Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/139

 His widow married John de Hakelut, and dying 25 July 1369 was buried in the church of the Minoresses without Aldgate. His mother, who died in 1350, gave the manor of Dene to the monastery of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, on condition that prayers were offered for her son's soul ( ap. Scriptt. Decem, 2138). Pembroke is figured in the fine brass of his half-uncle, Sir [q. v.], at Elsing, Norfolk. There is a full-sized reproduction of Pembroke's portrait in Carter's ‘Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting’ (plates after p. [38]; Doyle engraves it as a portrait of John, the second earl).



HASTINGS, SELINA, (1707–1791), second of three daughters and coheiresses of Washington Shirley, second Earl Ferrers, was born on 24 Aug. 1707. She married on 3 June 1728 Theophilus Hastings, ninth earl of Huntingdon, and resided with him at Dunnington (or Donington) Park, in the parish of Castle Donington in Leicestershire. In the early part of her married life she was merely known as the Lady Bountiful of her own immediate neighbourhood, until she was ‘converted’ by her sister-in-law, Lady Margaret Hastings. In the popular phraseology, she ‘turned methodist,’ to the great dismay of her friends, who asked Lord Huntingdon to interfere. Lord Huntingdon recommended a conversation, which proved fruitless, with Bishop Benson, his old tutor at Oxford, but interfered no further. Lady Huntingdon identified herself the remainder of her long life with ‘the people called methodists,’ and her husband frequently attended with her George Whitefield's preaching, though he never became an actual convert. Lady Huntingdon was mainly instrumental in introducing the ‘new light’ into aristocratic circles, into which it probably would never otherwise have found its way. Her frequent visits at Twickenham, the residence of her aunt, Lady Frances Shirley, brought her also into contact with some of the chief literary celebrities of the day.

Lady Huntingdon was very intimate with the two brothers Wesley, who frequently visited her at Donington Park, was a constant attendant at their meetings in Fetter Lane, and was a member of the first methodist society formed in that place in 1739. She was present when John Wesley withdrew from his connection with the Moravians there, and did her best to dissuade Charles Wesley from joining them. She is also said to have been the first to urge Maxfield, the first itinerant lay preacher, to exercise his gifts in public, and she became the first supporter of itinerant lay preaching in the neighbourhood of Donington Park, commencing the work by sending out her own servant, David Taylor, to preach. The loss of her two sons, George and Ferdinando Hastings, from small-pox in 1743 made her cling more closely to the consolations of religion. On 13 Oct. 1746 her husband died. When her son Francis attained his majority, she left Donington Park, and took a house at Ashby with her other children and her sisters-in-law, the Ladies Hastings. She was no longer tied so much to one spot, and the marriage of her sister-in-law and first spiritual director, Lady Margaret Hastings, with [q. v.], a methodist preacher, interested her still more deeply in the cause.

She had become acquainted with George Whitefield before his voyage to America in 1744, and on his return in 1748 she requested a common friend, the Welsh evangelist, [q. v.], to bring him to her house at Chelsea as soon as he came on shore. A year before she had appointed him her chaplain, and now, to give him a wider sphere, she removed to London, and opened her house in Park Lane for him to preach in twice a week to the aristocracy. In 1749 Lady Huntingdon made a vain effort to reconcile Whitefield to the Wesleys, siding with Whitefield, with whom she became more and more intimate. In 1750 he visited her at her country house at Ashby, when he said ‘she looks like a good archbishop with his chaplains around him.’ Lady Huntingdon exercised her right as a peeress to appoint as many chaplains as she pleased, and thus protected many clergymen suspected of methodism. The oldest and most influential of these chaplains was William Romaine, but she was the patroness of many others. She opened a correspondence with [q. v.], who visited her at Ashby in 1750. In 1756 she made the acquaintance of Henry Venn, who became one of her favourite chaplains. She enabled several well-known evangelical clergymen, such as [q. v.] and Martin Madan, to obtain ordination. In 1758 she became acquainted with of Madeley [q. v.], who often preached for her. She was also intimate with Augustus Toplady, who called her ‘the most precious saint of God he ever knew.’ [q. v.], (1708–1763) [q. v.], and most other 