sympathy with the advocates of Mary's claim. For three months during the northern uprising in the autumn of 1569, he assisted George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury to remove the Scottish queen from Wingfield Manor to Tutbury. He was later one of the peers at her trial in 1586. Elizabeth formally recognised his service by creating him a Knight of the Garter in April 1570 alongside William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester, and from this time seems to have regarded him as a candidate for promotion. The rebellion of the earls had demonstrated the ineffectiveness of Thomas Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex as president of the council in the north, in 1572 Huntingdon was appointed president of the Council of the North. Throughout the period the north of England stood as a buffer zone against Scotland, still in a highly volatile state after Mary's flight. He was prominent and active in the preparations of 1588 for the Spanish invasion. Later life Having gone north to Newcastle to oversee the musters in the autumn of 1595, Huntingdon planned to join his wife at court for Christmas. On his return to York in late November, however, he fell ill with a fever and died there on 14 December 1595. At court, Elizabeth went out of her way to comfort his distraught widow, though she did little to mitigate the debts. Childless, Huntingdon had educated Francis Hastings, the eldest son of his brother, Sir George Hastings, as his heir, sending him for a time to Geneva. Francis's ten-year-old son Henry was being brought up in his great-uncle's household at York in 1595. Since his brother had died intestate, George, fourth earl of Huntingdon, tried to avoid taking up the administration of his estate, but the queen insisted upon Huntingdon's being given a funeral commensurate with his rank, and he was buried with his nephew, Francis, who only outlived him by three days, at St Helen's Church, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, on 26 April 1596. A portrait of Huntingdon in armour dated 1588 now hangs in the Tower. Huntingdon was responsible for the compilation of an elaborate history of the Hastings family, a manuscript copy of which is now in the British Museum. Notes References External links Biography |- |- |- |- |- 1530s births 1595 deaths Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Former Roman Catholics People from Ashby-de-la-Zouch Knights of the Bath Knights of the Garter Lord-Lieutenants