Harborne was formally appointed Queen Elizabeth's ambassador or agent 'in the partes of Turkie' by a commission dated at Windsor on 20 Nov. 1582. He sailed from Cowes in the Isle of Wight on 14 Jan. 1582-3, and represented this country at Constantinople till 3 Aug. 1588, when he started on his return journey overland to London. Interesting accounts of both journeys are printed in Hakluyt's 'Collection of Voyages.' During his embassy to the Porte he obtained, without any charge to the queen, a general privilege for far more ample traffic than had been granted to any other nation. The trade which followed greatly increased the customs. He likewise succeeded in procuring the redemption from captivity of many English subjects, and induced the sultan to guarantee the future safety of English voyagers throughout the Levant seas. During the six years in which he was employed by the queen he received only 1,200l. for his services, besides 600l. given to him by the Company of Levant Merchants. Nash, writing in 1598, speaks of 'mercurial-breasted Mr. Harborne,' who, he says, 'always accepted a rich spark of eternity, first lighted and inkindled at Yarmouth, or there first bred and brought forth to see the light: who since, in the hottest dayies of Leo, hath echoing noised the name of our island and of Yarmouth, so tritonly, that not an infant of the cur-tailed, skin-clipping Pagans, but talk of London as frequently as of their Prophet's tomb at Mecca' (Lenten Stuffe, in Harl. Miscell. ed. Park, vi. 156, 167).
On his return to England Harborne settled at Mundham, Norfolk, where he died on 9 Sept. 1617. There is, or was, a monument to his memory in that parish, with a eulogistic inscription in English verse. He wrote: 1. An account of his journey from Constantinople to London in 1588. Printed in Hakluyt's 'Collection of Voyages.' 2. 'The relation of my tenn yeares forraine travelle in procuring and establishing the intercourse into the Grand Seignor his domynions, begun in anno 1577 and fynished 1588, specifieng the service donn to hir Matie and Comon Wealth, with such perticuler proffet as the Traders thether have and doe enioye therebie,' Lansdowne MS. 57, f. 65. 3. Many of his letters and documents relating to his embassy are preserved among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum, and the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
[Manship and Palmer's Yarmouth, i. 36, 73, 86, 87, 106, 123, 186, 224, 283, ii. 199, 301, 302; Blomefield's Norfolk, v. 57, x. 171, xi. 268; Guillim's Display of Heraldry, 1724; Harleian Soc. Publications, i. 83, v. 308; Harl. MS. 6993, art. 2; Lansd. MSS. 42 art. 15, 57 art. 23, 61 art. 32, 64 art. 82, 65 art. 29, 67 art. 106, 84 art. 4, 86 art. 8, 73, 112 art. 25, 775 ff. 177, 194; Hackman's Cat. Tanner MSS. pp. 950, 1107, col. 3; Ellis's Letters, 1st ser. iii. 83, 84; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. iv. 471; Hakluyt's Voyages, 1810, ii. 275-9, 285-95, 298-306, 316-18, 426 seq.; Purchas his Pilgrimes, 1625, ii. 1642; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547-80, p. 697; Birch's Elizabeth, i. 36.]
HARCARSE, Lord. [See Hog, Sir Roger, 1635–1700.]
HARCLAY, HARCLA, or HARTCLA, ANDREW, Earl of Carlisle (d. 1323), was the son of Michael de Harclay, sheriff of Cumberland between 1285 and 1298. In 1303-4 Andrew fought with Edward I in Scotland, and again served in the earlier wars of Edward II against the Scots. In October 1309 he was made captain in the west marches, and ordered to repair to his domains to defend the north against the Scots. Between 1312 and 1315 he was sheriff of Cumberland, but in his last year of office he discharged his duties by attorney. In 1312 he was knight of the shire for Cumberland. In March 1313 he was made warden of Carlisle Castle, and the commission was renewed and extended to the parts adjacent in 1315, in which year he gallantly defended Carlisle, and compelled the Scots to raise its siege (W. de Hemingburgh, ii. 294-5, Engl. Hist. Soc.) In August 1317 he was entrusted with a special commission to receive such of the Scots to protection as should submit to the king's obedience. In September 1317 he was made warden of Carlisle town, and in April 1318 constable of Cockermouth Castle. In August of the same year he was appointed chief commissioner of array in Westmoreland, and between 1319 and 1322 he was again sheriff of Cumberland. In 1319 he was made warden of the west marches and of the shires of Cumberland and Westmoreland, in which counties he was also made in 1320 a conservator of the peace. On 15 May 1321 he was summoned, as a baron, to the parliament at Westminster.
Harclay had been knighted years before by Earl Thomas of Lancaster; but when the great struggle took place between Thomas and the king in 1322 he joined the king rather than the ally of Bruce. The king sent him a commission to raise an army to support the royal cause in the northern counties. Fearing that Lancaster would march northwards and join the Scots, Harclay led a moderate army from Cumberland and Westmoreland as far as Ripon, where he learnt from a spy that Lancaster aimed at reaching Boroughbridge the next day. By a hasty night march Harclay
