St Mary's Bottesford Phase V.III, Monument to Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland

 

Elizabeth Cecil nee Manners 1586-91

Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland 1549-1587

Two of the most interesting parts of his life are his relationship with Mary Queen of Scots, and the fact that he married his daughter Elizabeth at the age of 13 to the grandson of William Cecil 1st Baron Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s political advisor and probably the most powerful man in England. She never fully recovered from childbirth at the age of 14 and died aged 15 in London. She is commemorated as the kneeling figure at the eastern end of the Tomb. At the age of 20 Edward Manners served as a commander of Queen Elizabeth forces against the northern earls who rebelled in support of Mary Queen of Scots and her possible marriage with the Catholic Duke of Norfolk, and in 1586 he was one of the commissioners who tried and condemned the Scots Queen as a result of the Babington plot, which was probably a trap engineered by William Cecil and Francis Walsingham.(Queen Elizabeth’s intelligence chief and grandfather of Elizabeth Sidney who married Roger Manners 5th Earl of Rutland) He served as England’s  Lord Chancellor for just two days in 1587.

His entry in the Dictionary of National Biography reads:-

“Born in 1549, was eldest son of Henry, second Earl of Rutland, by Margaret, fourth daughter of Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland. 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’ College, and created M.A. 10 Aug. In Oct 1566 he was made M.A. of Oxford.

In 1569, at 20 years of age and in ward to her majesty, he joined the Earl of Sussex, then lieutenant – general of her majesty’s forces, taking his tenants with him, and held a command in the army which suppressed the northern insurrection against the earls ofNorthumberland and Westmoreland. Edward was made lieutenant as also colonel of foot. In 1570 he passed into France, Cecil drawing up a paper of instructions for his guidance. He was in Paris in the Feb of the next year. At home he received many offices, and displayed enthusiastic devotion to the Queen. On 5 Aug 1570 he became constable of NottinghamCastle, 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 Jun 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 Apr 1584 he became K.G., and on 14 Jun 1585 lord-lieutenant of Lincolnshire.

After negotiations with several other ladies like Frances Howard (daughter of William, lord Howard of Effingham, later Countess of Hertford) and Elizabeth Hastings (dau. of Francis, second Earl of Huntingdon, later Countess of Worcester), he married (later than Jan 1571-2) Isabel, daughter of Sir Thomas Holcroft of Vale Royal, Cheshire. 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. Camden relates, that the queen promised to make him Lord Chancellor after the death of Sir Thomas Bromley, which took place 12 Apr 1587, and he was for a day or two so styled. He died, however, on 14 Apr 1587. 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”. pp933-4

John Nichols in The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester Vol II part I p47 adds:-

“By Isabel he left one daughter and sole heiress, named Elizabeth; who, in right of her father, became baroness Ros, and, at the age of thirteen, married William Cecil, esq; eldest son of Sir Thomas Cecil, knight, eldest son to lord Burghley, afterwards Earl of Exeter. This lady died at the house of her grandfather Sir Thomas Holcroft, in Tower-street, London, Apr 12, 1591; and was buried in the chapel of St. Nicholas in Westminster Abbey; where a monument was erected for her on the West side of the chapel, of which Mr. Dart has given a slight sketch; and which he describes as situated “on the West side of the chapel, seemingly very ancient by the white spongy stone whereos it is made, on which is the image of lady veiled, and leaning on her left arm. The monument,” he adds, “hath no inscription; but, as appears by the arms and the heralds register, was erected to the lady Elizabeth, commonly called the lady Ros.”

This lady left an only son, William, not quite a year old, who, at his mother’s funeral, was proclaimed, after the service in the church, by the title of “lord Rod, of Hamlake, Trusbut, and Belvoir;” and afterwards, in the reign of King James, claimed those baronies, in right of his mother, against Francis Earl of Rutland; when the King determined that he should be lord Ros of Holderness, and have the ancient seat of the lords Ros in parliament; but that title of lord Ros of Hamlake, Trusbut, and Belvoir, should still remain to the Earl of Rutland. The lord Ros of Holderness was sent Ambassador to the Emperor Matthias, in Spain, whence he returned the next year; and in 1618, having traveled into Italy, he died, without issue, at Naples, not without suspicion of being poisoned. On his death, the title of lord Ros reverted indisputably to the Rutland family
“.