The reactionary system introduced by the elector William I. had broken down before the revolutionary movements of 1830, and in 1831 Hesse had received a constitution. This development was welcome neither to the elector nor to the other German governments, and Hassenpflug deliberately set to work to reverse it. In doing so he gave the lie to his own early promise; for he had been a conspicuous member of the revolutionary Burschenschaft at Göttingen, and had taken part as a volunteer in the War of Liberation. Into the causes of the change it is unnecessary to inquire; Hassenpflug by training and tradition was a strait-laced official; he was also a first-rate lawyer; and his naturally arbitrary temper had from the first displayed itself in an attitude of overbearing independence towards his colleagues and even towards the elector. To such a man constitutional restrictions were intolerable, and from the moment he came into power he set to work to override them, by means of press censorship, legal quibbles, unjustifiable use of the electoral prerogatives, or frank supersession of the legislative rights of the Estates by electoral ordinances. The story of the constitutional deadlock that resulted belongs to the history of Hesse-Cassel and Germany; so far as Hassenpflug himself was concerned, it made him, more even than Metternich, the Mephistopheles of the Reaction to the German people. In Hesse itself he was known as “Hessen’s Hass und Fluch” (Hesse’s hate and curse). In the end, however, his masterful temper became unendurable to the regent (Frederick William); in the summer of 1837 he was suddenly removed from his post as minister of the interior and he thereupon left the elector’s service.
In 1838 he was appointed head of the administration of the little principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, an office which he exchanged in the following year for that of civil governor of the grand-duchy of Luxemburg. Here, too, his independent character suffered him to remain only a year: he resented having to transact all business with the grand-duke (king of the Netherlands) through a Dutch official at the Hague; he protested against the absorption of the Luxemburg surplus in the Dutch treasury; and, failing to obtain redress, he resigned (1840). From 1841 to 1850 he was in Prussian service, first as a member of the supreme court of justice (Obertribunal) and then (1846) as president of the high court of appeal (Oberappellationsgericht) at Greifswald. In 1850 he was tried for peculation and convicted; and, though this judgment was reversed on appeal, he left the service of Prussia.
With somewhat indecent haste (the appeal had not been heard) he was now summoned by the elector of Hesse once more to the head of the government, and he immediately threw himself again with zeal into the struggle against the constitution. He soon found, however, that the opinion of all classes, including the army, was solidly against him, and he decided to risk all on an alliance with the reviving fortunes of Austria, which was steadily working for the restoration of the status quo overthrown by the revolution of 1848. On his advice the elector seceded from the Northern Union established by Prussia and, on the 13th of September, committed the folly of flying secretly from Hesse with his minister. They went to Frankfort, where the federal diet had been re-established, and on the 21st persuaded the diet to decree an armed intervention in Hesse. This decree, carried out by Austrian troops, all but led to war with Prussia, but the unreadiness of the Berlin government led to the triumph of Austria and of Hassenpflug, who at the end of the year was once more installed in power at Cassel as minister of finance. His position was, however, not enviable; he was loathed and despised by all, and disliked even by his master. The climax came in November 1853, when he was publicly horse-whipped by the count of Isenburg-Wächtersbach, the elector’s son-in-law. The count was pronounced insane; but Hassenpflug was conscious of the method in his madness, and tendered his resignation. This was, however, not accepted; and it was not till the 16th of October 1855 that he was finally relieved of his offices. He retired to Marburg, where he died on the 15th of October 1862. He lived just long enough to hear of the restoration of the Hesse constitution of 1831 (June 21, 1862), which it had been his life’s mission to destroy. Of his publications the most important is Actenstücke, die landständischen Anklagen wider den Kurfürstlichen hessischen Staatsminister Hassenpflug. Ein Beitrag zur Zeitgeschichte und zum neueren deutschen Staatsrechte, anonym. (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1836). He was twice married, his first wife being the sister of the brothers Grimm. His son Karl Hassenpflug (1824-1890) was a distinguished sculptor.
See the biography by Wippermann in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, with authorities.
