MANNERS, John (1638-1711)

John Manners was known by the courtesy title of Lord Roos (to which it later transpired he had no legal claim) from the time his father, also John Manners, succeeded his second cousin George Manners^†, 7th earl of Rutland, as 8th earl of Rutland in 1641. It is under the name of Lord Roos that he is most famous in the history of the House of Lords for the controversy surrounding the private act of Parliament passed in 1670 which allowed him to remarry while his first wife was still alive. On 13 July 1658 Roos married his second cousin Lady Anne Pierrepont, with a dowry of £10,000, but almost immediately the marriage was troubled and it steadily deteriorated. The years 1658-61 were filled with constant arguments between Lady Roos and her imperious and disapproving mother-in-law, the countess of Rutland; mutual recriminations between the young couple of drunkenness, sexual incompetence and adultery; separations and desertions followed by enforced reconciliations; even a challenge to a duel between Roos and his father-in-law Dorchester. Belvoir, Rutland mss Add. 91, nos.1-30, passim; L. Stone, Road to Divorce, 309-10; The Lord Marquesse of Dorchester’s Letter to the Lord Roos (1660). Lady Roos gave birth at least two children by Roos in 1659 and 1660 but both died in infancy. Belvoir, Rutland mss Add. 91, no.14; Verney ms mic. M636/17, L. Sheppard to Sir R. Verney, 10 Aug. 1660. The paternity of the next male child born to Lady Roos on 7 Sept. 1661, shortly after another reconciliation had been negotiated between the couple, was more suspicious. By Lady Rutland’s own calculation there was no way that Roos could have fathered it, as he had joined his wife at the Manners lodge in Croxton Park after it had been conceived. Belvoir, Rutland mss Add. 91, nos. 30-35. Roos himself, almost certainly under his mother’s prompting, refused to acknowledge the boy as his own and had him baptized as 'Ignotus', that is, unknown. A bill to illegitimate the child was introduced in the House in April 1662 but was lost in the mass of other business. During the prolonged absence of Roos travelling on the continent, Lady Roos gave birth to at least two more children. On his return he made use of this clear example of her adultery to procure from the ecclesiastical court of arches a separation in the form of a divorce ‘from bed and board’ in 1666. On 22 Oct. 1666 another bill to illegitimate all of Lady Roos’s children born since 1660 received its first reading in the House and was committed on 14 November. Witnesses were heard before the bar with scurrilous evidence of Lady Roos’s adulterous liaisons, and Roos himself was impelled to swear before the assembled House that he had not had carnal knowledge of his wife since 4 Mar. 1660. On 11 Jan. 1667 the bill was reported from committee, and the House passed it at the third reading nemine contradicente. The bill, having been returned from the Commons after the countess of Rutland’s agent, Durand Allsopp, had plied many of the members of the Commons with a dinner and drink, received the royal assent on 8 February. HMC Rutland, ii. 8.

Consideration of this matter was interrupted and complicated by the complaint George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, made in committee in late November 1666 that the bill made mention of John Manners as Lord Roos of Hemblack [i.e. Helmsley], Trusbut and Belvoir when, he claimed, that title properly belonged to him. Bodl. Carte 72, f. 114v. The Roos title was a barony by writ, supposedly dating from a writ of summons of 1265, but it was as yet unclear whether baronies by writ descended to the heir male, as the 8th earl of Rutland was, or to the heir general. Buckingham was clearly the heir general of the last earl of Rutland of the senior line, as his mother had been the only daughter and heir of Francis Manners^†, 6th earl of Rutland (the 7th earl had died childless). Bodl. North mss c. 4, ff. 126-7. The select committee considering the bill of the so-called Lord Roos tried to determine these competing claims, but Buckingham petitioned the king personally in mid-December and he referred the matter back to the whole House. CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 335. Buckingham himself soon asked the king to make an amicable settlement just as James I had done in 1616 when he had resolved a similar dispute between two branches of the Manners family. James had ruled that the heir general of the title, William Cecil, could (in accordance with the decision of the earl marshal’s court) take the Roos title originally established by writ, while in compensation he allowed the heir male, Francis Manners^†, 6th earl of Rutland, to take the title of Lord Roos of Hamlake. By his own account it was Richard Boyle, earl of Burlington, engaged in a similar dispute over the Clifford barony by writ, who convinced Buckingham of this solution and who negotiated that Buckingham should assume the older part of the title as Lord Roos of Helmsley and Trebut, whilst the heir to the Rutland earldom be designated Lord Roos of Belvoir. Chatsworth, Cork misc. box 1, Burlington diary, 1 Feb. 1667. With the approval of the House this compromise was presented to the king and, although there does not appear to have been any formal statement of this settlement, the Manners family continued to call their male heirs ‘Lord Roos’ without any further opposition from Buckingham, until elevation to the dukedom in 1703 supplied them with the courtesy title of marquess of Granby.

