[1] On 28 June 1603, Francis Manners travelled with his brother to Denmark to present the Order of the Garter to Christian IV, accompanied by 'picture maker' Inigo Jones among others.

He held the offices of constable of Nottingham Castle and keeper of Sherwood Forest from October 1612 until April 1620, and carried the target or shield in the funeral procession of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales.

He was created warden and chief justice of the royal forests north of the Trent on 13 November 1619, and custos rotulorum for Northamptonshire on 7 February 1623.

Although he seems to have disapproved of an extreme policy in church matters, his family connection with his son-in-law, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, secured him the appointment, on 21 April 1623, of admiral of the fleet to bring home Prince Charles from Spain.

[4] Rutland died on 17 December 1632 at an inn in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, and was buried on 20 February 1633 in the parish church at Bottesford, Leicestershire.

[1][5] A discovery was made by W. H. Stevenson in 1905 among some records being kept in Belvoir Castle of an entry that indicates that in March 1613, the year that the Globe theatre would later burn down during a performance of Henry VIII, William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, who was skilled as a portrait painter of his fellow actors, were each paid forty-four shillings in gold for creating and painting the Earl of Rutland's emblem.

[13][9] The Flower family, known as the "Witches of Belvoir", were said to have prevented the couple having more children by making a charm from wool from their mattress and a pair of gloves.