Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hastings, Hugh

626019Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 25 — Hastings, Hugh1891Charles Lethbridge Kingsford

HASTINGS, Sir HUGH (1307?–1347), soldier, born about 1307, was elder son of John, second baron Hastings [q. v.], by his second wife, Isabel, daughter of Hugh le Despenser the elder, earl of Winchester [q. v.] He married Margery, elder daughter and eventual heiress of Sir Jordan Foliot, in whose right he acquired estates at Elsing and Gressenhall, Norfolk; he served in Flanders in 1340, and on 25 Feb. 1342 was summoned to parliament, but received no later summons. In 1343 he held a command in Flanders, when three hundred prisoners were captured (Knighton ap. Scriptt. Decem, 2586), and in the same year was in Brittany. He accompanied Henry, earl of Derby (afterwards Duke of Lancaster), to Gascony in 1345, was with him at Bergerac in July, and in the fight at Auberoche in October. In 1346 he formed one of the garrison at the siege of Aguillon (Froissart, iii. 48, 67, 124–5). He died in 1347 and was buried in Elsing Church, which he had built; in the east window there are portraits of Hastings and his wife, with the arms ‘or, a maunche gules,’ and in the chancel there is a very fine brass to his memory (Gough, Ancient Sepulchral Monuments, vol. i. pt. ii. 98–101; Carter, Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, pp. 13, 14, 38, with plates). On a marble slab in the chancel there is the inscription, ‘Yis churche hathe been wrowt by Howe de Hastyng and Margaret hys wyf.’ Margery Hastings died in 1349; she left a son Hugh, who is perhaps the Sir Hugh Hastings who served with John of Gaunt in Spain in 1367 (Froissart). He died at Kalkwell Hill, Yorkshire, in 1369, and was buried in the Friars Church at Doncaster. His son, a third Hugh Hastings, was father of Sir Edward Hastings (1381–1437) [q. v.]

[Authorities quoted; Froissart's Chroniques, ed. Luce; Blomefield's Norfolk, viii. 201–3, ix. 470, 513, 519; Burke's Extinct Peerages.]

C. L. K.