The problems with Roos’s marriage continued. On 22 Feb. 1668 Lady Roos submitted a petition to the House begging for some sort of maintenance from Roos. She detailed the cruel treatment she had suffered from him and his mother and her present straitened circumstances, having fled to Ireland to escape her creditors and her shame. HMC 8th Rep. pt. 1 (1881), 117; Belvoir, Rutland mss Add. 91, no. 117. The situation was untenable for Roos, or more particularly for his mother, concerned as she was to ensure the continuity of the family line. By early 1670 her brother, the queen’s attorney-general, William Montagu^‡, was enlisted to advise on the possibility of a parliamentary bill which would allow Roos, divorced only ‘from bed and board’ by the ecclesiastical courts, to remarry while his wife was still living. Montagu warned that ecclesiastical and common law were against such a remarriage. However he also stated that as marriage after divorce was ‘consistent with the bible, not contrary to god’s law and no scripture against it’ and the prohibition on remarriage was merely a ‘positive human law and not malum in se [wrong in itself]’, such a marriage after divorce could be allowed by an act of Parliament and was preferable to the current act illegitimating Lady Roos’s children. Rutland mss Add. 91, nos. 118-23.

The bill was introduced into the House of Lords on 5 Mar. 1670 and instantly caused a stir. The debate on its introduction took up the whole day and had to be adjourned to five days’ time. The House went into a committee of the whole and after strenuous debate, and in the face of a protest by 35 signatories, the bill received a second reading on 19 March. The motion to commit the bill barely passed, by between six to eight votes (accounts disagree on the exact difference and whether that count included proxies). Ibid. nos. 125, 136; Harris, Sandwich, ii. 323-5; Bodl. ms Eng. lett. c. 210, f. 14. The bill was reported from committee five days later and was passed on 28 Mar. on its third reading, though with a final protest of 29. Those most concerned with the maintenance of canon law, the bishops and the Catholic peers, made up the majority of the opposition, with the notable exceptions of John Cosin, bishop of Durham, and John Wilkins, bishop of Chester, who broke rank with the other members of their bench to support the bill. The royal heir James Stuart, duke of York, acted as leader of the opponents of the bill. Harris, Sandwich, ii. 318-19, 324-32; Verney ms mic. M636/23, Sir R. to E. Verney, 10 Mar. 1670; Bodl. ms Eng. lett. c. 210, f. 141.

