Robert Harling (knight)

Sir Robert Harling (died 9 September 1435) was an English early member of the landed gentry, a soldier, and political strongman. The Norfolk villages of East Harling, West Harling, Harling Market and Larling were greatly under his control. He married Jane Gonville, whose father established what was to become Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

He died on the feast of Gregory, fighting under John, Duke of Bedford, during the Hundred Years' War. Bedford died less than a week thereafter. He is buried in the East Harling Church, of which his coat of arms is a main feature.

An anonymous Parisian chronicler described how Harling's body was prepared for transportation to Norfolk. He wrote: "His [Harling's] body was afterwards cut up and boiled in a cauldron at the St. Nicholas cemetery until the flesh came off the bones. These were then carefully cleaned and packed in a chest to be taken to England. The flesh, the entrails and water were buried in a big grave at the St. Nicholas cemetery."

His daughter, Anne, married William Chamberlain (d. 1462), a soldier, and later Sir Robert Wingfield (Member of Parliament for Herts, comptroller of the House of Edward IV).

Further reading

• Blomefield, F. (1805). "Hundred of Giltcross: Market-Herling, or East-Herling". An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 1 (2nd ed.). London: William Miller. pp. 316–333. In British History Online.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• "Sir Robert Harling". Archived from the original on 8 October 2007.
• "Sir William Chamberlain KG". Archived from the original on 6 October 2007.
• "Sir Robert Wingfield". Archived from the original on 6 October 2007.
• "East Harling Church depictions of Harling". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.