John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (29 August 1347 – 16 April 1375), was a fourteenth-century English nobleman and soldier. He also held the titles of Baron Abergavenny and Lord of Wexford. He was born in Sutton Valence, the son of Laurence Hastings, 1st Earl of Pembroke, and Agnes Mortimer, Countess of Pembroke. His father died when John Hastings was around one year old, and he became a ward of King Edward III while remaining in his mother's care. The King arranged for John to marry Edward's daughter Margaret in 1359, which drew John into the royal family. However, Margaret died two years later. John Hastings inherited his father's earldom, subsidiary titles and estates in 1368. The same year, he made a second marriage, to Anne, daughter of Walter, Lord Mauny. The following year, Pembroke began the career in royal service that continued for the rest of his life.
The Hundred Years' War had recently resumed in France, and in 1369 Pembroke journeyed to Aquitaine. There he took part in a sequence of raids, sieges, and counter-measures against the French, with both notable successes and failures. The latter were compounded by his apparent inability to work alongside the famed soldier Sir John Chandos, who, although head of the King's forces there, was far below Pembroke in rank. He was, however, far above Pembroke in ability, and his subsequent death led to even more problems for Pembroke in France. A couple of years later, the Earl was summoned to Parliament and returned to England. There, perhaps exasperated by the political failures of the King's ecclesiastical ministers, or by their self-indulgence in office, he was responsible for forcing them from power.
In 1372 Pembroke returned to France with a small fleet, intending to raise a new army in Aquitaine. His arrival had been anticipated by the Castilian navy (whose kingdom was then allied to France). Pembroke, outnumbered and outgunned, was forced to fight at the Battle of La Rochelle, where he went down to a crushing defeat. Captured and taken to Castile, he was imprisoned in harsh conditions. It took three years for a large ransom to be negotiated, but in 1375, he was finally released. Returning to England through France, he was taken ill near Paris and died before reaching home. He was 27 years old. His wife survived him, as did a son, born in 1372, whom Pembroke had never seen; also named John, he would eventually inherit the earldom. Pembroke was buried in Hereford in April 1375.
Background and youth
John Hastings was born on 29 August 1347 at Sutton Valence Castle, Kent and baptised that day in the local church, St Mary the Virgin. He was the only son and heir of Laurence Hastings, 1st Earl of Pembroke, by his wife Agnes, who was the third daughter of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. His father's mother, Juliana Leybourne, was enormously wealthy. Laurence Hastings died a year to the day after his son's birth, and John remained in the care of his mother, while becoming a ward of the King, Edward III (). In December 1348 his mother was granted the large sum of 100 marks a year for his maintenance and upkeep. She soon remarried, but her second husband, John Haklyt, was himself dead by 1357. The wardship of Laurence's estates was divided between his wife Agnes; his mother, John's grandmother (Juliana Leybourne, who later married the Earl of Huntingdon); and Sir John Grey of Ruthin.
In 1362, John began receiving grants of the manors previously held by his father. In 1364, he received the wardship of all his father's lands in England and Wales, and was appointed keeper of all his grandmother's dower lands. He attended the King's midwinter revels in December 1366 as part of the extended royal family. Hastings proved his age to the Kingand thus his legal majorityon 12 September 1368. The following year, he paid homage to Edward and pledged his fealty; in return, he was granted the rights to all his English inheritance. The following month, he entered into those estates his father had held in Ireland and Wales. Like his father, as well as Earl of Pembroke he also styled himself Lord of Wexford and of Abergavenny. He became a favourite of the King.
Marriages Pembroke was contracted to marry twice. His first marriage was arranged by Edward III to his 12-year-old fourth daughter, Margaret. The betrothal ceremony took place on 19 May 1359 in the Queen's Chapel, Palace of Westminster. This was an important match for Pembroke; the royal connection meant that, while his wife lived, Pembroke was referred to as the King's son in official records, as his marriage had brought him directly into the royal family. Margaret died around 1 October 1361, probably of plague, and was buried in Abingdon Abbey. The marriage was never solemnised and they had no children.
Pembroke's second marriage to a cousin of the King also reinforced his position in the royal circle. In July 1368 Pembroke married Anne Mauny (24 July 13553 April 1384). She was the daughter of the famous soldier Walter, Lord Mauny, and Margaret, daughter of Thomas, Earl of Norfolk, and later Duchess of Norfolk in her own right. As Anne was a cousin of Pembroke's first wife a papal dispensation was sought for this marriage and received from the Archbishop of Canterbury on 1 July 1368. In return, the Pope requested that the Earl donate 1,000 gold florins towards the repair of Saint Paul's, Rome. Pembroke was twenty at his second marriage; his bride was thirteen. Pembroke left her in England while he carved out a career for himself in France on royal service. When his father-in-law died, Pembroke sent two of his knights to take possession of all of Mauny's estates in Hainaut (in what is now southern Belgium).
