Alice Hastings

The Hastings of Landwade line of descent according to the account (below) is Sir Robert, Agnes (Pitsford), Robert, John, John, Alice. She married Thomas Neketon (probably) and by 1376, the Landwade manor was entirely possessed by her father’s widow, Elizabeth Sibell.

Alice Hastings was not the wife of Sir Thomas Cotton, Sr., Knight. Lanwade manor came into the Cotton family by a series of sales.

Sources include

• “Pedes Finium: Or, Fines Relating to the County of Cambridge, Levied in the ...“ By England. Court of Common Pleas. Page 129. GoogleBooks “ Thomas Neketon & wife of Landwade“
• Page 21 of The Visitation of Cambridge Made in a ̊(1575) Continued and Enlarged with ... By Henry St. George, Sir Henry Saint-George. “Cotton and Hind of Maddingly in Cambridge”. Wrong wife given to Thomas Cotton.
• A F Wareham and A P M Wright, 'Landwade: Manors', in A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (North-Eastern Cambridgeshire) (London, 2002), pp. 470-472. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol10/pp470-472 [accessed 28 April 2020]. ... The manor was presumably retained in demesne by the Vere family between the late 11th century and the late 12th, but was granted by Earl Aubrey (d. 1194) to his constable, Robert son of William, for the service of 1 knight's fee. (fn. 6) Robert was possibly related to Ralph of Hastings, who held a royal estate in Fordham c. 1155-60. (fn. 7) Landwade manor was held of the Veres by the Hastings family until the late 14th century. In 1236 Sir Robert of Hastings, perhaps descended from the constable, held 2 hides for 1 knight's fee. (fn. 8) In 1259 Sir Robert, reserving to himself a large income in corn and continued occupation of the manor house, settled the manor on his daughter Agnes, who then married Sir Philip of Pitsford (Northants.). (fn. 9) Philip and Agnes bought back property there, including the manor's two mills, given by Robert to his probably illegitimate son Ellis and other relations. (fn. 10) Sir Philip (fl. to 1271) (fn. 11) died before Agnes, who held Landwade manor c. 1279-85 for a knight's fee. (fn. 12) On her death it passed to her son Sir Robert, who took her surname of Hastings and held Landwade c. 1302-6. By 1316 it had descended to his son John de Hastings, (fn. 13) who in 1339 entailed two thirds of it on the first marriage of his son and heir John. (fn. 14) John the father was living in 1349. His son may have been lord in 1353. (fn. 15) That son John Hastings, still alive in 1367, left no sons. In 1360-1 he had settled the manor on his second marriage to Elizabeth Sibill. (fn. 16) In 1376 the widowed Elizabeth sold her life interest in Landwade for a 20-mark annuity to her brother Walter Sibill, fishmonger, of London, who then bought out the reversionary rights of the probable Hastings heiress Alice, wife of Thomas Neketon. (fn. 17)
• Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Vol 37. “Landwade and the Cotton Family.” Printed page 4-5. PDF page 14-15. link
  • The last male of the [Hastings] family died. childless about 1373, leaving all his property to his widow Elizabeth Sybile. She sold it to her brother Walter, a London citizen, for an annuity of 20 marks a year. On Walter Sybile's death his widow Margaret married John Grace, also a London citizen. Margaret was still alive in 1421, but in 1419 Nicholas her son had granted his reversion of the manor. to various men, of whom Thomas Cotton was one. In 1420 Thomas Cotton .of Cambridgeshire and Walter Cotton of Oxfordshire bought land in Fordham and Chippenham, and shortly afterwards Walter Cotton, citizen and mercer of London, and Thomas Cotton, clerk of Cambridgeshire, bought the manor of Landwade. That is a brief but true account of how the manor of Landwade came to the Cottons. In various printed works you will find different stories. But they are wrong.: There is between the last member of the Hastings family and the first. member of the Cotton family such a mass of Latin and French documents relating to the many trusteeships which the estate suffered, that the pedigree maker may be forgiven for making guesses. But he had.no need to include amongst the quarterings of the Cotton shield the arms of Fleming and Hastings as he has done in Harleian Soc. vol. XLI, p. 20.
  • The origin of these imaginary accounts of the Cotton family is T. Wotton, English Baronetage, 1741, vol. ii, p. 112, which states that Sir Thomas Cotton married Alice, daughter and heir to John Hastings of Landwade and had issue John Cotton who was M.P. for Cambridge temp. Rich. II; that he married Bridget, daughter of Richard Grace of Norfolk, by whom he had two sons, 'Thomas .and Walter,. This account is repeated in J. P. Hore, Sporting Records of Cheveley, 1899., p. 17. But I think the charters printed in the appendix prove that no Cotton married a Hastings or a Grace. The Cotton' family, is one of respectable antiquity, but not nearly so ancient as the pedigree makers of the seventeenth and eighteenth century claimed ... “
• Updated from MyHeritage Match via father John Hastings by SmartCopy: Sep 20 2014, 20:14:50 UTC
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hastings-671 “ In other words (comparing to standard pedigrees of the Cottons then) it appears Alice the heiress later married Thomas Cotton [NO]. Their son John married one of the Grace family, named Bridget. [NO] Their son Walter Cotton apparently took over the manor as heir of them all, rather than purchasing it? [NO - purchased] The Hastings of Landwade line of descent according to the above account is Sir Robert, Agnes (Pitsford), Robert, John, John, Alice.” Alice Hastings, daughter of John Hastings by an earlier wife, was probably the wife of Thomas Neketon in 1376, when the Landwade estate was entirely sold to John Hasting’s widow, Elizabeth Sibell.
• There is a " Cartularium Families Of Hastings, Landwade, And Cotton Of Landwade" . See http://dla.library.upenn.edu/cocoon/dla/schoenberg/record.html?id=S...
• “Debrett's Baronetage of England: With Alphabetical Lists of Such Baronetcies ...“ By John Debrett. Page 52. GoogleBooks is erroneous in their mention of her.