HASTINGS, Sir Leonard

Although from one of the richest of gentry families, as a third son Leonard Hastings had only modest expectations until he was well into middle age. As early as the autumn of 1393, when he was yet a child, his father had settled upon him the reversion of the recently-purchased manor of Wold Newton (Yorkshire), but this was hardly enough to give him a place in local affairs.4 CCR, 1396-9, p. 195. The manor was valued at £8 3s. in his inquisition post mortem: C139/162/22. His date of birth is uncertain, but, since his elder brothers were born in c.1380 and 1381, he was probably born in the mid 1380s: CIPM, xvii. 1057. This lack of acres combined with a well-established family tradition determined him on a lengthy career of military service: as a young man he fought (together with his elder brother, Sir Richard) at the battle of Agincourt and saw further service on the campaign of 1417 in the retinue of Edmund Mortimer, earl of March.5 N.H. Nicolas, Agincourt, 336; E101/51/2, m. 7. His connexion with the earl was to prove of decisive significance not only to his own career – it accounts, for example, for his marriage to the earl’s first cousin – but also to the future of his family for it ultimately resulted in his son William’s promotion to the peerage. It is a fair speculation that he remained in Normandy with his lord, who was appointed the King’s lieutenant there in June 1418, until February 1421, when both returned to England for the coronation of Queen Katherine. In the following June Hastings returned to France in the earl’s retinue, remaining there until Henry V’s death. By the late summer of 1424, he was serving in Ireland, where the earl was lieutenant.6 E101/50/1, m. 1; CPR, 1422-9, p. 211. His loyalty was well rewarded: on 29 Mar. 1423 the earl granted him a life interest in his manor of Upton (Northamptonshire) and an annuity of £5 assigned on a Dorset manor.7 CIPM, xxii. 481, 486, 625.

Thereafter, however, Hastings entered ten years of obscurity. The earl of March died of the plague in Trim in January 1425 and it is possible that our MP then resumed his military career in France. When he next appears it was as a servant of March’s nephew and heir, Richard, duke of York. On 5 Mar. 1435 the duke granted him a handsome annuity of £15 charged on the manor of Clarethall in Ashen, Essex, bringing the total value of his grants from York’s estates to £42 p.a.8 HMC Hastings, i. 158; E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14 (xi)d. In the following year, when York was appointed for his first term as lieutenant-general of Normandy, it is likely that Hastings was among those who landed with him at Honfleur on 7 June 1436.9 P.A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York, 29.

If Hastings was among York’s retinue, he was absent from England when his landed position was transformed by the childless death of his elder brother, Sir Richard, on 10 Sept. 1436. Unfortunately, from his point of view, his brother was survived by a widow, but her claim on the inheritance was a good deal less than it might have been. As a daughter of Henry, Lord Beaumont, and the widow of William, Lord Deincourt, she had been well placed to command a substantial marriage settlement, but there is no record of any property having been settled upon her by Sir Richard in jointure. Leonard was thus required to provide her only with her common-law dower. On 17 Mar. 1437, four months after the issue of royal writs for its assignment, she was allocated for her life the manors of Woodhall in Beverley, Sutton-in-Holderness, Ellerburn (Yorkshire), Welford (Northamptonshire) and further isolated parcels of property together with the manor of Newton Harcourt (Leicestershire), already assigned to her in Chancery. Even with this burden, his brother’s death made Leonard a wealthy man. The detailed extents in Sir Richard’s inquisition post mortem valued his lands at an annual clear value of over £150, and, allowing for the undervaluation typical of inquisitions and the omission of certain estates (notably the manor of Slingsby in the North Riding), it would be surprising if our MP’s inheritance was not worth comfortably in excess of £200. His sister-in-law’s dower, again to judge from inquisition valuations, was worth about £70 p.a., which tallies well with such an estimate.10 HMC Hastings, i. 295; CIPM, xxiv. 699-703. Clearly, even with this charge on the Hastings patrimony until her death in 1447, our MP had sufficient resources to hold a place among the leading gentry. Her dower may, however, have been a factor in a shift in the focus of the family’s geographical interests. Sir Richard had played a prominent part in the affairs of both Yorkshire and Leicestershire; Leonard, once his military career was over, concerned himself only with the latter county. One factor in this change was probably the fact that Elizabeth’s dower lay mainly in Yorkshire.

