Gender | Male | |||||||||||||||||||
Born | 1577 Leicester Abbey, Leicestershire, England [1]
Biography |
| Sir Henry Hastings is the eldest son to Sir Edward Hastings of Leicester Abbey, a son (and subsequently a brother) to the Earls of Huntingdon, and his wife Lady Barbara Devereux. Family & Origins On his paternal side Henry is a descendant of the Plantagenet family through George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence. Two of his ancestors - his great grandfather Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu and his mother Lady Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury (nee Plantagenet) were both accused of treason and beheaded on orders of Henry VIII. On 29 December 1886 Lady Salisbury was beatified by Pope Leo XIII and became the Blessed Margaret Pole.On his maternal side Henry's grandfather is Walter Devereux 1st Viscount Hereford and his great-grandfather was Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, 1st Earl of Huntingdon and 7th Baron Ferrers of Groby. Thomas Grey enjoyed an elevated position in court; through his mother Elizabeth Woodville's second marriage he became a stepson to King Edward IV. Political Career In 1603 Henry inherited Leicester Abbey from his father and is believed to have resided there until 1613 at which point he sold it to the 1st Earl of Devonshire (Sir William Cavendish) who renamed it Cavendish House. It was eventually looted and destroyed by fire in 1645 during the English Civil War. In 1614 Sir Henry proceeded to purchase two manors in Humberstone - Hotoft's Manor and Hesilrige's Manor and they remained in the Hastings family until 1687. Henry, as the son of a puritan, matriculated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1592 and was knighted on 23 April 1603 by King James I at Belvoir Castle. He was a Justice of the Peace in Leicestershire from 1605 until his death. There was a longstanding power struggle between the Hastings and Grey families for control of Leicestershire. Sir John Grey accused Hastings of having insulted him at a meeting in the county, and of telling the 5th earl of Huntingdon that he hated the Hastings family ‘to the child which did sleep in the cradle’. The two protagonists travelled to the Netherlands to fight in May of that year, but bloodshed seems to have been averted. Nevertheless, there was a flurry of Star Chamber (court of law which sat at the royal Palace of Westminster) suits between Hastings and members of the Grey faction. Hastings was accused of committing various abuses as a justice of the peace, including protecting one of his servants who had been accused of murder and of unfairly assessing the subsidy and Leicestershire’s composition for purveyance. Hastings in turn brought suits against his enemies, who included members of his wife’s family, accusing them of riot at the Leicestershire sessions. In 1620 Henry was nominated by the earl of Huntingdon, together with Huntingdon’s brother, Sir George Hastings, to represent Leicestershire in the third Jacobean Parliament, and was returned unopposed. In September 1627 Hastings was reported to be too infirm to conduct public business and there is no evidence that he sought re-election to Parliament the following year. By Easter of 1635 he was living in Humberstone. In February 1637 he initiated an unsuccessful suit in the local archdeaconry court to have the monument that had been erected to the previous owner of the property removed from a private chapel in the parish church. He drew up his will on 18 June 1640. The only bequest was an annuity of £10 to pay for the education of a grandson. He died before 29 Mar. 1641, when the will was proved. In 1819 his descendant was summoned to the lords as 12th earl of Huntingdon on the extinction of the senior line, but none sat in the Commons. Marriage & Children In 16 19 Henry married Mabel, the daughter of Antony Faunt of Faunton. Together they had four sons and five daughters. It is important to note that Hans Francis Hastings, 12th Earl of Huntingdon and all subsequent Earls of Huntingdon are descended from this line.References This information was extracted and adapted from Burke's Peerage (1949 edn) and Collins’s Peerage of England. Information on Henry's military life came from The History of Parliament. Additional information was pulled from Wikipedia and British History Online. Links in sources section. [2, 3, 4, 5] Died |
29 Mar 1641 Humberstone, Leicester, England [1]
| Age |
64 years | Siblings |
4 siblings | Person ID |
I263 Family Tree | Hastings Branch | Last Modified |
20 Feb 2017 | |
Father | Sir Edward Hastings, of Leicester Abbey, b. 1541, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, England , d. 24 Jan 1603, St. Helen's Church, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, England (Age 62 years) | |
Mother | Barbara Devereux | |
Married | 1567 | |
Family ID | F75 Group Sheet | Family Chart |
Spouse / Partner | Mabel Faunt | |
Children | 9 children | |
Last Modified | 20 Feb 2017 | |
Family ID | F74 Group Sheet | Family Chart |
Event Map |
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Pin Legend | : Address : Location : City/Town : County/Shire : State/Province : Country : Not Set |
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