From 1478 Warwickshire politics become still more closely enmeshed with those of its neighbours. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that the absorption of the Warwick estates by the crown left Hastings free to continue to treat north Warwickshire as the southern end of his north and east midlands power bloc. Hastings' rule in the midlands, whether subvented by the Duchy lands in Staffordshire and Derbyshire or by his own in the east midlands, remained one of the central supports of the king's increasingly interventionist rule. Now that south Warwickshire was directly under the king in loco earl of Warwick, the division between north and south within the county that had been perceptible ever since Clarence's loss of Tutbury in 1474, and even before, was to become an established fact in Warwickshire politics. Edward was happy to leave to Hastings the north of the county, which was consequently drawn ever more closely into the affairs of the other counties where the Lord Chamberlain was active. Even after Hastings' fall the north midlands connection endured and if anything became stronger, largely because in the nine years of Hastings' rule north Warwickshire had become almost inextricably bound into north midlands networks. With so many major landowners of north Warwickshire naturally facing north rather than south, there was no reason for it to be anything else as long as the king was content for his control throughout the north midlands to be exercised through intermediaries like the Lord Chamberlain or his successors.