Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland (1612–1632), Countesses Frances (née Knyvet), d.1608, and Countess Cecilia (née Tufton), d.1653.

Southwest of the altar is the massive tomb of Earl Francis, born in 1578, third son of the 4th Earl and Countess Elizabeth. Its height required the roof of the chancel to be raised and even then the peacock crest was only accommodated by cutting away part of a rafter. The Earl lies below Countess Frances, his first wife, and above Countess Cecilia, his second. He is shown entirely in court dress, with the Garter and the mantle of the Order, a sword of state, a peacock full of pride at his feet. Countess Frances wears Elizabethan dress, her hair swept back, with a cap and circlet, at her feet a wyvern. Countess Cecilia’s dress is early Carolean in style. At her feet is a lion.

Their three children are included, Katherine at the head, the boys at the foot both holding skulls as symbols of their deaths. Known as the ‘Witchcraft Tomb’, the monument commemorates one of the best-known witchcraft trials in English history, described in detail by Michael Honeybone (2008). Part of the inscription reads, “In 1608 he married ye lady Cecilia Hungerford, daughter to ye Honourable Knight Sir John Tufton, by whom he had two sons, both of which died in their infancy by wicked practises and sorcerye”.

In 1598, Francis Manners had embarked on a ‘grand tour’ through France, Germany and Italy, culminating in a visit to the court of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor. He was probably accompanied by the architect and theatre designer Inigo Jones amongst others. On his return, he joined his brothers Roger and George in the Essex rebellion. He was imprisoned as a consequence, and fined a thousand marks, but Robert Cecil obtained a remission of the fine probably as an act of reconciliation with the Essex faction. Like Roger, Francis was reconciled on the accession of James I, and in 1605 took part in Prince Charles’s investiture as Duke of York and was made a Knight of the Bath alongside the Prince.

On 26 June 1612 he became the 6th Earl of Rutland. Promotion to Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire followed as did the first of a series of visits by King James to Belvoir Castle. Francis played a part in the funeral of the King’s eldest son, Henry Fredrick, Prince of Wales, on 6 November 1612, carrying a ceremonial shield. He again took a part in a ritual joust in 1613 to celebrate King James’s accession day, carrying a shield bearing an impresa designed and painted by Shakespeare’s leading actor Richard Burbage with a motto written by Shakespeare himself. Francis’s steward recorded a payment “to Mr Shakespeare in gold about my lord’s impresa, 44s.; to Richard Burbage for painting and making it, in gold, 44s.”, one of William Shakespeare’s few written records and much quoted by biographers.

Francis Manners married twice, firstly to Frances Kynvett with whom he had a daughter Katherine. With his second wife, Cecilia Hungerford, he had two sons, Henry and Francis, both of whom died in infancy of what the Earl believed was witchcraft, though a contemporary John Chamberlain described their condition as the falling sickness. Francis may have been influenced by King James, who particularly during his reign as James VI of Scotland was an enthusiastic witch hunter and had written a book, Daemonologie (1597), to counter a rational attack on the validity of witchcraft beliefs, Scot’s Discovery of  Witchcraft, which according to historian David Wootton was actually written in 1585 by Abraham Fleming, brother of the rector of Bottesford, Reverend Samuel Fleming. Abraham Fleming died in Bottesford in 1602 and is buried in St Mary’s where his memorial brass plate can be seen in the floor before the altar steps. The king had ordered the Discovery of Witchcraft to be burned by the hangman on his accession, but seems to have tempered his belief toward the end of his reign. Nonetheless he probably exerted a powerful influence upon Francis, 6th Earl of Rutland. In 1619, three local women, Joan, Phillippa and Margaret Flower, were arrested for allegedly murdering Rutland’s sons by witchcraft. All three lost their lives. Joan Flower reputedly died choking on bread she had asked for as a substitute for the Eucharist. Her two daughters were executed after their trial at Lincoln in 1619. Three other local women, Anne Baker of Bottesford, Joan Willimot of Goadby, and Ellen Greene of Stathern, were also arrested and examined, but their fate is not recorded.

Francis’s daughter Katherine was selected by the Duchess of Buckingham to wed her son George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, the King’s favorite and probable lover. However this did not go smoothly. The families were unable to agree the dowry and King James forbad his favourite from marrying a Catholic. Katherine, like her father, was a Catholic, but she eventually agreed to become a Protestant, the dowry was increased, and they married in 1620. They had four children before Buckingham’s assassination in 1628 by a disaffected army officer, John Felton. In 1623, Francis had commanded the fleet accompanying Prince Charles back from Spain after the failure to gain the hand of the Spanish Infanta. This project, with its prospect of aligning the English and Spanish crowns during the Thirty Years War, horrified many of the English Protestants who would later come to be known as the Puritans. Their open celebration of its failure was one of the straws in the wind that foretold the conflicts to come. Francis Manners’ last official duty was at James I’s funeral in 1625. Katherine re-married the Irish peer Randal MacDonnell, 1st Marquis of Antrim, in 1635.