He spent the next twelve years with the Stuart court in exile, and became a leading member of the Sealed Knot, a body set up to co-ordinate Royalist plots against The Protectorate.

Hastings returned home after the 1660 Stuart Restoration, and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire in 1661, a position he retained until his death in January 1667.

[3] As the war progressed and Royalist fortunes waned, Ashby—already the target of action in 1644—was subject to a prolonged siege between September 1645 and its surrender in March 1646.

Hastings, ennobled as the first Baron Loughborough on 23 October 1643, for his services to Charles I, marched out with the honours of war.

The castle was later partly demolished, with the remaining Hastings family moving to Donington Hall near Derby.