HARINGTON, Sir John (1592-1614), of Richmond Palace and Kew, Surr.; Combe Abbey, Warws. and Exton and Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland

The Harington family took their name from a village on the Cumbrian coast where they held land in the twelfth century. The head of the family was summoned to Parliament in 1326 as Baron Harington of Aldringham, a title which died out in 1457. Meanwhile, the Rutland branch assembled an estate in the East Midlands through purchase and marriage: Sir Robert Harrington was returned as knight of the shire for both Rutland and Leicestershire under Richard II; and a descendant who served as treasurer-at-war to Henry VIII’s campaigns in the 1540s vastly increased their landed estates. By 1600 Sir John Harington had an income estimated at £5,000-£7,000, ‘equal [to] the best barons and ... not much behind many earls’. I. Grimble, Harington Fam. 19-73. This is confirmed by the partial estate survey of 1610 in Leics. RO, DE3214/172/15. In December 1602, with London ravaged by smallpox, he kept ‘a royal Christmas in Rutlandshire’ with the earls of Rutland, Bedford and Pembroke. Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 179. King James, a distant kinsman, hunted on the Haringtons’ Rutland estates on his journey south in April 1603, and conferred a barony upon Sir John at his coronation. Ibid. i. 193, nn. 14-15; HMC Hatfield, xv. 58; CP sub Harington of Exton. Harington is easily distinguished from his father, the 1st baron, but both are often confused with a distant relative, Sir John Harington of Stepney, Middlesex and Kelston, Somerset. Grimble, 76-83. A courtier like his kinsmen, this man spent part of James’s reign in prison as surety for the debts of his cousin Sir Griffith Markham, who was attainted for his involvement in the Bye Plot of 1603. Ibid. 119-42; HMC Hatfield, xv, passim; Cal. Talbot Pprs. ed. G.R. Batho (Derbys. Rec. Soc. iv), 259, 261, 270-1, 274, 276. This is the man referred to in HLRO, O.A. 3 Jas.I, c. 45, and HMC 10th Rep. iv. 14-15.

As a courtier and heir to large estates, Harington’s youth is more fully documented than most. With his paternal grandmother having been a Sidney, his family were closely connected to the Leicester/Essex affinity: in 1598 Harington’s mother implored the 2nd earl of Essex to take her son into his protection ‘whose service from his cradle I dedicated to your lordship’; while his father claimed that he would have gone to Ireland with Essex, had he been old enough. HMC Hatfield, viii. 476, 520. He may have been the ‘Mr. Harington’ who served as a page to the countess of Rutland in 1600, as the latter was his second cousin and only seven years his senior; but he was presumably removed after the earl of Rutland was arrested following Essex’s rebellion in February 1601. Within weeks Harington’s father, negotiating for the release of another of Essex’s accomplices, his son-in-law the 3rd earl of Bedford, assured Sir Robert Cecil† that unlike Bedford, he and his son were ‘obsequious of the love of you’. Harington’s parents made a further effort to insinuate their son into Cecil’s favour in October 1602, when they asked that he ‘might wholly remain under your protection’ in the event of his father’s demise, ‘which they will hold a very special happiness to them and their son’. HMC Rutland, iv. 428; HMC Hatfield, xi. 119; xii. 452.

Like many former Essexians, the Haringtons returned to favour under King James. Shortly after his ennoblement Lord Harington was appointed governor to Princess Elizabeth, who was installed at Combe Abbey, Lady Harington’s Warwickshire estate. CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 57; PROB 11/63, f. 71. Harington’s eldest sister, Lucy, countess of Bedford, was also a prominent figure at Court, as both a member of Anne of Denmark’s Household and a patron of the arts, CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 215; Grimble, 152. while Harington himself was one of the aristocratic companions of Prince Henry, who was two years his junior. His early correspondence with the prince, clearly supervised by his tutor, was stultifyingly formal, but Henry replied affectionately, greeting Harington as ‘mon petit cavalier’ in one letter, and claiming in another that ‘you will find me your better at tennis and pike’. Lansd. 108, f. 175; Harl. 7007, f. 241; R. Strong, Henry, Prince of Wales, 43, where the writer is wrongly identified as Harington. The closeness of the relationship is illustrated by a joint portrait in which Harington holds a stag down as Henry prepares for the kill. Grimble, 134. In another version, Harington is replaced by the 3rd earl of Essex. The two portraits may be compared in Strong, plates 8 and 24.

