Henry Nugent Bell [q. v.] took the case up, and it was mainly owing to his exertions that the attorney-general, Sir Samuel Shepherd, reported on 29 Oct. 1818, that Hastings had ‘sufficiently proved his right to the title of Earl of Huntingdon.’ A writ of summons was accordingly issued to him in January 1819, and on the 14th of that month he took his seat in the House of Lords (Journals of the House of Lords, lii. 9), where he does not appear to have taken any part in the debates. Though successful in his claim to the earldom, he failed to recover the Leicestershire estates, which had formerly gone with the title. On 7 March 1821 he obtained the rank of commander and the command of the Chanticleer. While cruising in the Mediterranean he was appointed governor of Dominica (13 Dec. 1821), on 28 March in the following year took the oaths of office (London Gazette, 1822, pt. i. p. 533). In 1824, in consequence of a misunderstanding with the other authorities in the island, Huntingdon resigned his post, and returned home. He was promoted to the rank of post-captain on 29 May 1824, and on 14 Aug. following was appointed to the command of the Valorous. Illness compelled him to relinquish his command in the West Indies. Returning to England in May 1828, he died at Green Park, Youghal, on 9 Dec. 1828, aged 49, and was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son, Francis Theophilus Henry Hastings. He married first, on 12 May 1803, at St. Anne's, Soho, Frances, third daughter of the Rev. Richard Chaloner Cobbe, rector of Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire, by whom he had ten children, including George Fowler Hastings [q. v.] She died on 31 March 1820, and on 28 Sept. following he married secondly Eliza Mary, eldest daughter of Joseph Bettesworth of Ryde in the Isle of Wight, and widow of Alexander Thistlethwayte of Hampshire, by whom he had no children. His widow survived him, and married, for the third time, on 26 April 1838, Colonel Sir Thomas Noel Harris, K.H., and died at Boulogne on 9 Nov. 1846. Engravings by C. Warren after portraits of Huntingdon, and of his first wife by S. W. Lethbridge, will be found in Bell's ‘Huntingdon Peerage.’
[H. N. Bell's Huntingdon Peerage, 1820; Gent. Mag. 1829, pt. i. pp. 269–72, 1847, pt. i. 110; Doyle's Official Baronage, 1886, ii. 243; Burke's Peerage, 1889, pp. 743, 744; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. xii. 69, 234, 278, 475, 6th ser. i. 66; Navy Lists.]
HASTINGS, HENRY, first Baron Hastings by writ (d. 1268), baronial leader, was son of Henry Hastings (d. 1250, sixth baron by tenure, and Ada, thir.d daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon, brother of William the Lion, by Maud, daughter and coheiress of Hugh, earl of Chester. His grandfather, William Hastings (d. 1226), took part with the barons against King John, and in 1216 his lands were forfeited; he was taken prisoner at Lincoln in 1217, and was one of William of Aumale's supporters at Biham in 1221. Henry Hastings the elder fought in Poitou in 1242 and was taken prisoner at Saintes, he served in Scotland in 1244 (Report on Dignity of a Peer, iii. 20). In 1250 he was one of the nobles who took the cross, but died in July of the same year. Matthew Paris calls him ‘a distinguished knight and wealthy baron’ (iv. 213, v. 96, 174).
Henry was under age at his father's death, and the king granted the wardship of his estates to Geoffrey de Lusignan, who, however, in the following year transferred it to William de Cantelupe. In 1260 Hastings received a summons to be at Shrewsbury in arms on 8 Sept. in order to take part in the Welsh war (Report on Dignity of a Peer, iii. 21). He was one of the young nobles who at the parliament held in May 1262 supported Simon de Montfort in his complaint of the non-observance of the provisions of Oxford (Wykes, iv. 133), and siding with the barons in the war of 1263 was one of those excommunicated by Archbishop Boniface. Hastings also joined on 13 Dec. 1263 in signing the instrument which bound the barons to abide by the award of Louis IX. In April 1264 he was in Kent with Gilbert de Clare, and took part in the siege of Rochester (Gervase, ii. 235). He marched with Earl Simon to Lewes, and was knighted by him, either on the morning before the battle on 14 May 1264 (ib. ii. 237), or at London on 4 May (according to Chr. Dover in MS. Cott. Julius, D. ii.). In the battle of Lewes Hastings commanded the Londoners, and took part in their flight from Edward. Afterwards he was made by Earl Simon constable of the castles of Scarborough and Winchester, and on 14 Dec. received the summons to parliament from which the extant barony of Hastings dates (Report on Dignity of a Peer, iii. 34). He was one of the barons who were going to take part in the tournament at Dunstable in March 1265 (Cal. Rot. Pat. 49 Hen. III). He was taken prisoner at Evesham on 4 Aug. 1265, but afterwards obtaining his release joined Robert Ferrers earl of Derby [q. v.], at Chesterfield in the following May, and only escaped capture with him through being out hunting (Robert of Gloucester, 11849–56). He then went to Kenilworth, and, joining with John de la
