HARDYNG, JOHN, one of our old historians, descended of a respectable northern family, was born in 1378, and at the early age of twelve was admitted into the family of Sir Henry Percy, eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland, known by the name of Hotspur, with whom he fought as a volunteer at the battles of Homildon and Coke lawe. After the death of his patron, whom he accompanied in the fight of Shrewsbury, as loon as a pardon had been proclaimed for the adherenta of the Barer, Hardyng enlisted under the banner of Sir Robert Umfravile, who was connected with the Percye by affinity, and under whom in 1405 he became constable of the castle of 1Vark worth in Northumberland. How long he remained at Warkworth is unknown, but his knowledge of Scottish geography seems soon to have engaged him in the secret service of his country. The exact time when Hardyng was first sent to obtain restitution of the deeds of homage, which had been given up by Mortimer in the minority of Edward III., does not appear, but it must have been early in the reign of Henry V. He remained in Scotland three years and a half, inde fatigable in the research, and obtained some at the hazard of his life. In 1415 we find him, with Sir Robert Umfravile, attendant on the king at Ilardeur. His journal of the march which preceded the memorable battle of Agincourt forms one of the most curious passages in his ' Chronicle.' In 1416 he accompanied the Duke of Bedford to the sea-fight at the mouth of the Seine.
An obscure notice in a rubric of the Lansdowne manuscript of Hardyng's ' Chronicle' intimates that he was at Rome in 1424. Soon after we find him again employed in ascertaining the fealty due from the Scottish kings. In one or two passages of his ' Chronicle' he distinctly alludes to an incurable injury received, as he himself expresses it, for England's right ; and in one or two others he states the offer of a thousand marks which had been made to him by King James I. of Scotland, on condition of his embezzling some of the earlier instruments he had procured. The letter of protection from King James, making this offer, is still preserved among the ancient deeds in the Chapter-House at Westminster. In another passage of his' Chronicle,' as well as in an address to King Henry VI., Hardyng mentions 450 marks as the price for which he obtained some other of the deeds of homage. Notwithstanding these declarations however, several writers have considered our author. as a dexterous and notable forger, who manufactured the deeds for which he sought reward. The spurious instruments by which King David IL and King Robert IL were mado to acknowledge the superiority of England appear princi pally to have occasioned this strong charge of fabrication; but whether Hardyng in his zeal for his couu try became the tool of some more powerful person, or was imposed upon in the purchase of the deeds, cannot now be thoroughly ascertained.
Actively as Ilardyug was engaged in life, he seems to have been constantly employed iu gathering materials for his Chronicle,' the first composition of which he finished toward the latter end of the minority of Henry VI. The Lansclowue manuscript already referred to closes with the life of Sir Robert Umfravile, who died January 27th 1436, under whom Hsrdyng seems to have lived, iu his latter years, as constable of Kyme Castle in Lincolnahire.
Of the rewards which Ilardyng appears to have received, the first was in the 18th Henry VL, when he had a grant for life of 101. per annum out of the manor or alien preceptory of Wyloughton, in the county of Lincoln. In the 19th Henry VI. a confirmation of the grant occurs for seven years, with the further grant after that time of the reversion of the manor for life. In 1457 he received a pension of 20/. a year for life, charged in the patent-roll upon the revenues of the county of Lincoln.
The evening of Ifardyng's days was passed in the entire recom position of his work for Richard, duke of York, father to King Edward IV., who fell in the battle of Wakefield, December 31st 1460. It was afterwards presented to King Edward IV. himself. The history comes no lower than the flight of Henry VI. to Scotland; but, from a passage in which the queen is mentioned, it is evident that he could not have finished his work before 1465. How long he survived its completion is unknown, but he must then have been at least eighty seven years of age.
' The Chronicle of Jlion Hardyng, in Metre, from the first begynnyng of Euglande vuto the reigue of Edwarde the Fourth,' was printed by Grafton in 1543; to which Grafton added a continuation to the 34th Henry VIII., a small thick quarto ; and it is not a little singular that there should bo two editions of this work, both printed in the same month of the same year, January 1543, differing in almost every page, and one, in Grafton's own portion, containing twenty-nine pages more than the other. A collation of both, together with that of a valuable manuscript of Hardyng, was published by the beoksellers of London in 1812, under the care of Sir Heury Ellis.
The present printed text of Hardyng's 'Chronicle' is from the recompusition presented to Edward IV. The Chronicle,' as written for Henry VI., the only manuscript known of which is preserved in the Lansdowne Collection in the British Museum, has never been printed. It differs in every page from the printed copy. Hearne had intended its publication. Several manuscripts of the later text of Hardyng's 'Chronicle' are extant : one in the Harleian Collection, No. 661; one in Selden's; another in the Doucean Collection in the Bodleian ; and one in the Ashmolean Library at Oxford. A sixth manu script was formerly preserved in the library of Basil, earl of Denbigh.