[8] Late in life, Elizabeth recorded memories of attending her mother's deathbed in London in December 1688, with widespread panic and rioting in the streets outside over fears of a Catholic invasion.

Many of her clerical contacts were Nonjurors, those who refused to swear allegiance to William III after the 1688 Glorious Revolution; the vast majority simply felt bound by their oath to James and the issue went away when he died in 1701.

[b] Smith was part of a network that combined Tory, High Church beliefs with support for the post-1688 settlement, and was well-known for converting Catholic members of the English aristocracy to Anglicanism.

[11] He also provided guidance when she became interested in Methodism; originally a reformist movement within the Church of England, its later conflation with Jacobitism derived from its rejection of existing structures, rather than support for the Stuarts.

[12] Her friend and distant relative Catherine Stanhope married William Wogan, an evangelical on close terms with Methodist leaders John Wesley and George Whitefield.

[13] Although women were not officially permitted to become members, she was closely connected to the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge; this brought her into contact with wealthy philanthropist and Non-Juror Robert Nelson, whose works were apparently read as homilies at Ledston.

"[17] Elizabeth was distantly related to poet and playwright William Congreve; he referenced her in the Tatler journal, as did Richard Steele, who wrote "...to know her is an immediate check to loose behaviour, and to love her a liberal education.

The gardens at Ledston were laid out by Charles Bridgeman, who designed those at St James's and Hyde Parks; she was considered an innovative landlord, encouraging the use of irrigation techniques and fertilisers by her tenants.

The remainder established the 'Lady Elizabeth Hastings Charities', with the initial sum of £40 a year, focusing on education, primarily in the North of England[27]; they still exist and in the decade since 2008, awarded grants totalling more than £2.2 million.