Henry Grey, 1st Lord Grey of Groby (1547–1614), courtier, administrator and local politician, was the only surviving son of Lord John Grey of Pirgo, Essex, and Mary, daughter of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu and Magdalen Dacre.
He married Anne (1542–1613/14), daughter of William, 2nd Lord Windsor of Bradenham, Buckinghamshire.
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Grey's main ambition was to re-establish his family's position in Leicestershire lost by his father's attainder. Henry succeeded to his father's estate at Pirgo near Havering Essex when aged 17. Five years later he was appointed one of the Queen's Gentlemen Pensioners and was lieutenant of the band — head personal bodyguard — from 1589 to 1603. He attended on the Queen six months of each year. Otherwise based 20 miles away in Essex at Pirgo he filled many local and county duties; knight of the shire in 1589, deputy lieutenant of the County from 1586-1590. He had been put on the commission of the peace for Essex about 1569 and in 1600 was described as the county's senior justice. He was elected to parliament in 1589.
Henry had been knighted in November 1587. His efforts for Queen and county were recognised and the completion of his court duties noted when another cousin, James I, four days before his coronation, raised him to the peerage on 21 July 1603 as Baron Grey of Groby, Leicestershire.
By this time, 1603, he had managed to reacquire most of his family's estates lost by his father's attainder. Those in Leicestershire centred on Bradgate Park in its manor of Groby a few miles from Leicester. As the new Lord Grey of Groby, aged 58, he took up residence at Bradgate and devoted most of his energies to strengthening his family's position in the County. This included reviving the feud and intense competition between the Greys and the Hastings earls of Huntingdon which had enlivened and divided Leicestershire for much of the early sixteenth century.
He died at Bradgate Park on 26 July 1614, a new widower, and was buried in the family chapel there. Their eldest son had died some three years earlier so Grey was succeeded by John's son, Henry, who later became the first Earl of Stamford.
Henry and Anne Grey had four sons and four daughters including: