associated with Puritans
2. He died in the poor house - why? A lifetime of government service; he seemed quite competent; he was of the mercers, they were (usually) well off. Only one son. So why?

The arms:

• It is remarkable, that notwithstanding tho grant by Hervy, 10 July, 1557 (see preceding page), to this John Skynner and his posterity of " the wide and auncicnt armes of his auncestors," Lis. son and descendants should have made use of quite the different bearing, viz. argent a lion rampant sable within an orle of eight crescents gules: crest,—on a ducal coronet argent a falcon of the last, beaked and legged gules. These arms occur as being allowed (though no grant of them appears) at the Visitations, and they are also upon some of the family monuments at Goxhill and Thornton, Curtis. In 1609 we meet with a letter from Sir V. Skynner to the Earl of Salisbury sealed with the arms of Skynner of Norwich, viz. three cross-bows.

Here is some great info on Astley Castle and the renovation.
http://www.weddingtoncastle.co.uk/astley-castle.html

Also the final disposition of Lord Thomas' head,,,

I don't think that the wedding license is for the same people. Her name is not spelled correctly and neither is his. I know that the Ashely's and astley's are different families. Down the register, you see some astley's spelled correctly. Reading some history on their name variations it doesn't seem like they used Asshely. Also, just seems like they might have been more likely to marry at the family home either at Astley or in Harwich. I'll keep looking....

Hmmm ... Interesting idea! I was thinking perhaps she was at court so naturally they married in London ...

OK there's got to be more on this family. He was a professional.

You did notice there was a Skinner family at Harwich?
"arms of Skynner of Norwich, viz. three cross-bows ..."

https://books.google.com/books?id=gqwKAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA93&ots...

Vincent, Margaret's cousin, was son of John of Bolingbroke, son of Robert of Exeter in Devon. Yet somehow Vincent "also" used this other branches arms?

Just an update on my own thinking.

- I believe it more likely Margaret Gray was a grand daughter of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset than not. The argument that she descended from a branch that diverged further back in time is plausible, but not compelling. There seems no place for her among the Staresmere marriages, for instance. Her associations at court - particularly "cousin Vincent Skinner" (3rd cousin via Cooke > Gray) point to an association with William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley. And there does not seem a reason to quibble with the memorial evidence at Maidstone, Kent

- I also remembered that "alias XYZ" could refer to an adoptive surname, often by a relative. So it's probably worthwhile keeping an eye out for Lenton (variations) in the Grey (and Astley, since they were distantly kinsmen) collateral lines

Any next steps? We're reasonably documented.