The G.C.I.E. set of insignia attributed to Charles, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, sometime Vic...

The G.C.I.E. set of insignia attributed to Charles, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, sometime Viceroy of India and Grand Master of the Order The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, G.C.I.E., Knight Grand Commander’s set of insignia, comprising sash Badge, 87mm including crown suspension x 60mm, gold and enamel; breast Star, 91mm, silver, silver-gilt, gold and enamel, with gold retaining pin, complete with full sash riband, some very minor enamel damage to badge, otherwise extremely fine and rare (2) £6,000-£8,000 --- Provenance: Richard Magor Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, July 2003 (when sold alongside the recipient’s other honours and awards) Lord Hardinge was created G.C.I.E. and Grand Master of the Order upon his appointment as Viceroy of India in 1910. The Right Honourable Sir Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, K.G., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E., G.C.V.O., I.S.O., Privy Counsellor, (1858-1944), was the younger son of the 2nd Viscount Hardinge, and was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He entered the Foreign Office in 1880 and rose rapidly to become British Ambassador at St Petersburg, 1904-06, and, as Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, head of the Foreign Office. One of the most brilliant diplomatists of his time and close friend and trusted adviser of Edward VII, he was raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst in 1910, when, forsaking the courts and chanceries of Europe which he knew so well, he fulfilled his lifetime’s ambition to follow in the steps of his grandfather, the Peninsular veteran who was Governor-General of India at the time of the First Sikh War, by becoming Viceroy of India. Hardinge arrived in India in November 1910, ‘full of enthusiasm for his great undertaking; a supremely self-confident figure, tall, spare, upright, with a high forehead and trim moustache, looking younger than his fifty-two years’, at his side a Vicereine who was to acquire a reputation for being every bit as clever as her husband. Hardinge’s first challenge was to reunite Bengal following partition in 1905 which had been the cause of terrorism and assassination attempts during his predecessor’s time. The unification of Bengal to form a Presidency under a Calcutta-based Governor sent out from home gave rise to the momentous decision to move the Imperial capital from Calcutta to Delhi. The move which was to become the principal legacy of Hardinge’s reign was announced by the King-Emperor, George V, at the Delhi Durbar in December 1911 – this third and last of the great Delhi gatherings being by far the most spectacular costing £660,000 against Curzon’s 1903 expenditure of £180,000. In March 1912 the Hardinges vacated Government House in Calcutta to make way for the new Governor of Bengal, and took up residence in Delhi, occupying a large bungalow which was to serve as the winter residence of the Viceroys for the next seventeen years until Edwin Lutyens’ grand design for the Viceroy’s House, New Delhi, was finally completed. Hardinge had strong views on style yet insisted on a woefully inadequate construction budget and a demand for speed that was far from conducive to producing timeless architecture in the grand manner. Indeed Hardinge’s role as patron to Lutyens has been described as ‘one of the classic conflicts of architectural history, comparable with that of Michelangelo and Pope Julius II’. Hardinge’s persistent urging was important however in ensuring that tangible progress was made before outbreak of war, which otherwise would probably have caused plans for the new Imperial capital and a world-class palace to be dropped. In December 1912 Lord and Lady Hardinge made their official entry into Delhi riding in the silver State howdah at the head of a long elephant procession of chiefs and high officials. As they passed through the crowded streets of the old city Hardinge remarked to his wife that something terrible was going to happen. A few moments later his premonition became reality when an anarchist threw a nail bomb at them from an upper storey window causing an explosion which could be heard up to six miles away. Initially it seemed that no harm had been done, but as Hardinge retrieved his topi which was passed up on the end of a lance, Lady Hardinge glanced round to see that the attendant who held the umbrella was dead, ‘his shattered body entangled in the ropes of the howdah’. She then noticed a rent in the back of her husband’s tunic and blood flowing freely from it. In the next instant Hardinge fell forward unconscious. With the help of aides, Lady Hardinge managed to get her husband down from the elephant, which was too terrified to kneel, by means of a hastily assembled pile of packing cases. As Hardinge lay on the pavement with a burst ear-drum among his injuries, he briefly came to and ordered the procession to proceed as though nothing had happened with his Finance Member standing in for him. A car whisked the Viceroy away to Viceregal Lodge, but the servants had all gone to watch the procession and it was left to Hardinge’s twelve year old daughter, Diamond, to make up a bed. A succession of operations to remove nails, screws, and gramophone needles with which the bomb was packed ensued. More serious than his physical injuries however was the psychological one which appeared to make him evermore conciliatory in his dealings with Indians. Furthermore he was observed to have lost much of his self-confidence. He was personally dismayed that terrorism was still a factor in Indian life and was accused of playing to the ‘Indian gallery’. In 1913 he annoyed subordinates and local officials in the United Provinces, by going over their heads and making an unprecedented appearance in Cawnpore to settle a dispute over a mosque which had caused serious riots and was inflaming Muslim opinion across India. He addressed the entire Muslim population of the city and having reproached them severely for their disobedience, proceeded to win the crowd by ordering the release of more than a hundred rioters from prison. Needless to say his dealings with Lutyens became yet more fractious. In 1914 he was hit by a series of personal tragedies. In the spring Lady Hardinge died unexpectedly after an operation carried out in England – a blow by all accounts far greater than the bomb. Later in the year his elder son (Lieut., D.S.O., 15th Hussars) was mortally wounded in France. Then the Viceroy lost three of his A.D.C.s to the war, all three being killed within a few days of each other. Diamond, on whom he became evermore reliant, died aged twenty-six in 1927. With the outbreak of war there was much to distract him from grief. He at once sent large numbers of Indian troops to Europe to help slow down the first German advance on Paris, and reduced the British garrison in India to what was regarded by some as a dangerously low-level yet kept order satisfactorily. He was also responsible for organizing the transport, supplies and medical services for the Mesopotamian campaign under Sir Beauchamp Duff whose appointment as C-in-C he had strongly supported in 1914. Whilst he relied too heavily on Duff (who eventually committed suicide) and can thus be blamed in some part for the Mesopotamian nightmare, he did go to Basra in person as soon as he realized how bad things were to try and improve the conditions of the troops. A post-war commission of inquiry absolved him of all blame. Owing to the war his Viceroyalty was extended for six months beyond the usual term. He returned home and became head of the Foreign Office once more before attaining the absolute pinnacle of the Dipolmatic Service, the Paris Embassy, 1920-22. In 1931...