The death of Sir Richard may have prompted Leonard to return from Normandy and he was certainly back in England before his master. After granting dower to his sister-in-law in March 1437, in the following month he leased property to the Premonstratensian abbey of Sulby in Northamptonshire, where his father was buried, and in July sued out a general pardon as his brother’s heir, no doubt as insurance against any irregularities committed during his entry into the Hastings patrimony. In January 1438 he secured insurance of a different type: the duke of York, who had returned to England in the previous November, released to him all actions, perhaps connected with potential differences over military wages.11 Add. Ch. 22445; C67/38, m. 14; HMC Hastings, i. 300. In this period he was also concerned with defeating two rival claims to the family’s manor of Newton Harcourt, which, although assigned to his sister-in-law in dower, seems to have been in his hands. Sir Richard had been troubled by a rival claim to this manor arising out of a settlement made by their father on his first wife, Isabel Saddington, but had died seised of it after an arbitration award of 1423. Yet almost as soon as our MP entered the inheritance, he faced a challenge from Thomas Hesilrigge, Isabel’s great-grandson: in Michaelmas term 1437 Hesilrigge sued him for the manor under the terms of a fine of 1402. Fortunately for Hastings a jury sitting before the justices of assize at Leicester on 23 Feb. 1439 found in his favour. This, however, still left another outstanding claim. Thomas Astley* had an interest in the property under the terms of a fine levied as long before as 1256, an interest that had led to litigation late in the reign of Richard II. Litigation was renewed in the autumn of 1439 when Astley sued Hastings and his brother’s widow, now the wife of Sir Thomas Neville (d.1458) of Brancepeth in Durham, for the manor under the terms of the ancient fine. The matter was, however, soon compromised. On the following 2 Dec., by a deed enrolled on the close roll, Astley demised Newton Harcourt to our MP and, in Hilary term 1440, the Hastings title was confirmed by fine.12 HMC Hastings, i. 294; J. Nichols, Leics. ii (2), 880-1; CP40/709, rot. 137; 715, rot. 125; 716, rot. 53; CCR, 1435-41, p. 345; CP25(1)/126/76/53.

The reappointment of Hastings’s master as lieutenant in France in July 1440 made it inevitable that he would resume his military career. Delays in departure left him ample time to reorder his affairs. On 30 Sept. York granted him a further £15 p.a. from Clarethall, a recognition of additional charges of lengthy absences abroad. It may be that he already held office as the duke’s ranger in the chase of Wyre at an annual fee of a further £5. On the following 12 Mar. Leonard conveyed all his lands to a group of feoffees, headed by the duke and composed of other of York’s retainers and servants of the Hastings family. On 8 May 1441 he sued out letters of attorney, contracting to serve under York with a retinue of one man-at-arms (excluding himself) and eight archers.13 DKR, xlviii. 346; E101/53/33, m. 1. There can be little doubt that he was among those who landed with the duke in Normandy in late June, nor, in view of the want of references to his activities in England, that he remained there until the autumn of 1445 and was knighted during the course of the campaign. He was, however, back home by Hilary term 1446 when (as a knight) he sued the prior of the Augustinian friars of Leicester and others for taking fish worth 100s. from his fishery at Newton Harcourt and Wistow. On 2 Feb. he witnessed a grant by William Villers, and soon after the family patrimony was reunited in his hands by the death of his sister-in-law.14 CP40/740, rot. 288d; 741, rot. 242d; 742, rot. 178; 743, rot. 582d; HMC Hastings, i. 21; CIPM, xxvi. 496.

The end of his military service did not, however, occasion any loosening of Hastings’s ties with York. On 1 Oct. 1448 he received a further mark of ducal patronage: surrendering his annuity charged on Clarethall he was granted instead a life interest in the duke’s share of the lordship of Cottingham near Kingston-upon-Hull at the minimal annual rent of 15s. This was to his benefit for two reasons: York’s financial difficulties made annuities assigned on his property difficult to collect and the manor of Clarethall appears to have been worth less than the annuity assigned upon it.15 HMC Hastings, i. 158; Cott. Ch. V 23; Studies in Med. and Renaissance Hist. ed. Bowsky, ii. 147-8. By Mich. 1448 his annuity was in minor arrears: SC6/1113/10.

None the less, despite these rewards, Hastings did not accompany his lord to Ireland in June 1449 (where York remained until September 1450), preferring instead to enmesh himself in local affairs. In June 1448, when already well advanced in years, his nomination to the Leicestershire bench had marked his first office of local government. On the following 26 Nov. he sued from the Crown a general exemption from office, a necessary insurance, often awarded to ex-soldiers, against unwanted appointments, but not intended by either King or recipient to be invoked against welcome ones.16 CPR, 1446-52, p. 212. Indeed, for our MP the exemption was a prelude to a period of intense activity. Not only did he continue to be appointed to the county bench, but he was nominated to a loan-raising commission in September 1449 and in the following August he was one of those entrusted with the task of assessing the income of his fellow Leicestershire landowners. Meanwhile, he had appeared for the first time as an attestor to a parliamentary election when heading the list of those present at the shire court at Leicester on 16 Oct. 1449, and he was named in the same capacity at the next two elections held in November 1450 and March 1453.17 C219/15/7, 16/1, 3.

