MANNERS, John (1604-1679), of Haddon Hall, Derbys.

Manners’ grandfather, a younger son of the 1st earl of Rutland, married a coheir to one of Derbyshire’s greatest estates centred on Haddon in the High Peak hundred, and sat for Nottinghamshire in the first two Elizabethan Parliaments. His father represented Nottingham in 1589 and Derbyshire in 1593. The family owned a large smelting plant, and by the beginning of the seventeenth century derived much of their income from lead, although their profits were supplemented by stone quarrying and coalmining. Sidney Letters ed. A. Collins, i. 119; J.R. Dias, ‘Pols. and Admin. in Notts. and Derbys. 1590-1640’ (Oxford Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1973), p. 82. Manners inherited his estate while still a minor and his wardship was purchased by his mother. WARD 9/162, f. 420. By the time he came of age, in 1622, he had a good prospect of eventually becoming earl of Rutland. The only surviving son of his second cousin, Francis Manners, 6th earl of Rutland, had died in infancy, while the 6th earl’s brother, George Manners*, who would ultimately succeed to the title in 1632, was childless, leaving Manners as the next male heir. However, by the time Manners reached his majority a significant portion of the family’s estates had been settled on the 6th earl’s daughter on her marriage to George Villiers, marquess of Buckingham. CP, xi. 261-3; R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 58-60

Described by Sir Joseph Williamson† as ‘a harmless, soft man’, and by his own admission ‘the worse [sic] in the world at words’, ‘Lincs. Fams. Temp. Charles II’ ed. C. H., Her. and Gen. ii. 117; HMC Hatfield, xxiv. 287. Manners was a ruthless estate manager whose determination to exploit the mineral resources of his estates to the full embroiled him in a long and bitter dispute with the Derbyshire ‘free miners’. A. Wood, Pols. of Soc. Conflict, 121, 144, 147, 160, 247-8, 256, 277-86. Returned for Derbyshire to the second Caroline Parliament, Manners played no recorded part in its proceedings, being excused attendance on 5 Apr. 1626 because of illness. Procs. 1626, ii. 431. Following the dissolution Manners pledged to pay £20 when the government contemplated raising money in the form of Privy Seal loans, and in the following year he was active as a Forced Loan commissioner. SP16/33/131.I; E179/93/355, ff. 1v-2, 5.

In 1628 Manners and his mother purchased £800 worth of land in Leicester Forest. CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 222. Two years later he paid £50 as composition for knighthood. E407/35, f. 34v. Following the settlement of a dispute between the duchess of Buckingham and the 7th earl of Rutland over the inheritance of the 6th earl’s estate, in 1634 he gained possession of Belvoir Castle, the ancestral home of the earls of Rutland, as well as an income of £2,000 a year. Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 261. He again served as knight of the shire for Derbyshire in the Short Parliament, and succeeded as 8th earl of Rutland in March 1641. Although appointed to office by Parliament, he pleaded ill health to avoid committing himself to the parliamentarian cause, and during the Interregnum his house in the Strand became a centre of worship for those who still used the banned Book of Common Prayer. Diary of John Evelyn ed. E.S. de Beer, iii. 95; Oxford DNB. He drew up a brief will on 29 Apr. 1677 and died at Haddon in September 1679, being buried at Bottesford in Leicestershire in the following month. His son John sat in the Cavalier Parliament for Leicestershire under the courtesy title of Lord Roos, and was raised to a dukedom in 1703. PROB 11/361, f. 304v; Oxford DNB.