Born: 1490, Ethal, Northumberland, England

Died: 9 Feb 1551

Buried: 16 Feb 1551, Priory Church of the Holy Trinity (St. Catherine Christ`s Church or Cree Church) Aldgate, London, England

Father: George MANNERS (12° B. Ros)

Mother: Anne St. LEGER (B. Ros)

Married 1: ¿?

Children:

1. John MANNERS

Married 2: Margaret DYMOKE

The details in this biography come from the History of Parliament, a biographical dictionary of Members of the House of Commons.

Son of Sir George Manners, 12° B. Ros of Hamlake, by Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas St. Leger and princess Anne Plantagenet; brother of Thomas, first Earl of Rutland. His father became Baron Ros in 1487 by the death of his mother, Eleanor, sister and coheiress of Edmund, eleventh lord Ros of Hamlake, Trusbut and Belvoir. Anne St Leger (niece of Edward IV) gave him relationship with the Plantagenets.

Feodary, duchy of Lancaster, Derbys., Notts., Staffs. and Yorks. 6 Feb. 1536-d., Leicester honor 29 Nov. 1541-d.; keeper, Nottingham park, Notts. 11 Dec. 1537; esquire of the body by 1539-44 or later; cupbearer, household of Queen Anne of Cleves 1540; member, council in the north in 1542; commr. benevolence, Leics. 1544/45, musters 1546, chantries, Leics., Warws. 1546, 1548, relief, Leics. 1550; j.p. Leics. 1547-d.; steward for Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley, unknown property by 1548; dep. warden, east and middle marches 22 Aug. 1548; sheriff, Leics. and Warws. 1549-50.

Richard was brought up in the household of his great-uncle Sir Thomas Lovell and probably entered the royal service on Lovell’s death in 1524. Esquire of the body of Henry VIII. He combined his duties at court with attachment to his elder brother, the Earl of Rutland, with whom he was closely associated in the locality and whom he followed in war. 

Richard Manners married the daughter of Sir Robert Dymoke, Knight, of Scrivelsby, co. Lincoln, the King's hereditary champion; sister of Sir Edward Dymoke, a lady who had been twice previously married, her first husband having been Richard Vernon, of Tong Castle and Haddon, and her second husband Sir William Coffin, Knight (d. 1538), and by her had issue, none of whom, however, succeeded him in his Manor and Estate of Lapley, as he seems to have re-sold it in 1549, to Sir Richard Brooke of Madeley Court, Salop, for £476. His marriage to the twice-widowed Margaret Dymoke brought him the independence and the establishment at Garendon which qualified him for a knighthood of the shire in the Parliament of 1542. During the first prorogation he joined Rutland with the army in the north and he was still there when the second session began early in 1543. After his brother’s death in the following Sep he took charge of his nephew’s affairs until Henry, 2nd Earl of Rutland came of age, and also became a prominent figure in his own right. 

In 1547 obtained a grant of several manors and lands in the counties of Leicester, Salop, Stafford and Worcester (from the original, in the Lord Treasurer`s remmebrancer`s Office, 3. Pasch.O.I Edw VI. Rot.143).

Appointed in 1548 deputy-warden of the east and middle marches by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, Manners asked that Sir Robert Constable aid him in the east march. As sheriff under the Earl of Warwick he helped to quell a rising in favour of the ex-Protector. 

Sir Richard Manners seems to have been somewhat of a dealer or speculator in land, and not unsuccessfully, for in 1547 he had bought all the possessions of the College of Tong, which included the Lapley Estate, for the sum of £486, and now we find him selling Lapley alone for £476, and, at the same time, the Tong possessions to James Wolriche, gentleman, of Tonge, for £200, thus making a considerable profit.

He died on 9 Feb 1551 at his nephew’s London house and was buried five days later near the high altar of St. Katharine Cree. His heart was interred at Croxton-Keyrial in Leicestershire, where a monument was erected to his memory. No will has been found, but the 2nd Earl who was his heir was thought by an unidentified contemporary to have been both executor and overseer.

In the return of his funeral, the mourners were entertained at dinner at the house of his nephew, the Earl of Rutland, in or near Whittington College. After, his funeral memorial was moved to the library of Belvoir Castle by his nephew, by complete the plan of his father of collect together from the ruined monasteries the memorials of their ancestors. A monumental stone from Croxton abbey remained in the library at Belvoir in 1722, and is supposed to be still there, with this inscription:

“….. Iyeth the harte of Syr Richard

manners knight, son to sir george

manners Lorde roos, and brither to

Syr Thomas manners lord Roos late

Erle of Rutland, whiche syr Richard

Departed out of this worlde the xxx day of

…. Vary in the yere of our lord god

MCCCCCL; his bodye is burned at

The hye alter in rhryst rhyrche

at London; of whole scule god

have mercy.  Amen.”

 to Family Page