Xlbe Duftes of IRutlanD "^99 



Lincolnshire. To these estates, George, the son of Sir 

 Robert and Dame Eleanor Manners, succeeded by in- 

 heritance through his mother, and among the possessions 

 which then came into the hands of the Manners family 

 was the Barony of Belvoir, with its splendid castle, built 

 as a military stronghold by Robert de Todenai, the Vo^JJ^^C/^ 

 Conqueror's standard bearer, which, though thrice practi- 

 cally rebuilt since then, can claim the unique distinction 

 of being the only aristocratic pile in England which has 

 been, without a break, the seat of a noble of the first rank 

 from the days of the Conquest to our own. 



As possessor of the Baronies of De Ros, Vaux, 

 Trustbut, and Belvoir, George Manners found himself so 

 powerful and important a personage that nothing short -^ 



of a semi-royal matrimonial alliance would satisfy his 

 ambition, and he therefore chose as his wife, Anne, sole 

 daughter and heiress of Thomas St Leger, by Anne of 

 York, eldest sister of Edward IV. Their eldest son, 

 Thomas, who by right of his mother could claim kinship 

 with the Tudors, was created Earl of Rutland by Henry 

 VIII on the i8th of June 1525, and thus raisfed the 

 family of Manners to the peerage. 



Thomas was a born courtier and could suit himself 

 to every mood of even so changeable and trying a 

 monarch as Bluff Harry. He conducted Anne 

 Boleyn from Greenwich to her coronation, and three 

 years later took his seat among the judges who 

 sentenced her to death. He was private and con- 

 fidential Chamberlain to Anne of Cleves on her marriage 

 to the King in the month of January 1540, and quite 

 complaisantly supported her husband in repudiating her 

 six months later. His devoted loyalty had its reward. 

 He was made Chief Justice in Eyre of all places North 