On the other hand Roos was assisted by his kinsmen, including his mother’s brother William Montagu and her cousins the lord chamberlain, Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester, who was persuaded to abstain from proceedings, and especially Edward Montagu, earl of Sandwich, who was later said by another cousin to have been ‘most active to assist the bill’, and who kept a detailed account of the debates in his journal. Belvoir, Rutland mss Add. 91, nos. 128-9, 136; Harris, Sandwich, ii. 318-33; Mapperton House, Sandwich mss journal vol. x. 213-28, 235-58. More recent additions to the Manners family circle were also invaluable. In 1669 two of Roos’s sisters, Dorothy and Elizabeth, had married, respectively, Anthony Ashley Cooper, later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury, and James Annesley, styled Lord Annesley (later 2nd earl of Anglesey). Thus Roos had acquired as the fathers-in-law of his sisters two of the most powerful and active figures in the House in that period, Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey and, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury). ‘It is hard to say whether Lord Anglesey or Lord Ashley did most service, both were so diligent’, an informant later told Lady Rutland. Belvoir, Rutland mss Add. 91, no. 136. Ashley in particular vigorously argued for Roos’s right to remarry, not so much out of consideration for his new kinsman but as a test case to see if a similar bill could be brought in to enable the king to divorce his barren Catholic wife, Catherine of Braganza, and to marry a wife who could bear him a suitably Protestant heir. This was the overarching context of the Roos Divorce bill, which, though formally only a private bill, made it one of the most controversial and closely watched pieces of legislation of the period. The tension surrounding it was not eased by the presence of the king at the proceedings and debates, whose unprecedented action suggested to all, and certainly to Sandwich, that the king had a personal interest in seeing the bill through and explained the duke of York’s vigorous opposition to it. Harris, Sandwich, ii. 324-5.

The bill passed the Commons, although not without similar difficulties, and received the royal assent on 11 Apr. 1670. Belvoir, Rutland mss Add. 91, nos. 130-1,134; Add. 36916, f. 175. Roos moved almost immediately to secure a new wife, and by June 1670 his sister, Grace, wife of Patrick Chaworth^‡, 2nd Viscount Chaworth [I], was inundating him with suggestions for prospective brides. HMC Rutland, ii. 17, 19. As early as August 1668 Robert Bruce, earl of Ailesbury, was approaching the countess of Rutland for an alliance in case Roos’s plans for remarriage were successful, and shortly after his bill was passed Roos was in negotiations with the earl for a match with his daughter Diana. The marriage, solemnized on 10 Nov. 1671, proved to be short-lived as the new Lady Roos died in childbirth on 15 July 1672 and the son born to her did not survive for long either. Eg. 3328, ff. 65-66. Roos, still without a legitimate heir, soon tried again, and on 8 Jan. 1674 he celebrated his marriage to the sixteen-year-old Katherine Noel, daughter of Baptist Noel, 3rd Viscount Campden, and connected, through her mother, Elizabeth Bertie, to the extended Bertie kinship group. She brought with her a £8,000 portion and received a jointure of £1,400. Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xviii. ff. 221-3. This marriage turned out to be long-lasting and fruitful for Roos after many years of unhappiness.

From the time of his bill’s passage, Roos gradually took over many of the local and county responsibilities of his aged and inactive father Rutland. Roos had long hated London, perhaps associating it with the dissolute life of his first wife. Even though he was a member of the Commons, he increasingly spent all his time in the Manners’ residences of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire or Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, where he was informed of events in the capital by the chatty letters of his sister, Lady Chaworth. HMC Rutland, ii. 11-140, passim; Belvoir, Rutland mss Add. 7 (bound volume of letters of Lady Chaworth). Rutland appears to have increasingly abrogated the management of Leicestershire and the borough of Grantham to Roos. As early as 1669 Lady Chaworth was submitting her nomination for a replacement of the aged Grantham burgess, Sir William Thorold^‡, not to her father but to her brother Roos. HMC Rutland, ii. 11; HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 301. In the winter of 1676-7 John Grey^‡ turned to Roos to solicit his support at a by-election for Leicester borough. Roos complied, addressing a letter to the electors demanding that ‘all and every one of you who have any commission from my father in the militia or have any other dependence upon him and me’ give their vote to Grey. Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xviii. ff. 227-331; HMC Rutland, ii. 35. These informal activities for his father were made official in 1677 when Roos was made, first, lord lieutenant of Leicestershire in July and then recorder of Grantham in December. CSP Dom. 1677-8, pp. 200, 206, 520, 534-5; HMC Rutland, ii. 45. Roos’s uncle by marriage, Robert Bertie, 3rd earl of Lindsey, the lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire, welcomed this latter appointment. He may have helped to arrange it as he was involved in a struggle with Lincolnshire’s leading ‘country’ member Sir Robert Carr^‡ over control of Grantham. At a by-election for the borough in March 1678 Lindsey and Roos mustered the militia in the borough in support of Sir Robert Markham^‡ against Carr’s candidate Sir William Ellys^‡. Despite some irregularities in counting at the poll, they had the aldermen return Markham as burgess. Carr and Ellys petitioned against the return, and Lindsey told Roos that his presence was absolutely necessary at the committee meeting to ‘countenance’ the election and to encourage the other members for Leicestershire seats to support the court candidate. He further warned him that if Markham were to be unseated ‘the king will then observe that, notwithstanding he hath lately conferred upon your lordship the recordership of Grantham and the lieutenancy of Leicestershire, yet that Sir Robert Carr hath a greater interest, and this I look upon as not for your Lordship's service’. Despite these oblique threats, Roos does not appear to have attended the committee for elections, which initially found in Ellys’s favour. The report was then rejected by the full house and Markham seated in what was seen as a victory for Lindsey, Roos and the court. HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 301-2; HMC Rutland, ii. 48; Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xviii. f. 250.

