HARDYNG  or

HARDING, JOHN (1378–1465), English chronicler, was born in the north, and as a boy entered the service of Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur), with whom he was present at the battle of Shrewsbury (1403) . He then passed into the service of Sir Robert Umfraville, under whom he was constable of Warkworth Castle, and served in the campaign of Agincourt in 1415 and in the sea-fight before Harfleur in 1416 . In 1424 he was on a diplomatic mission at Rome, where at the instance of Cardinal Beaufort he consulted the chronicle of Trogus Pompeius . Umfraville, who died in 1436, had made Hardyng constable of Kyme in Lincolnshire, where he probably lived till his death about 1465 . Hardyng was a man of antiquarian knowledge, and under Henry V. was employed to investigate the feudal relations of Scotland to the English crown . For this purpose he visited Scotland, at much expense and hardship . For his services he says that Henry V. promised him the manor of Geddington in Northamptonshire . Many years after, in 1439, he had a grant of Do a year for similar services . In 1457 there is a record of the delivery of documents relating to Scotland by Hardyng to the earl of Shrewsbury, and his reward by a further pension of £zo . It is clear that Hardyng was well acquainted with Scotland, and James I. is said to have offered him a bribe to surrender his papers . But the documents, which are still preserved in the Record Office, have been shown to be forgeries, and were probably manufactured by Hardyng himself . Hardyng spent many years on the composition of a rhyming chronicle of England .

His services under the Percies and Umfravilles gave him opportunity to obtain much

information of value for 15th century history . As literature the chronicle has no merit . It was written and rewritten to suit his various patrons . The original edition ending in 1436 had a Lancastrian bias and was dedicated to Henry VI . Afterwards he prepared a version for Richard, duke of York (d . 146.o), and the chronicle in its final form was presented to Edward IV. after his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 . The version of 1436 is preserved in Lansdowne MS . 204, and the beat of the later versions in Harley MS . 661, both in the British Museum . Richard Grafton printed two editions in January 1543, which differ much from one another and from the now extant manuscripts . Stow, who was acquainted with a different version, censured Grafton on this point somewhat unjustly . Sir Henry Ellis published the longer version of Grafton with some additions from the Harley MS. in 1812 .

See Ellis'

preface to Hardyng's Chronicle, and Sir F . Palgrave's Documents illustrating the History of Scotland (for an account of Hardyng's forgeries) . (C . L . K.) HARE; AUGUSTUS JOHN CUTHBERT (1834-1903), English writer and traveller, was born at Rome in 1834 . He was educated at Harrow school and at University College, Oxford . His name is familiar as the author of a large number of guide-books to the principal countries and towns of Europe, most of which were written to order for John Murray . They were made up partly of the author's own notes of travel, partly of quotations from others' books taken with a frankness of appropriation that disarmed criticism . He also wrote Memorials of a Quiet Life that of his aunt by whom he had been adopted when a baby (1872), and a tediously long autobiography in six volumes, The Story of My Life .