He was in France in 1432, perhaps some years earlier, for a "Gilbert de la Haye" is mentioned as present at Reims, in July 1430, at the coronation of Charles VII.
He has left it on record, in the Prologue to his Buke of the Law of Armys, that he was "chaumerlayn umquhyle to the maist worthy King Charles of France."
In 1456 he was back in Scotland, in the service of the chancellor, William, Earl of Orkney and Caithness, "in his castell of Rosselyn," south of Edinburgh.
[1] Hay is named by Dunbar in his Lament for the Makaris, and by Sir David Lyndsay in his Testament and Complaynt of the Papyngo.
His only poetic work is The Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour,[1] of which a portion, in copy, formerly at Taymouth Castle, now lies in the National Records of Scotland.