HASTINGS, Henry (1610-67)

The Hastings, earls of Huntingdon, had from the sixteenth century been a prominent if impoverished Leicestershire family based at the manor of Ashby-de-la-Zouche. Hastings’ father served as lord lieutenant in the first half of the seventeenth century. The civil wars in England divided the family, Hastings declaring early for the king, while his older brother, Ferdinando, favoured the parliamentary cause. Hastings joined Charles I at York in the spring of 1642 and thereafter became one of the most significant royalist commanders in the Midlands. It was for his military efforts that he was rewarded with a peerage in October 1643. After a prolonged siege, he was forced to surrender his family seat at Ashby in February 1646, the terms of surrender including shipping to France or Holland for himself and 150 officers. H.N. Bell, Huntingdon Peerage, pp. 124–5. Loughborough fought in the second Civil War and was taken captive at Colchester, before escaping to Holland to re-join Charles II at The Hague in March 1649. In the years that followed he was involved in various royalist schemes to restore the king to the throne of England. CCSP, i. 437; CP, viii, 167–8. At the Restoration Loughborough was rewarded through appointment as lord lieutenant of Leicestershire. On 4 Sept. 1660 the mayor and burgesses of Leicester requested his presence at court when their recorder attended the king to present him with £300 and the surrender of a fee-farm rent, worth £17 a year. Bodl. Carte 78, f. 84.

Loughborough took his seat in the Convention on 1 June 1660, sitting on 65 days of the session before its adjournment on 13 September. According to one newsletter at the end of July 1660, when the Lords spent two days debating those behind the execution of the king, Loughborough was noted for his view that he desired ‘to revenge no private injuries by public power’. HEHL, Hastings mss HA 7644. On 30 Aug. he was a ‘bridesman’ at the wedding of ‘Squire Harpur’ to a daughter of the attorney-general, Sir Geoffrey Palmer^‡. Hastings mss HA 7646. He was present when the session resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, attending on 29 days (64 per cent of the total) of the remainder of the session. Over both parts of the session, he was named to three second reading committees.

On 18 Feb. 1661 Loughborough petitioned for a farm of the duty on beef, sheep and pigs imported from or exported to Ireland through various ports. CTB, i. 127. On 12 Mar. the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesely, 4th earl of Southampton, reported on the petition, in which Loughborough had offered a rent of £300 p.a. The customs commissioners had estimated the farm might be worth £1,000 or £1,100 p.a., but did not object to the farming of it. Loughborough had claimed that he would gain advantage ‘not from the profits of the customs but the skill he hath in judging and trading in those beasts’. Ibid. 221. The petition was successful and he received the farm for 21 years at a rent of £400 for the first seven years, and £500 afterwards. CSP Dom. 1660–1, p. 577. His commissioners were certainly at work in October 1662. Bodl. Carte 76, f. 11. However, on 7 Oct. 1663 a warrant was issued for a grant to Loughborough of £500 a year, for 19½ years from Michaelmas 1662, in compensation for the surrender of his farm of the duties for cattle exports. CSP Dom. 1663–4, p. 289; Bodl. Carte 78, f. 196. A warrant was issued by Southampton for the payment of £500 on 24 Oct. 1663. CTB, i. 551.

Loughborough was present on the opening day of the new Parliament, 8 May 1661. He attended on 34 days (53 per cent) of the session, until its adjournment on 30 July. On 11 July he supported the claim of Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, to the great chamberlaincy. When the House resumed in November 1661 he attended on 48 days (38 per cent) of the remainder of the session and was named to two committees.

Loughborough was present at the beginning of the 1663 session on 18 Feb. 1663. He was absent from the call of the House on 23 Feb. but named to the committee on petitions on the 25th. On 13 July Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, predicted that he would support the attempt by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon. In all Loughborough attended 29 days of the session (24 per cent of the total) and was named to a further two committees, one of which was the bill for the improvement of the Forest of Ashdown and the Parke called the Broyle, of which he was named a commissioner. E. Suss. RO, Glynde Place Archs. GLY 3162.

Loughborough was present on the opening day of the 1664 session, 16 Mar., being named to the committee of privileges on the 25th and to one other committee. He was absent from the call of the House on 4 Apr. but he attended 18 days of the session, 50 per cent of the total. He attended the prorogation of 20 Aug. 1664. Loughborough was present on the opening day of the 1664–5 session, 24 Nov. 1664, being named to the committee of privileges on the following day. He was absent from a call of the House on 7 Dec. 1664 but attended on 29 days (59 per cent) of the session and was named to a further four committees. This session also saw the passage of a bill to allow Loughborough to make the river and shore navigable from near Bristow Causeway (modern Brixton Hill) to the Thames. He attended the prorogation on 21 June 1665.

Loughborough first attended the session that began in October 1665 on the 20th, being present on eight days in all, and he was named to two committees. He also attended the prorogation of 20 Feb. 1666. In June he was commissioned to raise a troop of horse in preparation for a possible French and Dutch invasion. CSP Dom. 1665–6, p. 475. On 20 Aug. he wrote to Henry Bennet, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, from Havant concerning which of the newly raised troops would be retained, and asking him for his favour, ‘expecting nothing at court but by his intercesssion’. CSP Dom. 1666–7, p. 54.

Loughborough was absent from the opening of the 1666–7 session on 18 Sept. 1666, attending only on a single day (25 Sept.), when he was named to one committee. On 17 Dec. 1666 his proxy was registered in favour of Robert Bertie, 3rd earl of Lindsey, it being vacated by Loughborough’s death in London on 10 Jan. 1667, whereupon his peerage became extinct. He was buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, beside the previous bearer of the title, his ‘great uncle’ Edward Hastings^†, Baron Hastings of Loughborough, a son of the first earl of Huntingdon.

The executors of his will, Francis Colles, ‘now my agent in Ireland’, and Francis Eaton, ‘my servant at Baty Lodge, Sussex’, were enjoined to seek the advice of the will’s overseers, John Morris^‡ and (Sir) Robert Clayton^‡. Morris and Clayton were the most important bankers of the day and Loughborough had been a client of theirs since at least October 1662. Bodl. ms Eng. lett. c. 12, ff. 43–61. He placed his estate at Okethorpe, Derbyshire, in trust for 99 years to pay his debts and legacies. He bequeathed £200 per year from his coal mine at Okethorpe to his sister, Lady Alice Clifton, the seventh wife of Sir Gervase Clifton^‡. Okethorpe and the residue of his estate were bequeathed to his nephew Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon. Loughborough’s brother had died in 1656, leaving Huntingdon as a minor and Loughborough as effective head of the family. Huntingdon was later to comment favourably upon Loughborough’s management of the family’s affairs. Bodl. Carte 78, ff. 412–17.