HASTINAPUR, an ancient city of British India, in the Meerut district of the United Provinces, lying on the bank of a former bed of the Ganges, 22 m. N.E. of Meerut. It formed the capital of the great Pandava kingdom, celebrated in the Mahābhārata, and probably one of the earliest Aryan settlements outside the Punjab. Tradition points to a group of shapeless mounds as the residence of the Lunar princes of the house of Bharata whose deeds are commemorated in the great national epic. After the conclusion of the famous war which forms the central episode of that poem, Hastinapur remained for some time the metropolis of the descendants of Parikshit, but the town was finally swept away by a flood of the Ganges, and the capital was transferred to Kausambi.
HASTINGS, a famous English family. John, Baron Hastings (c. 1262-c. 1313), was a son of Sir Henry de Hastings (d. 1268), who was summoned to parliament as a baron by Simon de Montfort in 1264. Having joined Montfort’s party Sir Henry led the Londoners at the battle of Lewes and was taken prisoner at Evesham. After his release he continued his opposition to Henry III.; he was among those who resisted the king at Kenilworth, and after the issue of the Dictum de Kenilworth he commanded the remnants of the baronial party when they made their last stand in the isle of Ely, submitting to Henry in July 1267. His younger son, Edmund, was specially noted for his military services in Scotland during the reign of Edward I. John Hastings married Isabella (d. 1305), daughter of William de Valence, earl of Pembroke, a half-brother of Henry III., and fought in Scotland and in Wales. Through his mother, Joanna de Cantilupe, he inherited the extensive lordship of Abergavenny, hence he is sometimes referred to as lord of Bergavenny, and in 1295 he was summoned to parliament as a baron. Before this date, however, he had come somewhat prominently to the front. His paternal grandmother, Ada, was a younger daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon, and a niece of the Scottish king, William the Lion; and in 1290 when Margaret, the maid of Norway, died, Hastings came forward as a claimant for the vacant throne. Although unsuccessful in the matter he did not swerve from his loyalty to Edward I. He fought constantly either in France or in Scotland; he led the bishop of Durham’s men at the celebrated siege of Carlaverock castle in 1300; and with his brother Edmund he signed the letter which in 1301 the English barons sent to Pope Boniface VIII. repudiating papal interference in the affairs of Scotland; on two occasions he represented the king in Aquitaine. Hastings died in 1312 or 1313. His second wife was Isabella, daughter of the elder Hugh le Despenser. Hastings, who was one of the most wealthy and powerful nobles of his time, stood high in the regard of the king and is lauded by the chroniclers.
His eldest son John (d. 1325), who succeeded to the barony, was the father of Laurence Hastings, who was created earl of Pembroke in 1339, the earls of Pembroke retaining the barony of Hastings until 1389. A younger son by a second marriage, Sir Hugh Hastings (c. 1307-1347), saw a good deal of military service in France; his portrait and also that of his wife may still be seen on the east window of Elsing church, which contains a beautiful brass to his memory.
On the death of John, the third and last earl of Pembroke of the Hastings family, in 1389, Sir Hugh’s son John had, according to a decision of the House of Lords in 1840, a title to the barony of Hastings, but he did not prosecute his claim and he died without sons in 1393. However his grand-nephew and heir, Hugh (d. 1396), claimed the barony, which was also claimed by Reginald, Lord Grey of Ruthyn. Like the earls of Pembroke, Grey was descended through his grandmother, Elizabeth Hastings, from John, Lord Hastings, by his first wife; Hugh, on the other hand, was descended from John’s second wife. After Hugh’s death his brother, Sir Edward Hastings (c. 1382-1438), claimed the barony, and the case as to who should bear the arms of the Hastings family came before the court of chivalry. In 1410 it was decided in favour of Grey, who thereupon assumed the arms. Both disputants still claimed the barony, but the view seems to have prevailed that it had fallen into abeyance in 1389. Sir Edward was imprisoned for refusing to pay his rival’s costs, and he was probably still in prison when he died in January 1438. After his death the Hastings family, which became extinct during the 16th century, tacitly abandoned the claim to the barony. Then in 1840 the title was revived in favour of Sir Jacob Astley, Bart. (1797-1859), who derived his claim from a daughter of Sir Hugh Hastings who died in 1540. Sir Jacob’s descendant, Albert Edward (b. 1882), became 21st Baron Hastings in 1904.