Family and Education

b. c.1569, 1st s. of John Manners of Haddon Hall by Dorothy, da. and coh. of Sir George Vernon; bro. of Roger II. educ. Camb.1; I. Temple 1586. m. c.1593, Grace, da. of Sir Henry Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont, Notts., 4s. 5da. Kntd. 23 Apr. 1603; suc. fa. June 1611.

Offices Held

J.p. Derbys. temp. Jas. I, custos rot. by 1617, dep. lt. by 1621.

Biography

An important influence on Manners during his early years was his uncle, Roger Manners I, a younger brother of Henry, 2nd Earl of Rutland. When not at the university or the Inner Temple, the young man spent much of his time at his uncle’s house at Uffington, where he studied reluctantly and rode willingly. ‘God keep him from falling’, his uncle commented on his horsemanship; as to his studies, he should

learn to write better and ... rise earlier in a morning. For two hours’ study in the morning is better than four in the afternoon.

His uncle’s advice that George should marry the daughter of Sir Henry Darcy was ignored in favour of the dowager Countess of Shrewsbury’s candidate, her grand-daughter Grace Pierrepont.

Manners owed his return for Nottingham in 1589 and for Derbyshire in the next Parliament to family influence. The Manners had strong connexions with Nottingham, where they normally held the office of constable of the castle. Manners is not mentioned by name in the records of the House, but he may have attended two committees in 1593 concerning the subsidy (26 Feb.) and legal business (9 Mar.) to which he was appointed by virtue of his position as knight of the shire. By the end of Elizabeth’s reign he had begun to participate in county administration, and with his father and others he proclaimed James’s succession at Chesterfield, on 29 Mar. 1603. Three years later, when his father was seriously ill, George was recommended to succeed him as custos rotulorum. Sir John, however, survived until 1611, when his son inherited the extensive Derbyshire estates and property in Nottinghamshire. Manners himself died 23 Apr. 1623 and was buried in the same church, at Bakewell. An inventory of goods at his home at Haddon, taken on his death, showed a total value of £1,270 3s.4d. Of his four sons, only the second, John, survived him, becoming in 1641 the 8th Earl of Rutland on the death of his cousin the 7th Earl.2

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: B.D.

Notes

• 1. Manners’s presence at Cambridge, presumably at the university, is referred to in HMC Rutland , i. 282. This letter should probably be dated 1584/5.
• 2. J. C. Cox, Notes on Derbys. Churches, ii. 26-7; D’Ewes, 474, 496; HMC Rutland, i. passim; ii. 343; Lodge, Illus. iii(2), 189; PCC 82 Wood; C142/320/66, 401/128; CP, xi. 263.