Huntingdonshire was part of the Kingdom of East Anglia, inhabited by a group known as the Gyrwas from about the 6th century.

Waltheof kept his title following the Conquest in 1066, and even after his rebellion in 1067, and married Judith, King William's niece.

The earldom was inherited by Waltheof's daughter Maud, countess of Huntingdon, and passed to her husbands in turn, first Simon de Senlis and then David King of Scotland.

Following her death, and during the reigns of Matilda and Stephen and the anarchy that ensued, the earldom was the subject of dispute between Maud's sons Simon II and Henry the prince, and was held by both at various times.

He fought in the French Wars of Henry VIII, and was part of the royalist suppression of the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.

Lord Huntingdon was one of the custodians of Mary, Queen of Scots, and also served as President of the Council of the North.

[citation needed] His son, the tenth Earl, was a courtier and notably served as Master of the Horse.

[citation needed] He was succeeded in the baronies of Hastings, Hungerford, de Moleyns and Botreaux by his sister Lady Elizabeth, wife of The 1st Earl of Moira.

[2] The earldom was assumed by the tenth Earl's distant relative (his fifth cousin once removed) Reverend Theophilus Henry Hastings.

[2] Hans' great-great-grandson, the sixteenth (or fifteenth Earl), was an artist, academic and Labour politician.

He died without male issue in 1990 and was succeeded by his first cousin once removed, the seventeenth (or sixteenth) and (As of 2017[update]) present holder of the title.

He is the uncle of television presenter Clare Balding and eldest son of Captain Peter Robin Hood Hastings Bass (1920–1964) (who assumed the additional surname of Bass, which was that of his uncle by marriage, Sir William Bass, 2nd Baronet, by deed poll in 1954), son of Aubrey Craven Theophilus Robin Hood Hastings (1878–1929), younger son of the fourteenth Earl.

George Fowler Hastings, second son of the twelfth (or eleventh) Earl, was a vice-admiral in the Royal Navy.

Edward Plantagenet Robin Hood Hastings (1818–1857), third son of the twelfth (or eleventh) Earl, was an admiral in the Royal Navy.

[citation needed] The family seat of the present line is at Hodcott House, near West Ilsley, in Berkshire.