Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Manners, Edward
MANNERS, EDWARD, third Earl of Rutland (1549–1587), born in 1549, was eldest son of Henry, second earl of Rutland [q. v.], by Margaret, fourth daughter of Ralph Neville, fourth earl of Westmorland. He seems to have been educated at Oxford, though he did not graduate there as a student. He bore the title of Lord Roos or Ros, the old title of his family, until 1563, when by the death of his father he became third Earl of Rutland. He was made one of the queen's wards, and was specially under the charge of Sir William Cecil, who was connected with him by marriage. He accompanied the queen on her visit to Cambridge in 1564, and was lodged in St. John's College, and created M.A. 10 Aug. In October 1566 he was made M.A. of Oxford. In 1569 he joined the Earl of Sussex, taking his tenants with him, and held a command in the army which suppressed the northern insurrection. In 1570 he passed into France, Cecil drawing up a paper of instructions for his guidance. He was in Paris in the February or the next year. At home he received many offices, and displayed enthusiastic devotion to the queen. On 5 Aug. 1570 he became constable of Nottingham Castle, and steward, keeper, warden, and chief justice of Sherwood Forest; in 1571 he was feodary of the duchy of Lancaster for the counties of Nottingham and Derby; in 1574 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Nottinghamshire.
On 17 June 1577 Rutland was placed on the ecclesiastical commission for the province of York, and in 1579 on the council of the north. In the grand tilting match of 1580 Rutland and twelve others contended with a similar number, headed by Essex, before the queen at Westminster. His public offices probably now absorbed all his time, as in 1581 a relative, John Manners, seems to have been managing his estate. On 23 April 1584 he became K.G., and on 14 June 1585 lord-lieutenant of Lincolnshire. His style of living was very expensive; when he went with his countess to London about 1586 he had with him forty-one servants, including a chaplain, trumpeter, gardener, and apothecary. In June 1586, with Lord Eure and Randolph, he arranged a treaty of peace with the Scots at Berwick, and his brother Roger wrote that his conduct had been approved by the court. On 6 Oct. he was one of the commissioners to try Mary Queen of Scots. The queen promised to make him lord chancellor after the death of Sir Thomas Bromley [q. v.], which took place 12 April 1587, and he was for a day or two so styled. He died, however, on 14 April 1587 at his house at Ivy Bridge in the Strand. Camden says that he was a learned man and a good lawyer. His funeral was very costly; his body was taken to Bottesford, Leicestershire, and buried in the church, where there is an epitaph. Eller gives an account of his will. A late portrait, attributed to Jan Van der Eyden [q. v.], is at Belvoir. After negotiations with several other ladies, he married (later than January 1571-2) Isabel, daughter of Sir Thomas Holcroft of Vale Royal, Cheshire, and left a daughter, Elizabeth, who was styled Baroness Roos; she married in 1588 Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley, and died in 1591. Her son William was in right of his mother confirmed in the barony of Roos in 1616, and died in 1618 [see under Lake, Sir Thomas]. The earl was succeeded by his brother John, fourth earl, who, dying 21 Feb. 1587-8, was followed by his son Roger, fifth earl [q. v.] The widow, who lived till 1606, was troubled with money difficulties owing to her husband's debts, and engaged in litigation about his will. Many of the earl's letters are preserved at Belvoir Castle.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 13, 542; Doyle's Official Baronage; Sanford and Townsend's Great Governing Families of England; Eller's Hist. of Belvoir Castle, pp. 48 sq.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547-80 pp. 406, &c., 1581-90 pp. 34, &c; Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. 48; Froude's Hist. of Engl. ix. 522; Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, ii. 509; Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Ren. App. iv. passim; Calendar of Hatfield MSS. ii. 210, &c, iii. 143, &c.]