[Illustration] Originally of Northumberland, where the family were
seated at an early period. The first recorded ancestor is Sir Robert
de Maners, who obtained a grant of land in Berrington in 1327, and
was M.P. for Northumberland in 1340. His son William Maners, of
Etal, died before 1324, which estate appears to have been inherited
from an heiress of Muschamp. At the end of the fifteenth century, by
marriage with the heiress of the baronial family of Roos, the house
of Manners came into possession of the Castle of Belvoir. In the
succeeding century, a fortunate match with the heiress of Vernon of
Haddon still further increased the wealth and importance of this
noble family.
The royal title of Rutland, which had belonged to the house of York,
was conferred upon Thomas Lord Roos in 1525 as the grandson of the
lady Anne of York, sister to King Edward the Fourth.
An extinct branch was from the time of Henry VIII. for a long period
of Newmanor House, in the parish of Framlington, in Durham. Another
branch of the Etal family was of Cheswick, in the same county,
extinct after 1633.
See Raine's North Durham, 211, 230; Nichols's Leicestershire, ii.
pt. i. 67; and Brydges's Collins, i. 454.
ARMS.--_Or, two bars azure; a chief quarterly azure and gules, on
the_ 1_st and_ 4_th two fleurs-de-lis, on the_ 2_nd and_ 3_rd a
leopard of England of the first_; the chief being an augmentation
granted by Henry VIII. The ancient arms, no doubt founded on those
of the Muschamp family, were, _Or, two bars azure, a chief gules_.
See the Rolls of the reign of Edward II. and Richard III.
Present Representative, Charles Cecil John Manners, sixth Duke of
Rutland.