Hardyng was born in Northumberland and, at the age of 12, was at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403 in service to Hotspur. Having survived the battle, he entered service to Sir Robert Umfraville who was closely associated with the Percy family. Hardyng found himself taking part in Anglo-Scottish hostilities as well as the Hundred Years War under the command of Henry V. In between making war on the Scots, Umfraville was also sent north of the border on diplomatic missions. Later, when he wrote his chronicles, Hardny would describe Umfraville as the perfect knight.
In 1418, Henry V sent Hardyng to Scotland to complete a topological survey and to find evidence of English overlordship of Scotland. Hardyng remained there for three and a half years making his map – designed to assist with an English invasion as well as unearthing (writing them himself) documents evidencing English claims to political overlordship of the Scots. Unfortunately he had to wait until the 1440s for his reward due to Henry V’s death. Little wonder that his chronicle makes much of the fact that he personally retrieved, at great personal risk, the all important documents from Scotland. He even claimed that James I of Scotland would have given 1000 marks of gold for the documents. Among the documents to survive is a forged letter granting him safe conduct to enter James I’s presence whenever he was in Scotland and to stay in the country for 40 days with six servants and horses – so no imagining a solitary spy surveying the landscape.
Having been granted the manor of Geddington in Northamptonshire and a pension of £10, Hardyng retired to the Augustinian priory at Kyme in Liincolnshire where he began to write his history of England. This was presented to Henry VI on 1457 together with his map of Scotland and those largely forged documents pertaining to overlordship. Hardying sought to promote political unity within his own country by allying English political factions against the Scots – working on the premise that war across the border would bring about peace at home. His forged documents provided a watertight rationale and he handily provided a map that detailed distances between military objectives, castles and rivers. While not to scale, and the drawings of the fortifications more akin to fantasy than reality, the map was both an itinerary for invasion and a visual encouragement for the English. On this occasion he received an additional annual pension from the Crown of £20.
Undeterred by the decade’s hostilities, not to mention the change from the House of Lancaster to the House of York on the throne in 1461, Hardying continued to polish his histories, happily explaining Edward IV’s pedigree as a way of winning the new monarch’s approval. The end result was two historical chronicles in rhyming couplets – I am truly thankful I don’t have to blog in rhyme- and a colourful history of a man who as well as being all the things in the title was also something of an antiquarian he was also the first chronicler to detail a quest for the Holy Grail and would provide Sir Thomas Malory with a source for his story about King Arthur.
Armstrong, Jackson, W. England’s Northern Frontier: Conflict and Society in the Fifteenth Century Scottish Marches. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)
Palgrave, Francis, Sir. Documents and Records illustrating the History of Scotland and the Transactions Between the Crowns of Scotland and England. Volume I (Great Britain Record Commission: London, 1837)
