patron of stage drama, comparable to his contemporaries the Earls of Pembroke—William Herbert, 3rd Earl, and Philip Herbert, 4th Earl. Hastings was known as the most important aristocratic patron of the playwrights Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. (Hastings and Beaumont were distant cousins.) Hastings patronized other dramatists of the era as well, including John Marston, who wrote the masque at Ashby Castle performed in 1607. Upon his death in 1643, Henry Hastings was succeeded by his eldest son, Ferdinando Hastings, as 6th Earl. Notes Sources Doyle, James William Edmund. The Official Baronage of England. London, Longmans, Green, 1886. Finkelpearl, Philip J. Court and Country Politics in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1990. McMullan, Gordon. The Politics of Unease in the Plays of John Fletcher. Amherst, MA, University of Massachusetts Press, 1994. Further reading Cogswell, Thomas. Home Divisions: Aristocracy, the State and Provincial Conflict. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998. |- |- Lord-Lieutenants of Leicestershire Lord-Lieutenants of Rutland 1586 births 1643 deaths Members of Gray's Inn Henry Hastings, 05th Earl of Huntingdon 17th-century English nobility 5 Barons Hastings Barons Botreaux Barons Hungerford