Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grey, John de (1300-1359)
GREY, JOHN de, second Baron Grey of Rotherfield (1300-1359), soldier, was a descendant of Robert de Grey, brother of Richard de Grey (fl. 1250) [q. v.], and John de Grey (d. 1266) [q. v.] His father, John de Grey (1271-1312), was summoned to parliament as first Baron Grey of Rotherfield 26 Jan. 1297, and 'was employed during the war in Scotland in 1299 and 1306 (Cal. Doc. Scot. ii. 1819). He died in 1312, having married Margaret, daughter of William de Odingsells of Maxstoke, Warwickshire. His son John made proof of his age and received livery of his lands in the fifteenth year of Edward II. In 1327 he was employed in the Scottish war. In January 1332, having quarrelled with William le Zouche in the royal presence, he was imprisoned and his lands seized by the crown, but shortly after made his submission, and was restored to favour (Annales Paulini, in Chronicles of Edward I and II, Rolls Ser., i. 335). Grey was constantly employed in the wars of Edward III's reign; in 1336 he was in Scotland; in 1342 he took part in the expedition to Flanders, and was there again five years later; he was in France in 1343, 1345-6, 1348, and 1356. In 1347 he received a license to crenellate Rotherfield and Sculcotes. He was one of the justices appointed to try William Thorpe [q. v.], the chief justice, for taking bribes in 1350, when he is styled 'steward (or seneschal) of our household' (Fœdera, iii. 208), an office which he still held four years later. In 1353 he was commissioner of array for the counties of Oxford and Buckingham, and in 1356 was one of the witnesses to the charters by which Edward Baliol granted all his rights in Scotland to Edward III (ib. iii. 317–22, dated Roxburgh, 20 Jan. 1356). Grey, who was summoned to parliament from 1326 to 1356, was one of the original knights of the Garter instituted at its foundation on 23 April 1344, when he occupied the eighth stall on the sovereign's side. He died on 1 Sept. 1359, having married, first, Katherine, daughter of Bryan Fitz-Alan of Bedale, Yorkshire, by whom he had a son John, third baron (d. 1375); and, secondly, to Avice, daughter and coheiress of John de Marmion, second baron de Marmion, by whom he had two sons, John and Robert, who took their mother's name.
[Rymer's Fœdera, ed. 1830; Beltz's Memorials of the Order of the Garter, pp. 57-9; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 723; Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages, p. 247.]