Gairdner suggested that while it was severely lacking in the first few hundred years of its chronology, the details Short Chronicle provided on the reigns of Henry and Edward made it useful.

The leather covers are imprinted with decorative lozenge shapes—"filled with foliated ornaments and a framework parallel with the edges"[1]—and the Beaufort family's coat of arms is prominent.

[15] Based on the fact that all three of the chronicle's sections are written in the same scribal hand, the historian Mary-Rose McLaren has posited that it was composed by either a single individual or possibly a workshop.

[7] There were multiple chronicles written in London in the early 15th century, and, while they probably shared a now unknown common source, they did not copy directly from each other.

[5] From that point the chronicle develops individuality and detail in its descriptions of events,[16] although Kingsford notes that all the surviving copies that he knew of missed out a couple of years, not re-commencing until 1450,[5] beginning "This yere the Kynge helde his Parlement at Westmester.

[4] It also contains a number of receipts for medical products[1][note 5] and pieces of verse; although these are, comments Flenley, of "varying length and merit".

Also this yere the kynge spoused the duches doughter of Bedford, þewhiche was crowned at Westmester the Sonday a for Wytsonday, that is to sey, the xxvi day of Maye, att the whiche coronacion was made xlvij Knyghtes of the Bathe, where of were foure men of London, þat is to sey, Rauffe Josselynge, draper, that tyme beynge maire, Hugh Wiche, mercer, John Plomer, grocer, Harry Waffer, draper.

Also this same yere Kynge Harry was taken in the northe contre...[26][note 7] The chronicle is at its most detailed regarding the 15th century, particularly Jack Cade's Rebellion and the accession of Edward IV;[4] Gairdner suggested that this portion of the chronicle was an "original and independent authority"[13] for the period 1422 to about 1465, with King Edward's clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Woodville being the last event it covers.

[27][note 8] The post-1399 versions are notable for their clear pro-Lancastrian bias and focus on King Henry V's victories in France, for example at Rouen, for the purposes of propaganda.

[30][31] However, there is still much of legendary material, such as that of Albina;[32] indeed, the historian Clair Valente has described it as "enthusiastic"[33] in its rendition of these aspects of English history;[34] she has also called it "one of the best records of rumours and propaganda, if not of the event themselves.

The historian Patricia-Ann Lee has commented on how even the Queen is treated "perfunctorily", although also notes that it does take part in laying the foundations for her future stereotyping in the 1450s.

[35] Kaufman has also commented upon the similarities of the text in the Short English Chronicle and MS Gough 10 at the Bodleian Library, as they both "present fairly objective" and "methodically written" chronologies of summer 1450.

For example, the execution of Aubrey de Vere—son of the Lancastrian Earl of Oxford—whose final journey began in Westminster Palace but finished on Tower Green, and was thus described in great detail in the Short Chronicle.

[45] The Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460, which saw the death of Richard, Duke of York and the destruction of his army was suggested to be not a deliberate counter-offensive to the Lancastrian Queen, Margaret of Anjou, but the result of an ambush; the royal army "lay in her wey at Wakefelde to stope hem... [intending to] slowe the Duke of Yorke"; the chronicle may be suggesting that it was less of a battle—knowingly entered into—and more of an ambush.

[46][note 10] Likewise, the Chronicle barely discusses the two sides' next encounter the following year at the Battle of St Albans, but the author does dwell floridly on the march of the Queen's army south (having "reysed all the northe and all other pepull by the wey"),[47] in which southern towns such as Peterborough and Grantham were sacked[46] ("compelled, dispoyled, rubbed and distroyed all maner of catell vertayll and riches")[47] by the northern army.