Sir George MANNERS of
Haddon Hall
Born: 1573,
Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, England
Acceded: 23 Apr
1603, Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, England
Died: 23 Apr 1623, Aylestone
Buried: Bakewell Church, Derbyshire, England
Father:
John MANNERS (Sir Knight)
Mother: Dorothy
VERNON
Married: Grace
PIERREPOINT (dau. of Sir Henry
Pierrepoint of Holme-Pierrepont and
Frances Cavendish) 1 Aug 1593/ 2 Apr 1594
Children:
1. John
MANNERS (8° E. Rutland)
2. Henry
MANNERS
3. Roger
MANNERS
4. Elizabeth
MANNERS
5. Eleanor
MANNERS
6. Frances
MANNERS
7. Dorothy
MANNERS
8. Mary
MANNERS
The details in this biography come from the
History of Parliament, a
biographical dictionary of Members of the House of Commons.
I. Temple 1586. Kntd.
23 Apr 1603; suc. family
states
Jun 1611;
J.p. Derbys. temp. Jas. I, custos rot.
by 1617, dep. lt. by 1621.
An important influence on Manners during
his early years was his uncle, Roger
Manners, 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.
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.
| George never involved his uncle in
any court affairs more serious than interceding with Burghley later on—at his
father’s request—for a place. At the Inner Temple, George pleased his
uncle by doing well; he 'behaved like an honest man'. But his
father was advised to write him 'for to endeavor himself to lerne to write better and to ryse
erlier in a morning. For two ours studie in the morning is better than four in
the aftenowne'. A later letter from Uffington shows the companionship of the
two, and also that they had a common interest in horses: George was a
better galloper than his father had ever been—'and that I am fittest to teach him.
‘God keep him from falling, for that is all my fear. You need not mistrust his
forwardness’, his uncle
commented on his horsemanship.
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, dau. of Sir Henry Pierrepoint of Holme 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.
|
Grace
Pierrepoint
miniature
at Belvoir Castle |
Grace, Lady Manners, founded in the year 1636 a free-school
for instructing the poor children of Bakewell and Great-Rowsley in reading,
writing, etc., and endowed it with a rent-charge of 15 pounds per annum, issuing
out of lands at Elton.
