Earl of Huntingdon
Title in the Peerage of England
Earl of Huntingdon is a title which has been created several times in the Peerage of England. The medieval title (1065 creation) was associated with the ruling house of Scotland (David of Scotland).
The seventh and most recent creation dates to 1529. In this lineage, the current holder of the title is William Hastings-Bass, 17th Earl of Huntingdon (b. 1948).
In English folklore from 16th century onwards, the title has been associated with Robin Hood, whose true name is often given as "Robert of Huntingdon". In older stories about Robin Hood, he is merely a yeoman from the town of Locksley or Loxley.
Early history
Huntingdonshire was part of the Kingdom of East Anglia, inhabited by a group known as the Gyrwas from about the 6th century. It fell to the Danes in the 9th century, but was re-conquered under Edward the Elder in 915. An earldom of Huntingdon was established shortly after, and it was one of the seven earldoms of Saxon England during the reign of king Edward the Confessor.
It was created for Beorn Estrithson, cousin to Harold Godwinson (later King Harold).
The public source identifies “Earl of Huntingdon” as title in the Peerage of England. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Earl, Huntingdon and Title.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1170228. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1065, 1529 and 1948.
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This entry incorporates text from “Earl of Huntingdon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.