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.

Pierrepoint,Grace(CRutland).jpg (32894 bytes)

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.

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