Although he had played little part in the proceedings of the Cavalier Parliament, Roos came top of the poll for the county at the elections of spring 1679. His election with another aristocrat, Bennet Sherard^‡, 2nd Baron Sherard [I], when traditionally the gentry chose the second member for the county, was controversial, and Roos’s election was declared void by the committee for elections. HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 295. This was evidently seen as a blow by the court and shortly after, on 30 Apr. 1679, Roos was summoned by writ to the House in his father’s lifetime (his father having given up attending the House by this time) as Baron Manners of Haddon. It seems likely that the court meant this to be a writ in acceleration but as no such barony existed the summons effectively created a new barony by writ. He first sat in the House as Baron Manners on 2 May 1679 and attended a further 19 meetings, 33 per cent of the session in all, during which he supported his wife’s uncle, Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), by voting against forming a joint committee of both Houses to discuss the trials of the impeached peers and (on 27 May), probably for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. On 29 Sept. 1679 the 8th earl of Rutland died and Manners was able to sit in the following Parliament under that title.

Despite having assured Danby that he would dutifully attend to the lord treasurer’s business in the House, the new earl of Rutland only attended from 9 Nov. to 23 Dec. 1680, 41 per cent of the sittings. HMC 14th Rep. ix. 417; Add. 28053, ff. 195-6. He opposed the exclusion bill and voted William Howard, Viscount Stafford, not guilty before registering his proxy with John Granville, earl of Bath, on 31 Dec. 1680. Danby relied on Rutland for support in his petition for bail that was to be presented at the next Parliament and counted on him to stand as security for him if his bail was granted. Add. 28042, f. 83; Add. 28043, f. 27; Add. 33849, f. 16; HMC 14th Rep. ix. 421; Browning, Danby, ii. 96. The countess of Rutland assured Danby that Rutland ‘will be sure to attend you the beginning of the sessions at Oxford’, but once again Rutland avoided Parliament for as long as he could, later protesting that he would have been glad to have obeyed Danby’s commands ‘but that there was no occasion’; he only arrived at Oxford in time for the last day of the brief Parliament. Add. 28053, f. 238; HMC 14th Rep. ix. 423, 425, 431.