Harington, like the prince, was regarded as an exemplary scholar. In 1609 Sir Henry Wotton*, English ambassador at Venice, described him to the doge as ‘learned in philosophy’, having ‘Latin and Greek to perfection’, and after his death his kinsman (Sir) James Whitelocke* eulogized his ‘religion, learning and courteous behaviour’. CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 216; Liber Famelicus of Sir J. Whitelocke ed. J. Bruce (Cam. Soc. lxx), 39. His funeral sermon expanded on these merits at length, as did John Donne*

In good short lives, virtues are fain to thrust

And to be sure betimes to get a place ...

So was it in this person, forced to be

For lack of time, his own epitome. J. Donne, Obsequies to the Lord Harington, ll. 74-8.

Such praises doubtless contain an element of hyperbole, arising from Harington’s prominence in Henry’s favour: as Wotton informed the doge, ‘being the right eye of the prince of Wales, this world holds that he will one day govern the kingdom’. CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 216. Harington was encouraged to assist Henry in his studies, for in his earliest surviving letter to the prince, Harington asked (in Latin) for help in translating a difficult passage from Tacitus’s Life of Agricola. This began in the style of Virgil’s Georgics, an allusion the prince was probably supposed to recognize, but Henry, who had not yet studied Tacitus, a more demanding author, said that Harington’s letter had encouraged him to study the work, which was probably the original object of the inquiry. Harl. 7011, f. 80; T. Birch, Life of Henry, Prince of Wales (1760), pp. 119-22, 420-2; Grimble, 155-6. The exchange took place around spring 1605.

Much of Harington’s precocity can be ascribed to his father, who nurtured Princess Elizabeth’s interest in subjects well beyond the normal curriculum: ‘His Majesty could not have pitched on a properer [sic] tutor for his daughter’. Mems. of Queen of Bohemia ed. M. Erskine (c.1800), pp. 109-15, 120, 123. In Venice in 1609, Harington studied architecture and fortification, visiting the Republic’s new fortress at Palma in the Friuli. Lansd. 91, f. 35; 108, f. 175; J.W. Stoye, Eng. Travellers Abroad, 124-5. He later sent Prince Henry a sample of lead ore from a German mine, explaining that it was possible to extract silver from it, which probably encouraged the prince to investigate a Frenchman’s claims to have perfected such a technique in 1610. Harl. 7007, f. 299, paraphrased in Birch, 176-7; Harl. 7007, ff. 392-3; HMC Hatfield, xxi. 249. Lord Harington also shaped his son’s religious convictions, as he was wont to say that ‘religion ... alone [can] make us happy, everything else is vanity’. Mems. of Queen of Bohemia, 139-60. Harington’s devotions, outlined by Richard Stock in his funeral sermon, were rigorous: he would preface each meal with psalms, prayers and a chapter from the Scriptures, and devote an hour each day to the reading of ‘some divine treatise’, such as Calvin’s Institutions of the Christian Religion. He also kept a spiritual diary which, Stock claimed, was ‘not taken up for a fit and as a novelty’, but continued for four years. He was strict in his observance of the Sabbath, Stock, 78-83. The diary is apparently lost. and attended lectures on weekdays: Thomas Gataker recalled preaching to him at Lincoln’s Inn, and claimed Harington had attempted to secure him a position as chaplain to Prince Henry. T. Gataker, Discourse Apologetical (1654), p. 36, quoted in Birch, 390-1.

Harington’s other early influence was John Tovey, master of Coventry free school, three miles from Combe Abbey: Harington’s father donated 27 volumes to the school library at its foundation in 1602, and shortly thereafter Tovey became the family chaplain, doubling as Harington’s tutor on the recommendation of Prince Henry’s tutor, Adam Newton. T. Sharp, Hist. and Antiq. of Coventry, 173-6; J. Harington, Nugae Antiquae, ii. 113-14; Lansd. 108, f. 158. Tovey went to Cambridge with Harington in 1607, where the latter attended Sidney Sussex, the college his father had helped to refound. Al. Cant. (Sir John Harington, John Tovey). Tovey also accompanied Harington on his foreign travels, where his pupil ‘chiefly applieth Greek and Latin early and late, as at home; the Italian, which as they say he parleth and understandeth indifferently well, he hath gotten by the way’. Lansd. 108, f. 175. During his tour Harington corresponded with Adam Newton, largely in Italian, which he described as ‘this noble language, which to me, after the book languages [i.e. Latin and Greek] is the one I most value and prefer’. Lansd. 91, f. 37. Tovey died shortly after returning to England, whereupon the countess of Bedford took care of his son, who matriculated at Sidney Sussex in 1612. PROB 6/7, f. 210; Sharp, 176-7; Al. Cant. (Nathaniel Tovey).