Campaigning in France
Much of Pembroke's adult life was devoted to royal service, beginning in October 1364 when he was in attendance on King Edward III at Dover. In 1369 he entailed and enfeoffed part of his earldom, with the reversion going to the King; this was granted to his feoffees who then regranted them to him for five years. This effectively created a trust for his heirs, in the event of his death abroad, and if they should also die heirless, the estate would return intact to the King. Pembroke's first active service came in the same year; he accompanied the King's son, Edmund, Earl of Cambridge, on a much-delayed campaign in Aquitaine in south-west France with a force of 400 men-at-arms. This was a reinforcement for the campaign of the King's eldest son, Edward, the Black Prince, which had suffered setbacks following the Prince's intervention in the war of Castilian succession and the French reopening the Hundred Years' War in 1369. Pembroke and Cambridge landed at St Malo, apparently escaping the notice of a local French commander, and marched south to Angoulême, joining the Black Prince there in late April.
They arrived at a period of further military setbacks for the English. Archambaud, Count of Périgord, was leading a French force attempting to join the Duke of Anjou; the Earls of Pembroke and Cambridge were tasked with devastating as much of Archambaud's land as possible. This they excelled at, conducting a chevauchéea large-scale mounted raidinto Périgord, burning property and killing the inhabitants. Pembroke's force then captured Bourdeilles castle after an eleven-week siege when a mistimed sortie allowed the English entry. Knighted soon after by the Earl of Cambridge, Pembroke continued to campaign in both Anjou and Poitou. This involved much raiding, some of it alongside the Black Prince. By June Pembroke was raising a large army to relieve French pressure on the north of Poitou. He and Cambridge were joined by Sir John Chandos around this time. They arrived in the Vendée at the end of June 1369, and captured Roche-sur-Yon as a result of the French captain betraying the town. This was a strategically important French-held enclave inside English France, and it belonged to the Duke of Anjou. Following the taking of Roche-sur-Yon Pembroke led a successful campaign into the Loire Valley. Although he failed in an attempt to capture Saumur, he took and held both of the main bridges across the river Loire between Saumur and Nantes. They were already strongly fortified and Pembroke strengthened these defences and garrisoned them. This campaign greatly diminished the ability of the French to attack through the western march of Poitou.
Disagreements and tensions arose among the English generals, particularly between Pembroke and Chandos, based on their vastly different social status. As the modern historian Jonathan Sumption puts it, Pembroke "may have had the grander name but his inexperience showed". Although Chandos was appointed seneschal of Anjou he was only a banneret and so Pembroke, with aristocratic arrogance, refused to serve under him. It is possible Pembroke was acting on the advice of his council, but the result was that the two English armies were kept separate from each other.
In October (or possibly December) Pembroke invaded Anjou with just his own force of 300 men-at-arms on a fire-raising raid to Puirenon. During this Pembroke was ambushed by about 600 men under either Louis de Sancerre or Jean de Bueil. Taken by surprise, Pembroke's men were still trying to form up when they were charged by French cavalry. About 100 of the English were killed or taken prisoner, and the French captured supplies, horses and materiel. Unable to fight off the attacking force, Pembroke escaped to a house at the edge of a village and sent to Chandos for assistance. In revenge, says Cokayne, Pembroke then raided Anjou again, before being despatched with Cambridge to relieve Belleperche, in early 1370, where they raised the French siege. At the same time, Pembroke's agents had recruited 300 men in England to join his force, and they were soon due to sail.
Pembroke was embarrassed at being rescued by Chandos and this "did nothing to abate the ill-feeling between the two leaders" and "was a serious blow to Edward III's attempts to stabilize Aquitaine", according to the historian R. I. Jack. Not only had the escapade damaged the English cause in the region, but it led directly to Chandos's failure later in the year to recapture the abbey at Saint-Savin, Vienne, where Chandos was killed. This was a major loss for the English, as none of the remaining English captains in France, including Pembroke, had the personal skill or martial experience of Chandos. A contemporary chronicler reported that the French King, Charles V, when he heard of Chandos's death, said that no-one was now "left able to make peace between England and France".