Joan Welles, 9th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby

Joan Welles, 9th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby
Spouse(s)	Sir Richard Hastings
Issue Anthony Hastings
Father	Richard Welles, 7th Baron Welles
Mother	Joan Willoughby, 7th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby
Died	before 23 January 1475

Joan Welles, de jure suo jure 9th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby (d. before 23 January 1475), inherited the baronies of Welles and Willoughby at the death of her brother, Robert Welles, 8th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, in 1470.

Joan Welles was the daughter of Richard Welles, 7th Baron Welles, and his first wife, Joan Willoughby, in her own right Lady Willoughby, daughter and heir of Robert Willoughby, 6th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, and his first wife, Elizabeth Montagu, daughter of John Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury. She had an only brother, Robert Welles, 8th Baron Willoughby de Eresby.

Shortly before 1 June 1470, she married Sir Richard Hastings, a committed supporter of the House of York. Joan Welles was heir to her brother, Robert Welles, 8th Baron Willoughby de Eresby. However her inheritance was complicated by the fact that, as the result of an anti-Yorkist uprising in Lincolnshire, Joan Welles' father, Richard Welles, 7th Baron Welles, and her brother, Sir Robert, had both been beheaded by order of Edward IV within a week of each other, her father on 12 March 1470, and her brother on 19 March. A month later, on 25 April 1470, the King seized Sir Robert Welles' lands, but on 1 June 1470, granted them to Joan and her now husband, Sir Richard Hastings, giving them licence to enter all the lands 'which on the death of her father and brother, both tenants-in-chief, should descend to her'. According to modern doctrine, Joan also inherited the baronies of Willoughby and Welles after her brother's execution.

Joan Welles died about 1474/5. The exact date of her death is not known; however she likely died shortly before her father and brother were attainted, five years after their executions, by the Parliament of January–March 1475. As a result of the attainders, all their honours were forfeited, including the baronies of Welles and Willoughby, which should have been inherited, respectively, after Joan Welles' death, by her uncle of the half blood, John Welles, 1st Viscount Welles, and her second cousin, Christopher Willoughby, 10th Baron Willoughby de Eresby. According to some historians, the attainders were passed by Parliament in order to enable Edward IV to grant Joan Welles' lands after her death to her husband, 'the trusted Yorkist Sir Richard Hastings', and accordingly, on 23 January 1475, the King granted Hastings a life interest in the greater part of the Welles and Willoughby estates. Moreover, Hastings was summoned to Parliament from 14 November 1482 to 9 December 1483 by writs directed Ricardo Hastyng de Wellys, whereby he is held to have become either Lord Hastings of Welles, or Lord Welles.

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