Leanda Lisle

According to the will of Henry VIII, it was the younger sister of the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey who would follow Elizabeth I to the throne of England. Yet few now know of the short, passionate and dangerous life of Katherine Grey, writes Leanda de Lisle.

Glyn Redworth Oxford University Press   288pp   £16.99ISBN 978 0199 533534Today, at the Tyburn convent near Marble Arch, nuns pray over the remains of Roman Catholic priests executed during the Reformation period. Catholics regard these as holy relics and the priests as martyrs, butchered by a persecuting Protestant state. This biography tells the story of a woman who helped gather such relics, smuggling the corpses of those who died for their faith in Jacobean England.