Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Manners, John (1638-1711)
MANNERS, JOHN, ninth Earl and first Duke of Rutland (1638–1711), born at Boughton, Northamptonshire, 29 May 1638, was third son of John, eighth earl of Rutland [q. v.] He was M.P. for Leicestershire from 1661 till 1679, when he succeeded his father as Earl of Rutland. He was made lord-lieutenant of Leicestershire 4 June 1677, and a list of his household at the time shows the state which he maintained at Belvoir. He was summoned to the House of Lords as Lord Manners of Haddon on 30 April 1679, but succeeded to the earldom on 29 Sept. following. He bore the queen's sceptre with the cross at the coronation of James II, but he seems to have followed his father in politics, and 11 Aug. 1687 was dismissed from his lord-lieutenancy for political reasons. At the revolution he joined the Earls of Stamford and Devonshire and others in raising forces for William in Nottinghamshire. The Princess Anne, when she fled from Whitehall, took refuge at Belvoir. Manners was restored to his lord-lieutenancy 6 April 1689. He was very rich, and gave his daughter a marriage portion of 15,000l. in 1692. On 29 March 1703 he was made Marquis of Granby and Duke of Rutland, and having in this year resigned his lord-lieutenancy he was restored to it in 1706. During the last years of his life he lived entirely in the country, having a rooted objection to London, for which probably his matrimonial unhappiness was accountable. He died at Belvoir 10 Jan. 1710-11 (Le Neve, Monumenta Anglicana, 1700-15, p. 202), and was buried at Bottesford, Leicestershire. Rutland married, first, 15 July 1658, Lady Anne Pierrepoint, daughter of Henry, marquis of Dorchester. From her he was divorced by act of parliament on 22 March 1670. This divorce created considerable excitement at the court, the Duke of York being against the granting of it and the king on the other side (Burnet, Own Time). Rutland married in 1671 his second wife, Lady Anne Bruce, daughter of Robert, first earl of Aylesbury, and widow of Sir Seymour Shirley, bart. She died in July 1672. His third wife, whom he married on 8 Jan. 1673, was Catherine Noel, daughter of Baptist, viscount Campden. By her, who died in 1732, he had two sons and two daughters, of whom John (d. 1721) succeeded as second duke, and married Catherine, daughter of Lord William Russell. Several portraits of the first duke, with one of his third wife, are at Belvoir.
[Luttrell's Brief Hist. Relation, passim; Doyle's Official Baronage; Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, vol. i.; Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. 61 sq.; Macaulay's Hist. of Engl. ii. 327, 514; Cal. of MSS. at Belvoir (Hist. MSS. Comm.); Eller's Belvoir, p. 100 sq.]