Ferdinando Hastings, 6th Earl of Huntingdon (18 January 1609 – 13 February 1656) was the son of Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon

Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon

Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon was a prominent English nobleman and literary patron in England during the first half of the seventeenth century.-Life:...

 and Lady Elizabeth Stanley

Lady Elizabeth Stanley

Elizabeth Stanley, Countess of Huntingdon was an English noblewoman and writer who was third in line of succession to the English throne. She was the wife of Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon...

, the daughter of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby

Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby

Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby was the son of Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby and Lady Margaret Clifford. According to the will of Henry VIII, his mother was heiress presumptive of Elizabeth I of England from 1578 to her own death in 1596...

 and Alice Spencer

Alice Spencer

Alice Spencer, Countess of Derby was an aristocratic English woman, and a noted patron of the arts. Poet Edmund Spenser represented her as "Amaryllis" in his pastoral poem Colin Clouts Come Home Againe and dedicated his The Teares of the Muses to her. Her first husband was Ferdinando Stanley, 5th...

. He married Lucy

Lucy Hastings

Lucy Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon was a seventeenth-century English poet.Born Lucy Davies, she was the daughter of Sir John Davies of Englefield, Berkshire , a prominent courtier in the reigns of James I and Charles I and himself a poet; her mother was notorious as the "mad prophetess" Dame...

, daughter of Sir John Davies

John Davies (poet)

Sir John Davies was an English poet and lawyer, who became attorney general in Ireland and formulated many of the legal principles that underpinned the British Empire.-Early life:...

, on 7 August 1623.

He was MP for Leicestershire

Leicestershire (UK Parliament constituency)

Leicestershire was a county constituency in Leicestershire, represented in the House of Commons. It elected two Members of Parliament , traditionally called Knights of the Shire, by the bloc vote system of election, to the Parliament of England until 1707, to the Parliament of Great Britain from...

 in 1625 and again in 1628-29.

Ferdinando's family seat, Ashby de la Zouch Castle

Ashby de la Zouch Castle

Ashby de la Zouch Castle is in the town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, England . The ruins have been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building, and they are a Scheduled Ancient Monument...

, was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

's troops in the English Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

 in 1646. He died of smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

 at age 47 and was succeeded by his son, Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon

Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon

Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon PC was an English politician. He was the son of Ferdinando Hastings, 6th Earl of Huntingdon, born in the 27th year of his parents' marriage, and became Earl of Huntingdon on 13 February 1656 on his father's death...

.

There is a monument to him in St Helen's Church, Ashby-de-la-Zouch

St Helen's Church, Ashby-de-la-Zouch

St. Helen's Church, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, is a parish church in the Church of England in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire.-Description:The church is largely fourteenth century but was rebuilt in 1878 by James Piers St Aubyn with the addition of outer nave aisles...

.