More interesting is Hastings’s appointment to the shrievalty in November 1453. His service to the duke of York, still compromised by the failure of his Dartford rising in the previous year, makes him at first sight a surprising appointee. Significantly, however, his appointment was not made with the bulk of the other sheriffs at the beginning of the month, but was delayed until the end. The interim had seen a major improvement in his lord’s fortunes. Indeed, the duke had been present at a great council meeting on 21 Nov. and two days later his rival, the duke of Somerset, had been committed to the Tower of London. Our MP’s appointment as sheriff a few days later is thus another aspect of his lord’s political rehabilitation.18 CFR, xix. 74; EHR, xcix. 71. What is not clear, however, is why his shrievalty had not been filled with the others. It may be that there had been a problem in finding a willing appointee. This is certainly consistent with letters of privy seal granted in Hastings’s favour on the following 12 Dec.: the treasurer and barons of the Exchequer were ordered to allow him to account for the issues of his bailiwick by oath in view of ‘his gret age febleness and long seruice’ to the Crown and to ‘his grete charge by which he was gretely enpouerisshed’. This was a potentially valuable grant for he accounted for only 98 marks of his shrieval farm of about £180.19 E159/232, brevia Hil. rot. 20.

On his return from France in 1445, Hastings had not only begun his administrative career but also began to look for spouses for his daughters. On 24 Mar. 1448 he contracted his daughter Anne in marriage to Thomas, son and heir of Thomas Ferrers of Tamworth (Staffordshire). She was to have a substantial jointure worth 40 marks a year with a further 20 marks a year on the death of Isabel, widow of James, Lord Berkeley. So large a commitment on the part of the Ferrers family was not, however, to be cheaply had. Sir Leonard undertook to pay a portion of as much as 450 marks and to provide for the couple, their four servants and four horses in his own household for a term of three years of the marriage. This was an even bargain: if a recent commentator is correct in her contention that Ferrers was particularly anxious for the match in order to secure the protection of Hastings’s lord, the duke of York, for his threatened Essex properties, then our MP does not appear to have exploited this anxiety to reduce the portion.20 Huntington Lib. San Marino, California, Hastings mss, HAD, box 2, no. 28; C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 105. The contract, drawn up at Kirby Muxloe on 24 May 1453, also survives for the marriage of Sir Leonard’s daughter Joan to John, son of the late Bartholomew Brokesby*. The arrangements were complicated by the fact that the groom was under age and his father dead. The Brokesby feoffees, headed by Sir Richard Bingham, j.KB, agreed that Hastings should have the rule of the groom’s inheritance (save only those lands Bartholomew had settled on his bastard son) until John should have reached his majority, maintaining the couple and their children and servants and accounting to Bingham and the groom for the residue of the issues. On reaching his majority, John was to settle a jointure worth 40 marks a year on his bride and to receive a portion of 300 marks.21 Hastings mss, HAD, box 2, no. 30. It is a measure of our MP’s wealth that, in the space of only a few years, he was able to lay out as much as £500 on the marriages of two daughters without having received a portion for the marriage of his own son and heir (who remained unmarried until after his death). The death of his sister-in-law shortly before the first marriage no doubt both encouraged and facilitated this large investment.22 Nothing is known of his 3rd da. Elizabeth’s marriage beyond the identity of the groom: John Donne of Kidwelly, Carm., a Welsh esquire who profited mightily from Edw. IV’s accession. It is likely to have taken place after 1461. A portrait of the couple was painted by Hans Memling: Trans. Cymmrodorion Soc. (1946-7), 274-5.

The increasing polarization of national politics may have posed Hastings problems more severe than finding spouses for his children, and may even have discouraged him from contracting his heir. Given his long and close affiliation with the duke of York it is difficult to understand why he should, on 16 Apr. 1455, have been called to attend the great council at Leicester which precipitated the first battle of St. Albans. The Lancastrian government may have believed he was wavering in his loyalties, but he was quick to reaffirm them. His first return to Parliament on the following 19 June, when the Yorkists were in control of government, is a clear indication that he was still committed to the duke. More mundanely, on 8 July, the day before this Parliament met, Thomas Boughton*, who had represented Warwickshire in the previous assembly, sued him in the Exchequer of pleas for his failure as sheriff to pay him parliamentary wages of as much as £33.23 PPC, vi. 341; Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 378.

Hastings, however, already an old man, had more pressing concerns. During the first prorogation of Parliament he began to make preparations for death. On 24 Sept. 1455 his surviving feoffees of 1441 secured royal pardon for all acquisitions without licence, and two weeks later, on 8 Oct., he made his last will at Kirby Muxloe. He instructed his feoffees to make life estates of lands in Burton Hastings (Warwickshire) to his wife Alice; in Bromkinsthorpe and Appleby in Leicestershire to his son Richard; in Wold Newton (Yorkshire) to his son Ralph; and in Ashby Parva (Leicestershire) and Drakenage (Warwickshire) to his son Thomas.24 Harl. 3881, f. 13. He died less than a month later, on 21 October, before Parliament reassembled.25 C139/162/22. His feoffees, headed by the duke of York, had to sue in Chancery to secure the manor of Newton Harcourt, which had been wrongly seised by the escheator: KB27/783, rex rot. 6: C44/31/7, 8. Sir Leonard was succeeded by his eldest son, William, elevated to the peerage as Lord Hastings in the immediate aftermath of Edward IV’s accession. William’s brilliant career laid the foundations of the family’s future greatness. William’s grandson, George, was created earl of Huntingdon in 1529.26 CP, vi. 370-6.