HASTINGS. 500 years ! ! ! !) is one of a series of Baronies which, having been unheard of for centuries, were claimed, in the earlier years of Queen Victoria's reign, by any coheir who possessed sulUeieut interest to make success probable. The claimants of such peerages were legion, and in the short space of four years (1838-41) the abeyance of no less than five such Baronies (Vaux, Camoys, Brave, Beaumont, and Hastings) of which the average time of their disappearance was above 300 years, was terminated in favour of some distant descendant who seldom possessed even a particle of the ancient Baronial estate. See remarks on these Baronies, vol. i, p. 288, note " b," as also on " Baronies caltid out of abeyance," vol. i, p. 289, note " c," sub " Beaumont." The effect of this (lowest-go-upperinost) method was to give the newly established Peer (whose ancestors for some three centuries or more had been but Commoners) precedence over Dearly all of his own rank, many of whom had inherited ancestral Baronies enjoyed continuously for generations.] Barony by /. Jonx Hastings, of Abergavenny, s. and h. of Sir Writ. Henry dk Hastinox.C') of Ashill, co. Norfolk, Gov. of the Castles of Scarborough, Winchester, and Kenilworth, by Joane, da. of William, I- 1 29;>. and stater and eventually coheir of George dk CanTtlute, feudal Baron of Abergavenny, was b. 6 Hay 1262, at Ashill afsd. ; sue. his father in 1208 ami became by the death of his maternal uncle abovenamed in 1273 the possessor of the vast Lordship of Abergavenny, &c, being then aged 15 [11 ?] years. In 1285 he was serving in the wars with Scotland and in 1290 was one of the three oonrpe: i'ors for the Crown of Seotland.( b ) He was sum. to Parl.(") as a Baron (LORD HASTINGS) by writs from 23 June (1295), 23 Ed. I., to 8 Jan. (1312/3), 0 Ed. [I., directed Jo/ii tic linstiugcs. In 1300 he was at the famous siege of Carlavcrock. In 1301 his name appears as " Johes de Hastyng, Dims deBcrgeveny"^) to the celebrated letter of the Barons to the Pope.( B ) In 1309 he was Seneschal of Aquitaine. He m. firstly in 1275 Isabel, da. of (whose issue in 1323 became coheir to) William (de VaLENCE), Earl of PEMBROKE, by Joane, da. of Warine DF. Monchensi, and Joane. da. of William (Marshal), Earl of Pembroke. She d. 3 Oct. 1305, and was but. in the Friars Minors, Coventry. He m. secondly, before 130S, Isabel, da. of Hugh (le Despbnceb), Earl of Winchester, by Isabel, da. of William (Bbatjchamp), Earl of Warwick. He 4. 28 Feb. (1312/3), 6 Ed. II, and was ftttr. 9 March at the Friars Minors afsd. His widow to. about 1313, Ralph (Monthkrmer), Lord Montuermer, sometime Earl of Gloucester, who d. 1325. She (I. 4 Dec. 1434. Inr s . post mortem in Suffolk 27 Feb. (1334/5), 9 Ed. III. II. 1813. 2. John (Hastings), Lord Hastings, s. and h., aged 26 at his father's death when he inherited the Lordship of Abergavenny and other his vast estates. He was sum. to Pari, as a Baron(f) from (") This Henry was one of the rebel Barons, who, joined with Simon (deMontfort), Earl of Leicester, and who, accordingly, had summons as a Baron to his Pail. 24 Dec. (1264), 49 Hen. 111. The House of Lords, in 1878, held that no peerage dignity is created by this writ tho' such decision was apparently against those given in 1604 and 1800 as applying to the Baronies of Le Despencer and De Roos. See vol. iii, p. 1)0, note "e," tub " Despencer," for some remarks on this writ of 1264. ( b ) This was in right of his grandmother, Ada, wife of Henry Hastings, and 3d and yBt. da. and coheir of David, Earl of Huntingdon, br. to William the Lion, King of Scotland. The other competitors were Robert Bruce, who represented the 2d da. and coheir, and John Baliol, who represented the eldest. In Baliol's favour judgment was given in 1292 on the ground of such inheritance not being liable to partition. (") His name occurs in tho rolls of Pari, before the record of writs of summons commenced. ( ll ) See vol. i, p. 13, note " b," sub " Abergavenny," for some remarks as to this designation. (°) See account thereof in " Nicolas," pp. 761—809, where are some remarks (the subject being also discussed more fully in the " Archajologia," vol. xii, p. 205) on the extraordinary coat of arms upon his seal. 0 Above 30 writs were issued to him and his father in none of which does the word " Bergavenny " appear. The Barony they held was, in 1841, treated as a Barony of "Hustings" (not as a Barony of Abergavenny) cr. by the writ of 1295 and was allowed (1841) as such (see, however, p. 182, note "e"), to Sir Jacob Astley, Bart., the junior coheir of the junior coheiress thereof. N 2
