HUNTINGDON EARLDOM.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5029, 20 September 1926, Page 3

HUNTINGDON EARLDOM.

HEIR VISITS WELLINGTON.

INTERESTING FAMILY HISTORY.

That Wellington has just had the honour of a visit from a linealj descendant of Robin Hdod, in the person of Lord Hastings, who passed through-on the American majl steamer, has been suggested. It is, however, ,an erroneous supposition, (writes T.D.H. in the Dominion). Lord Hastings is, the son and heir olf the' Earl of Huntingdon, but it was quite a different peerage altogether which was alleged to have been borne by the, famous outlaw, that of Earl of Huntington. But, also, nol antiquarian who respects his cloth nowadays admits that RObin Hood ever had any existence outside of his ballad, that is until Mr Douglas Fairbanks took him in hand.

Moreover, while Robert, Earl of Huntington, the alleged Robin Hood, dates to the days of Richard Cofeur de Lion, the. Hastings family did not get its earldom of Huntingdon until one of its members attended King Henry VIII. on his, wars in France. The family is a very old ofae, however, and has seejh many curious ups and downs. It takes its name from the town of Hastings and traces back .to William the Conqueror’s steward. It cut a, considerable figure in the world, for several centuries, holding big offices at Couit. The Emepror John VasMlivich of Russia in Queen Elizabeth’s day conceived a strong desire to wed Lady Mary Hastings, but as, the lady was not in the. least anxious to depart for that barbarous country stratagems were employed to fob off the Emperor without giving offence. In a later century it was Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, who scandalised her family by becoming a convert to Methodism and keeping open house for dissenting clergymen at the ancient Hastings family seat of Donington Park, in Leicestershire —more recently famous a& a wajr-prison for German officers. Lady Huntingdon sold her jewels to fund Methodist chapels,, and altogether, by her influence and position, was largely instrumental' in putting Methodism on its feet. She seems, by the way, to have' been a granddaughter df the Earl Ferrers, who was hanged a,t Tyburn with a silken rope after trial by his peers for shooting an annoyingbutler dead. Lady Huntingdon lost her two sons, and this event, which turned her more strongly ,to religion, incidentally left her husband without an hejr, and after his: death in 1789 the title of Earl of Huntingdon' was for many years regarded as extinct. ' Thirty years after the death of the above ninth Earl of Huntingdon an industrious genealogist, Mr Henry Nugent Bell, became interested in the antecedents of one Captain l Hans Hastings, a naval officer of nd especial distinction or influence. Mr Bell figured it out that Captain Hastings, -was descended through seven generations, mostly -of younger sons of younger soins, from the Earl of Huntingdon, a nobleman who had died away back in 1561. Furthermore, Mr B6U succeeded in the infinitely more formidable undertaking of establishing that everybody who might have had superior claims to Captain Hastings to the title of Earl of Huntingdon was dead. According to some, versions of the story, Captain Hastings 'was not at all interested in these discoveries, but was pushed by his family into' claiming the peerage. Anyway, in' 1819 he claimed it, and got it, and thus derives the title of his descendant who visited Wellington. Unfortunately, of the very, extensive Hastings estates which had hitherto gone with the title, the new sea captain earl had to content himself with nq more than a decrepit mill in Yorkshire. AH the rest, including the family seat of Donington Park and numerous titles, had been carried off by a daughter of his predecessor. This lady’s husband took the, name of Hastings', and her son , became the first Marquis of Hastings, who acquired fame as Governor-General of India — no 'relation, by the way, of. his contemporary, Warren Hastings. This Hasting family were all spendthrifts, but the climax capie with the fourth and last Marquis of Hastings, who died in 1868, completely ruined, at'the age of 26, with two magnificent estates and income of £30,000 a year gambled away. This young man wasi a terrific plunger on the turf. His winnings in stakes alone were £lo’,ooo in 1864, £12,000 in 1866, and £30,000 in 1867, His own horse, Lecturer, brought him in £75,000 in the Cesarewich, but the victory of Mr Chaplin's. Hermit in the Derby of 1866 cost him £140,000, and more heavy tosses- the following year completed his ruin.

'There was a lot of personal feejin g over the Hermit Derby, for Lord Hastings two years before had eloped with Lady Florence Page,t, who was engaged to be married to Chaplin, the wedding ceremony being* only a few days distant when the bride ran off with the, other man. Thus, Mr Chaplin’s win in 1866' was poetic justice. As a result of these disaster,s and the death of the ruined young Marquis, the great mansion-house of Donington Hall lay empty and tenantless tor years, and stood unsaleable in the books of innumerable estate agents. AU prospective purchasers were frightened off by the huge cost of putting the great house in repair. Finally, when the war 'came the Government took the place over to house German officer prisoners oV war. A Tecent writer says that all the, talk of the Germans living in luxury there was a myth, as the place was an empty bam with whitewashed interiors. An Interesting souvenir of the last Marquis in the house is two ljullet-holes in a plaster wall where he shot the e.ves out of a portrait of Mr Chaplin—as. those eyes looked too persistently at him to his great an-* hoyance.