Rutland was more at home at Belvoir Castle and in his role as lord lieutenant. He proved himself diligent and obedient during the Tory reaction and the mopping up after the Rye House Plot, when he led the search of the house of his local and political rival Thomas Grey, 2nd earl of Stamford. HMC Rutland, ii. 79-80. As both lord lieutenant of Leicestershire and recorder of Grantham he exercised local influence which the court of James II was keen to use in the elections of 1685. His former father-in-law Ailesbury asked Rutland ‘who you think [are] the most proper persons to serve in Parliament for both the town and country Leicester that I may join my interest with yours’ and strongly advised Sherard and John Verney^‡ for the county, both of whom were ultimately returned. Lindsey, on the other hand, was unsuccessful in his exhortations to Rutland to help get the court candidates, Sir Richard Markham and the outsider Richard Graham^‡, elected for Grantham. Lindsey presumed that Rutland had ‘an interest much greater and more considerable than mine, your lordship being there recorder, and a near neighbour to that corporation’ and that he wielded enough influence with the alderman Thomas Harrington^‡ to persuade him to create freemen who ‘will be firm to your lordship’s interests, and really have a dependence on you’. Ibid. 85-88; HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 295-6; ii. 302. Rutland was evidently favoured by the new regime and he bore the queen’s sceptre with the cross at the coronation in April. He was present on the first day of James II’s Parliament and came to all but seven of the meetings of the sittings in May and June 1685, his highest attendance rate of any session of Parliament while he was in the House. When he left the House on 23 June 1685 he registered his proxy with Ailesbury for the remainder of the session. By July 1685, in the wake of Monmouth’s Rebellion, he made it clear to his Derbyshire neighbour, Philip Stanhope, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, that he was not intending to appear at the Parliament when it reconvened in the autumn. Add. 19253, f. 156; Chesterfield, Letters, 325-7. He registered his proxy with John Egerton, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, on 12 Nov. 1685 for those short-lived meetings.

Over the course of James II’s reign, Rutland turned against the king and his policies. James II replaced him in his office of lord lieutenant with one of his more enthusiastic, and opportunistic, followers, Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon. Rutland became involved in, or at least informed of, the early plotting for the invasion of William III, for his kinsman Danby stopped by Belvoir Castle in his forays north in the summer and autumn of 1688 and most likely told him of his intentions or used his visits as scouting missions for the projected invasion. HMC Rutland, ii. 119; HMC 14th Rep. ix. 447. Later accounts, letters and newsletters place Rutland among the northern peers assembled in Nottingham in late November 1688, but his involvement in the Revolution probably did not go beyond declaring his support for William to Henry Compton, bishop of London, in September and sending £1,000 to his brother-in-law, the ardent Williamite Sir Scrope Howe^‡ (later Viscount Howe [I]), to recruit cavalry for the Nottingham forces. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 346, 350, 356, 364, 407, 412; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 479; O.R.F. Davies, ‘The Dukes of Devonshire, Newcastle and Rutland, 1688-1714’ (Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 1971), 132-3. Rutland did rouse himself sufficiently to attend the House assiduously during the first weeks of the Convention, where throughout late January and early February he voted to place William and Mary on the throne as king and queen. On 5 Mar. he was named a manager for the conference on the address expressing Parliament’s willingness to assist the king in his war against France, and in April he bore the sceptre with the dove for the new monarchs at their coronation. Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xx. ff. 51-52, 55; HMC Rutland, ii. 124. In April 1689 he also was involved in the dispute between his sister Elizabeth and her husband the 2nd earl of Anglesey, concerning money she claimed was due to her from the marriage settlement and actions by her which Anglesey considered to be a breach of his privilege. On 18 Apr. 1689 Rutland was named by the committee for privileges as one of four peers assigned to work out a reconciliation between the couple, and on 2 May Rutland’s steward, Roger Herbert, recorded the receipt of a partial payment of the amount due to the countess from Anglesey. Belvoir, Rutland mss Accounts, vol. cclxiii. (Jan-May 1689).

