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132 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
At a sign from Gloucester, bands of soldiers rushed in from the corridor.
Hastings was seized, hurried away, and instantly beheaded on a timber log
which lay in the court of the Tower.
What wonder, then, if in those days of eloquent heraldic significance,
the family changed the red sleeve to the black the token of royal favour
to the commemoration of royal displeasure, when the latter had become
the token of unswerving fidelity and courage,
and of a determination to
defend the rights of fatherless children, even at the sacrifice of life. When
next you go up the Nave, look up to the black sleeve, and then ask God
to give you grace, at all hazards, to do what is right also.
But there were other members of the same race, who were as staunch
to what they deemed right, and one especially, whose name may be fittingly
commemorated in a disquisition on Heraldry.
There were, and indeed there are, two distinct families of Hastings,
viz., Hastings, Baron Hastings, Earls of Pembroke ; and Hastings, Baron
Hastings, Earls of Huntingdon both descended from one common ancestor,
Robert de Hastings, who was portgrave of that place, and steward to William
the Conqueror. His son, Walter, was steward to Henry I., and had a grant
of the manor of Ashill, Norfolk, for taking care of the naperie (table-linen)
at the Coronation.
On the death of John, sixth Lord Hastings
and third Earl of
Pembroke, 1389 (who was killed in a tournament, while yet a lad of sixteen,
by Sir John St. John, who by an unlucky slip of his lance mortally wounded
him in the abdomen), a controversy arose as to the right to bear the arms
of Hastings, without a mark of difference or abatement, between Reginald,
Lord Grey de Ruthyn, and Sir Edward Hastings.
They were descended from the second Baron Hastings, who died in
1313, and was great-great-grandfather of the unfortunate young man.
Lord Grey de Ruthyn claimed the privilege
because his grandfather,
Roger, Lord Grey, had married Elizabeth, the daughter of Lord Hastings
by his first wife, Isabel de Valence.
Sir Edward Hastings, because he was descended from the eldest son
of the said Lord Hastings by his second wife, Margery de Foliot. Each
assumed the title of Lord Hastings. The cause was tried before the House
of Lords, and referred by them to the judges. On their report, the Lords
decided in favour of Lord Grey de Ruthyn.
But Sir Edward Hastings appealed against this decision ; and, on
the accession of Henry V., several commissions were issued for hearing it.
The proceedings were protracted for some years; and in 1421, before
any judgment had been given, Sir Edward Hastings was arrested by Lord
Grey for the sum of ^987, the cost of the original suit, and was thrown
into the Marshalsea.