World of HYDE
Discovering our Ancestors and their descendants to all parts of the world. Last updated 5th September 2025
Lady Katherine Manners, 1st Duchess Of Buckingham
1605 - 1649 (44 years)
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Name Katherine Manners Prefix Lady Suffix 1st Duchess Of Buckingham Birth 1605 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England 
Gender Female Residence Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, England Belvoir in Katherine Manners' time was the second castle on the site; by 1464, the Wars of the Roses had taken their toll on the first castle. Katherine's home was a much nobler structure with a central courtyard, parts of which can still be recognized today. Unfortunately the second Castle was destroyed by Parliamentarians in 1649 after Royalists seized it during the English Civil War. Residence Dunluce Castle, County Antrim, Ireland First built on the dramatic coastal cliffs of north County Antrim, the now-ruined medieval castle was seized by the McDonnell clan in 1550s and became the seat of the earls of Antrim. _AMTID 192683784670:1030:204653251 _COLOR 14 _FSFTID LH3H-KKS _UID E30B1F5350F14E32944F3868462543095BDE Burial 1649 An Baile Nua, County Waterford, Ireland Death Oct 1649 Waterford, County Waterford, Ireland Person ID I132241 World of Hyde Last Modified 21 Apr 2025
Father Francis Manners, 6th Earl Of Rutland, b. 1578, Oakham, Rutland, England d. 17 Dec 1632, Bishops Strotford, Hertfordshire, England (Age 54 years) Mother Frances Knyvett, b. 1566, Donhead Saint Mary, Wiltshire, England, England d. Nov 1605, Y .. Somme, Picardie, France (Age 39 years) Marriage 6 May 1602 Wiltshire, England Family ID F44473 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family George Villiers, 1st Duke Of Buckingham, b. 28 Aug 1592, Brooksby, Leicestershire, England d. 23 Aug 1628, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England (Age 35 years) Marriage 16 May 1620 Brooksby, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, England Children 1. Lady Mary Villiers, b. 30 Mar 1622, London, Middlesex, Englalnd d. 26 Nov 1685, City of Westminster, London, Middlesex, England (Age 63 years)2. Lord Charles Villiers, b. 17 Nov 1625, Rutland, Derbyshire, England d. 16 Mar 1627 (Age 1 year)3. George Villiers, 2nd Duke Of Buckingham Kg Pc Frs, b. 30 Jan 1628, Wallingford House, London, England d. 16 Apr 1687, Kirkbymoorside, Yorkshire, England (Age 59 years)4. Francis Villiers, b. 2 Apr 1629, Charing Cross, Middlesex, London, England d. 7 Jul 1648, Kia Insurrection At Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey, England (Age 19 years)Family ID F44472 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 5 Sep 2025
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Notes - Lady Katherine Manners was the only daughter of Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland, by his first wife, Frances Knyvet, widow of Sir William Bevill of Killigarth or Kilkhampton, Cornwall. Upon the death of her father in 1632, without male heirs, she succeeded suo jure to the ancient barony of de Ros.
She married first George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham; Katherine was the choice of George's formidably ambitious mother, the Countess of Buckingham. On the other hand, George was definitely not her father's choice - he considered the Villiers a family of fortune hunters, not to mention they were Protestant and viewed as heretics by the devout Catholic Rutland family. However, it would seem Katherine was in love with Buckingham; she turned Protestant to marry him and remained devoted to him, though continually hurt by his constant womanizing. She was at the Greyhound Inn in Portsmouth on August 23, 1629 when a disgruntled lieutenant named John Felton assassinated her husband. She raced down from the balcony, gathered George in her arms and wept.
Described as "plain-faced and virtuous", the Duchess of Buckingham was one of the few women of rank of the time whose gentleness and womanly tenderness, devotion and purity of life were conspicuous in the midst of the almost universal corruption and immorality of the Court. No scandal was ever breathed against her name, and the worst that was ever said of her was that by her influence she at one time nearly persuaded her first husband to become a Roman Catholic, she herself having returned to her own faith soon after her second marriage. However, one outcome of her reversion to Catholicism meant Katherine was now considered unsuitable to have guardianship of her two boys, George and Francis Villiers, so King James I took them into the royal household and they were "bred up" by the King with his own children. As a result, an extraordinary deep bond developed between the young George Villiers and Prince Charles (later Charles I).
Katherine second husband was Randal McDonnell, Earl of Antrim whom she married in 1635, and they went to live at Dunluce Castle, County Antrim, Ireland. Following the Catholic uprising in Ulster in 1641, the MacDonnell family moved south to Wexford, then Waterford; Katherine shared her husband's distressing and unsettling life and died in 1649. She was buried outside the walls of Waterford and it is speculated that she may have been a victim of the plague. Her possessions passed to her son and a memorial was erected in Westminster Abbey.
- Lady Katherine Manners was the only daughter of Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland, by his first wife, Frances Knyvet, widow of Sir William Bevill of Killigarth or Kilkhampton, Cornwall. Upon the death of her father in 1632, without male heirs, she succeeded suo jure to the ancient barony of de Ros.