Rutland had left the capital by that time, having registered his proxy with Danby, now marquess of Carmarthen, on 18 Apr. 1689. He last sat in the House two days after that and for the remainder of his life only once attended Parliament again – on 10 Apr. 1690. For the rest of William’s reign he pleaded illness, such as ‘a violent fit of convulsive cholic in his stomach’, to excuse him from the many peremptory commands from the House and unsubtle hints from the king urging him to attend. HMC Lords, ii. 278-9; iv. 122; Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xx. ff. 67, 95-8, 123-4; HMC Rutland, ii. 126, 134; LJ, xv. 118-19, 135, xvi. 372, 401. He relied on members of his extended kinship network to represent and defend him at court: Carmarthen initially and then, from the time of the marriages in 1692 of his heir John Manners, styled Lord Roos (later 2nd duke of Rutland) to Lady Katherine Russell, daughter of William Russell^‡, Lord Russell, and of his daughter Katherine to John Leveson Gower, later Baron Gower, the members of his children’s extended families. The countess of Rutland enthusiastically enlisted her new Russell relations in her long-held ambition to increase her passive husband’s interest and prestige at court. Although there were rumours that he was to be made a duke in 1694, the countess had to watch with chagrin as Rutland’s uncle Carmarthen, his son’s grandfather-in-law William Russell, 5th earl of Bedford, and his Midlands neighbours William Cavendish, 4th earl of Devonshire (whose son was married to Lady Roos’s sister) and John Holles, 4th earl of Clare, gained dukedoms. HMC Rutland, ii. 155; Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xxi, f. 106. The new duke of Bedford did protect Rutland when he was in danger of censure for refusing to come to the House to sign the Association and suspicions arose about the loyalty of some members of his household. HMC Lords, n.s. ii. 205-6; LJ, xv. 685; HMC Rutland, ii. 158-9; Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xxi, ff. 120, 122-3, 126. The dukes of Leeds (as Carmarthen had become) and Devonshire took it upon themselves to make Rutland’s excuses to the House in early November 1696 for his absence during the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick^‡. This occasion was Rutland’s closest shave and the House came very close to enforcing its threat to take Rutland into custody for his persistent absence. Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xxi. f. 134, 135; LJ, xvi. 16, 24, 36, 45.

Rutland devoted what energies and attention his illness left him to local affairs. He was formally reappointed lord lieutenant of Leicestershire in April 1689 but throughout the summer Rutland was threatening his sponsor Carmarthen that he would be forced to throw up his commission unless he were also made custos rotulorum of the county. The office had been given to his local rival, the earl of Stamford. Both Carmarthen and Rutland’s other uncle by marriage, Charles Bertie^‡, tried to persuade Rutland to retain the lieutenancy. They assured him that the king had not intended to slight him but had had no choice but to keep Stamford in the post of custos by the provisions of the Act appointing Commissioners of the Great Seal, which confirmed all appointments of custodes made by the commissioners before 1 May 1689. Glassey, JPs, pp. 101-2. Carmarthen then offered him the lieutenancy joined with the custos of the neighbouring county of Rutland, alongside the lieutenancy of Leicestershire. The earl remained adamant—‘it is impossible for me to serve the king in the lieutenancy of Leicestershire without I had been custos rotulroum’ he continued to insist, adding that he could not take up the Rutland posts because he knew few of the people there and ‘I am afraid my own health will not give me leave to attend there so often as I ought, or as it must be requisite for me to do’. Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xx. f. 58-59, 61; HMC Rutland, ii. 126; Eg. 3337, ff. 68, 89-90. It took a full year, until July 1690, for Rutland’s pride to allow him formally to take up the lieutenancy for Leicestershire. Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xx. ff. 75, 85-87, 99-108; HMC Rutland, ii. 129.

