"After a short pause the Protector, unbuttoning his left sleeve, shewed the Council his arm, dried and withered, saying with extreme emotion, 'See what that sorceress, and Shore's wife have done by their witchcrafts. They have reduced my arm as you see, and my whole body would fain have been the same, if by God's mercy their infamous plot had not been discovered.' These words caused a greater surprise than the former, the whole Council knowing the Duke's arm had long been in that condition; besides, if the Queen had framed such a project, Jane Shore would have been the last person she would have imparted it to, since of all women she most hated her.
"The Lord Hastings who, since Edward's death, had kept Jane Shore, perceiving she was involved in the accusation, could not forbear to shew how much he doubted her being guilty by saying, 'If they had committed such a crime they deserved to be punished.'
"Then the Protector raising his voice said, 'What, dost thou answer me with 'Ifs' and 'Ands,' as if I forged this accusation? I tell thee they have conspired my death, and thou thyself art accessory to the crime.' As he ended these words he struck the table twice with his fist, and immediately the room was filled with armed men.
"As soon as they were in, the Protector turning to Lord Hastings said to him, 'I arrest thee for High Treason.' 'Who, me, my Lord,' answered Hastings. 'Yes, thee traitor,' replied the Protector. At the same time he delivered him to the custody of the soldiers.
"During the bustle one of the soldiers would have cleft the Lord Stanley's skull, with a battle-axe. But he avoided part of the blow by sinking under the table, however he was dangerously wounded. Probably the soldier had orders to kill him as it were by chance, under pretence that he would have defended the Lord Hastings. It is not hard to guess why the Protector desired to be rid of him. Having missed his aim, Stanley was arrested with the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Ely, it being the Protector's interest to put it out of their power to hurt him, whom he knew to be zealously affected for the young king.
"As for the Lord Hastings, he would scarce give him time to make confession to the next priest that came, swearing 'By St. Paul,—he would not dine until his head was struck off.' Accordingly he was beheaded upon a log that was found on the green before the Tower Chapel, the time fixed by the Protector being too short to erect a scaffold."
So miserably and brutally perished the Lady Katharine Bonville's second husband, one of the chief friends and favourites of Edward IV., through the remorseless malice aforethought of that king's brother, the Duke of Gloucester. Lord Hastings was a prominent, it may be said, representative character of that age of intrigue and unscrupulous ambition. Although loyal to Edward and his sons, he was a "sworn enemy" to Queen Elizabeth Woodville, notwithstanding his wife's daughter, Cicely Bonville, was married to her eldest son, and he is said to have "greatly contributed" to the execution of the prisoners at Pontefract, Anthony, Earl Rivers, and Richard, Lord Grey, the Queen's brothers, and near relatives of his step-daughter Cicely Bonville's husband, the Marquis of Dorset; by a most remarkable retribution he was awarded a similar fate to theirs, said to have occurred on the same day, and at the same hour. His hands too are reputed to have been imbrued with the blood of Margaret of Anjou's unfortunate youthful son. His amour with Jane Shore was made the handle of Gloucester's accusation, and sudden and cruel as his fate was, it was perhaps merciful as compared with the suffering that was reserved for her. While Hastings, her protector, lived, her position was one of comparative safety, but at his death none dared befriend her, and true to the hideous completeness of the part Gloucester was acting, she was to be the next victim. Then the poor, frail, beautiful and withal amiable creature,—Edward used to call her the 'holiest' of his three mistresses, the other two being respectively the 'wittiest' and the 'merriest'—one to whom a king, and 'the handsomest man in Europe' to boot, had paid court, amid unstinted opulence and luxury, was dragged forth and exposed to the gibes, jeers, and insults of a vulgar mob, with studied opprobrium publicly disgraced, and finally with contumely driven away to eke out the remainder of her days in the most abject poverty, misery, and distress. The purist,—forgetful his mother was a woman,—may say the degradation was deserved; but there is no human shortcoming that gives justification for unmanliness, the most detestable of all crimes.
By his wife Katharine, widow of William Bonville, and daughter of Richard Nevill, Earl of Salisbury, Lord Hastings had issue four sons:—1. Edward, eldest son and heir; he married Mary, grand-daughter and heiress of Robert, Baron Hungerford, Bottreaux, Molyns, and Moels, and in right of his wife was summoned to Parliament, though still a minor, in 1483, by the title of Baron Hastings of Hungerford; he died in 1507.—2. Sir Richard.—3. Sir William.—4. Sir George; and one daughter, Anne, married to George Talbot, fourth Earl of Shrewsbury.
Lord Hastings made his will 27 June, 1481, bequeaths his body to be buried in the "Chapel of Seynt George at Wyndesore," and "that there be ordeigned a tumbe convenient for me by myne executors, and for the costs of the same I bequeath c marks." After many religious bequests,—"also when George, Erle of Shrewsbury, whose warde and marriage to be, me is granted, &c.,—hath married Anne my daughter, I woll that if the same Erle should die, which God defend, &c., that then Thomas brother of the said Erle take to wife, her the same Anne, &c.,"—gives to "Kateryn myn entirely beloved wyff," sundry manors and constitutes her one of his executors, and "ordaynes John, Lord Dynham," a contemporary of west-country fame, as one of the surveyors.
Katharine, Lady Hastings, made her will 22 Nov., 1503, and orders her body "to be buried in our Lady Chapell, within the parish church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch," gives numerous religious bequests, and "where I owe unto Cecilie, Marquesse Dorset, certain summes of money which I borrowed of her at diverse times, I woll that the said Cecilie in full contentation of all summes of money as I owe unto her, have my bed of arres, tittor, tester, and counterpane, which she late borrowed of me; and over that I woll that she have my tabulet of gold that she now hath in her hands for a pledge, and three curtains of blew sarcionet, and three quishons of counterfeit arres with imagery of women, a long quishon, and two short of blew velvet, also two carpets;" and "makes and ordaines Cercell, Marquis Dorset, widow," one of her executors. She died in 1504.