For over four hundred years the Hastings family (variously barons Hastings, Botreaux, Hungerford, Loughborogh and Moleyns, earls of Huntingdon, Pembroke, and Moira, and marquesses of Hastings) played a major role in English political life and exercised wide local influence in Leicestershire and other English counties. The Hastings family members were active in Parliament and at Court, and acted as Lords Lieutenant of Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Rutland, and Warwickshire. Among the most notable members of the family are William Hastings, 1st Baron of Hastings (1430?-1483), a Yorkist executed for treason by Richard III, Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon (ca. 1536-1595) and Sir Francis Hastings, active Puritan statesman, Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon (1650-1701), a staunch Tory and Royalist, Theophilus Hastings, the 9th Earl of Huntingdon, a noted Whig and his wife Selina, founder of a Methodist group known as "The Countess of Huntingdon Connection," and Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquis of Hastings, a British officer during the American Revolution and Governor General of Bengal in 1813-1822.
From the description of Hastings family papers, ca. 1100-1892, (bulk 1560-1830). (Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens). WorldCat record id: 122564832