Rutland, considered a nominal Whig, was always more concerned with prosecuting his personal rivalry with the more radical Stamford in the county than party politics. In the elections of 1695 and 1698 he was willing to promote for knights of the shire the moderate Tory, John Verney, and the gentry candidate, John Wilkins^‡, against Stamford’s more whiggish choices George Ashby^‡ and a Mr. Bird. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 346-8, 351-2; Belvoir, Rutland mss vol. xxi. f. 152. The three elections of 1701-2 revealed both the heights and depths of Rutland’s electoral influence. For the first election of 1701 he wished to put forward Verney and his own son Lord Roos for the county against Stamford’s candidates, Ashby and Bennet Sherard, 3rd Baron Sherard [I] (later earl of Harborough). Roos, however, was persuaded by the discarded sitting member, Wilkins, to stand for Derbyshire with his brother-in-law William Cavendish, styled Lord Hartington (later 2nd duke of Devonshire), instead. The two young lords were returned for that county, while Verney and Wilkins squeaked by at the Leicestershire poll. In the process Wilkins had seriously alienated himself from Rutland’s favour by working against his wishes and interest. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 129, 348; HMC Cowper, ii. 408, 412-13, 418-19, iii. 160-1; Rutland mss vol. xxi. 176-7. For the second election of 1701 Roos stood for both Derbyshire and Leicestershire, as his father had chosen this inopportune time to abandon the ancestral Manners residence of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire and to move permanently to Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire. Rutland mss vol. xxi. f. KK; HMC Rutland, ii. 167-8. Although Roos promised Hartington that if he won in both counties he would sit again for Derbyshire, his increasingly fragile links with Derbyshire and gentry dislike of being represented by two aristocrats led to a heavy defeat for both him and Hartington at the polls. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 129-30, 348-9; HMC Portland, ii. 181; HMC Cowper, ii. 446; Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, iii. 159. Roos was successful for Leicestershire with his eventual brother-in-law, Lord Sherard, in the face of opposition from Rutland’s old client Verney, who had switched more firmly to the Tories. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 349, 360; HMC Cowper, ii. 440; HMC Rutland, ii. 168; Rutland mss vol. xxi. ff. LL-MM, 192. The earl’s success in this election led William III to promise him the long-awaited dukedom, although the king died before he was able to effect this elevation. HMC Rutland, ii. 168-71; Rutland mss vol. xxi. ff. NN.

Anne also showed Rutland favour upon her accession and appointed him custos rotulorum of Leicestershire in place of Stamford. However, in the spring of 1702 Lords Roos and Sherard were defeated for that county by the previous sitting members, Verney and Wilkins, in a notable reversal of the earl’s electoral influence so soon after his triumph in the winter of 1701. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 349, 352; HMC Cowper, iii. 14; HMC Rutland, ii. 172-3. In a fit of pique at this defeat of his son at the poll and at the pressure put on him by the incoming ministry to make two Tories he considered enemies deputy lieutenants, Rutland resigned his commission as lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county in March 1703. He was replaced by the dependable Tory, Basil Fielding, 4th earl of Denbigh. His family, particularly Lady Russell and his son-in-law Leveson Gower, appointed Anne’s chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in May 1702, tried to dissuade him from this rash course but to no avail. HMC Rutland, ii. 173; Rutland mss vol. xxi. ff. 208-9, SS. Nevertheless, Leveson Gower persisted in acting as ‘a very good solicitor’ at court in his father-in-law’s interest and he and Roos, who had his own interest in inheriting a higher title, were instrumental in persuading the queen to follow through with the late king’s promise and to raise the earl to a dukedom. The formal elevation was postponed by Rutland’s typical delay in informing his agents in London of the titles he wished to hold, and the patent was not sealed until 29 Mar. 1703, two weeks after the queen had created Leveson Gower a peer as Baron Gower. HMC Rutland, ii. 174-5.

Despite his new title and increased prestige, Rutland still refused to come to the House throughout Anne’s reign, not even to thank the queen for his elevation. Add. 29588, f. 419. His Russell kinsmen continued to present his excuses to the House on the frequent occasions when his presence was demanded. In July 1706, as part of the gradual insertion of the Whigs into offices and the ministry at the expense of the high Tories, Rutland was reinstated as lord lieutenant of Leicestershire but by now he was a recluse in Belvoir Castle. He did not actively intervene in county or borough elections, except for a brief period in the autumn of 1710 when he roused himself to oppose the candidacy of the Tory, Sir Thomas Coke^‡, in Derbyshire and successfully encouraged his son the marquess of Granby (as Roos had been styled since his father had been elevated to the dukedom) who had retreated to the safe seat of Grantham for the last two Parliaments, to stand for Leicestershire again. HMC Portland, iv. 572; HMC Rutland, ii. 190-1. Granby did not have long in his new seat, as his father died at Belvoir Castle on 10 Jan. 1711, propelling him into the upper House as the 2nd duke of Rutland.