He acted a conspicuous part in the political events of the time, was a devoted Yorkist, to whom Edward IV. was greatly attached, and who literally heaped appointments, honours, and possessions upon him. He was constituted at various times, Master of the Mint (coining, during his term of office, the first new gold piece, value eight shillings and four pence, called the "Noble"), Steward of numerous Royal manors, and Ranger of Royal Forests,--Constable of Leicester, Nottingham, and several other Castles,--Captain of Calais and its dependencies, Chamberlain of the Exchequer, Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and Chamberlain of Wales. On 26 July, 1461,--1 Edward IV.,--he was created by patent Baron Hastings of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and afterward invested with the dignity of the Garter. Then comes a curious and special bit of family history, strongly reflecting the habits and policy of the age, that has a most interesting bearing on our annals. On 14 April, 1464, he entered "into an agreement with Dame Elizabeth Grey, late wife of Sir John Grey, knt., son and heir of Edward Grey, late Lord Ferrers, that he should have the wardship of her son Thomas (afterward Marquis of Dorset), on whose part it was stipulated, that he should, within five or six years afterward, _marry the eldest daughter of Lord Hastings that might then be living_." A monstrous arrangement, thus to betroth young people, mere children often, _nolens volens_, but a very common one at the period. Now it so happened that the mother of Thomas Grey became Queen to Edward IV., and Lord Hastings had married the Lady Katharine Bonville, whose only child by her first husband was Cicely. It is true that by Lord Hastings she subsequently had another daughter, Anne, who married George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, but Cicely Bonville was one of the greatest heiresses in England, which the young man's mother, the Queen, and her husband, Edward IV., were quite aware of. Thomas Grey, however, Lord Hastings' ward, who must have been considerably older than Cicely, does not seem to have waited for her, but married first, Anne daughter of Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter,--she however appears to have died sufficiently in time for him to marry Cicely. Lord and Lady Hastings had been legally constituted the guardians of Cicely, together with the custody of her estates, and her coming of age was fixed at sixteen years. Immediately after this, which would be about 1476-7, she appears to have been married to the Marquis, but at the time the "arrangement" for her marriage was entered into by her step-father, Lord Hastings, she could not have been more than four or five years old.