Mary Hastings

Lady Mary Hastings was a courtier at the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England. It was suggested that she would be married to the Russian tsar, Ivan the Terrible, and she was known by the courtesy title of "Empress of Muscovia" despite never marrying him. She died before 1589.

Biography Mary Hastings was born . She was the youngest daughter of Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon and Katherine Pole. In her youth, her brother Henry Hastings negotiated with John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford for Mary or her sister Elizabeth to be betrothed to Edward de Vere, Lord Bulbeck with a dowry of 1,000 marks and a jointure of £1,000. However, the Earl died before Hastings came of age and Edward's new guardian William Cecil, Lord Bughley arranged for him to marry his daughter Ann Cecil instead of one of the Hastings sisters. A later meeting in 1583 involved the Queen enquiring as to what status the marriage would give Hastings. Pisemsky answered that she'd have her own court if she converted to Orthodoxy and that any children they had would be treated as holding equal sovereign status as Ivan's son Fyodor. Eventually, Pisemsky and his interpreter were granted an audience with Hastings at a garden party later in the year by the Queen. Jerome Horsey recorded the encounter as such:

Her Majesty caused that lady to be attended on with divers great ladies and maids of honour and young noblemen, the number of each appointed, to be seen by the said Ambassador in York House garden. She put on a stately countenance accordingly. The Ambassador, attended with divers other noblemen and others, was brought before her Ladyship; cast down his countenance; fell prostrate to her feet, rose, ran back from her, his face still towards her, she and the rest admiring at his manner. Said by an interpreter it did suffice him to behold the angel he hoped should be his master’s spouse; commended her angelical countenance, state, and admirable beauty. She after was called by her familiar friends in court the Empress of Muscovia. The Tsar had stated he would divorce his wife Maria Nagaya in order to marry Hastings. Despite the marriage not occurring, she was referred to by the courtesy title of "Empress of Muscovia" until Ivan's death in 1584. She would remain unmarried until her death in the late 1580s.