Roger Manners

5th Earl of Rutland

1576 -1612

When his father died, Roger Manners, became a royal ward under the care of Francis Bacon. He was sent to Cambridge University where he made friends with the Earl of Southampton, a patron of Shakespeare’s.

 

Then he made the Grand Tour, visiting France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy. While studying at the University of Padua, his fellow students were two Danes by the names of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Very interesting...

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Upon his return to England, he joined Essex and Raleigh on an expedition to the Azores where they encountered a terrible storm that nearly wrecked the enterprise. Perhaps this adventure was a source for The Tempest?

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His life is closely associated with the Pembroke and Sidney family as he married Philip Sidney’s only daughter. She was declared a genius by Ben Jonson who also named Rutland and his wife the “Poets of the Belvoir Vale,” their family seat.

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Rutland died in 1612 at the age of 36, possibly from poison.