Harington’s tour of the Continent, begun in the summer of 1608, was the high point of his education. According to Wotton, Henry, though saddened by his friend’s impending departure, personally secured Harington’s passport from the king:

His Majesty said to him [Harington], ‘what hast thou done, John ... that thou art so master of the prince’s favour? Tell me, what art hast thou used? Not flattery, that belongeth not to thy age’, to which he replied, ‘holy Majesty, not with flattery, which I know not how to use, have I won His Highness’s love, but by truth, of which, as Your Majesty’s true son, his Highness is the lover’. CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 216.

Before his departure, Henry gave Harington a ring, presumably the one with which he sealed many of his letters, inscribed with the motto cui vita et mors [whose life and death]. Harl. 7007, f. 224, repr. and paraphrased in Birch, 122, 423. The original includes a good impression of the seal.

Although several of his companions wrote to him while on tour, Harington alone is known to have sustained a regular correspondence with the prince. Indeed, Cecil, now earl of Salisbury, advised his son William Cecil*, Viscount Cranborne, to write more regularly from abroad, noting that ‘I find every week in the prince’s hand a letter from Sir John Harington full of news of the place where he is, and the countries as he passeth, and all occurrents’. Birch, 168, also from Harl. 7007. Harington also sent Henry a printed version of the triumphs performed at the marriage of Grand Duke Cosimo of Tuscany (which was lost in transit), copies of the verses delivered at a tournament at Verona, and a painting hanging in the council chamber at Venice which depicted the apocryphal tale of Pope Alexander III with his foot on the neck of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Finally, he kept a diary of his travels, to show the prince on his return to England. Harl. 7007, ff. 215, 221, 224, 267, 319; Harl. 7011, f. 78. The diary does not appear to survive.

Brussels was the first stop on Harington’s itinerary, where Sir Thomas Edmondes* presented him to the archdukes, who ‘gave good commendation of his behaviour, as the same doth very well deserve’. SP77/9, pt.1, f. 117v, repr. in HMC Hatfield, xx. 232-3. He then visited the universities of Heidelberg and Basle, attending lectures and meeting the professors. Arriving in Florence, he missed the marriage of Grand Duke Cosimo, but the main celebrations were repeated for the benefit of another latecomer, the duke of Mantua. Harl. 7011, ff. 78, 215, repr. in Birch, 424-5; the best translation of the former is in Grimble, 154-5. From thence, he informed Prince Henry, he planned to return home quickly through France, but he changed his mind, heading for Rome at the invitation of the Catholic exile Sir Anthony Standen. Such a visit at the height of the Oath of Allegiance controversy was risky, and Harington eventually diverted to Venice via Urbino, probably arriving by sea shortly before Christmas 1608. CSP Ire. 1606-8, p. 656; Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton ed. L.P. Smith, i. 445. This itinerary avoided the overland route via Bologna, where the Inquisition was systematically arresting Protestant tutors such as Tovey. Wotton Letters, i. 456-7; Stoye, 124-5. Harington was safe in Venice, which had broken off relations with the papacy during the Interdict controversy of 1606-7, and he rented a house in the Campo San Polo for his entourage of seven gentlemen and their attendants. After informing Prince Henry that he did not wish to be a tourist but to gain a grounding in statecraft, ‘the better to serve his sovereign’, he stayed six months. E. Cochrane, Italy 1530-1630, pp. 263-4; Harl. 7007, f. 224; Harl. 7011, f. 78; CSP Ven. 1607-10, pp. 215-16.

Harington made no recorded comments on the Machiavellian absolutism of the Medici regime in Tuscany, where he appears to have been distracted by the attentions of the English Catholic expatriate community. Harl. 7007, f. 221. Much of his correspondence was deliberately guarded, as he was aware that ‘a wall of paper is too feeble to guarantee any secret of importance’. However, the availability of a trusted messenger such as the prince’s servant Sir Robert Douglas, or Wotton’s nephew Albertus Morton*, occasionally allowed him to express himself more freely. Lansd. 91, f. 35; Harl. 7007, ff. 221, 241, 267, 271. The latter is reprinted in Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, i. 459. Were it not for the risk of interception, he informed Newton, he would have sent ‘a wad of my crude observations on the trifles and trickeries of the false religion’, a turn of phrase he probably hoped would be too obscure for the censors of the Inquisition. Lansd. 91, f. 35. In a letter which was clearly sent by a reliable courier, he told Henry that ‘if I write to Your Highness of the superstitions, false miracles and relics which are displayed in this time of Lent, there would be not one letter but another Legenda Aurea [Golden Legend]’. Harl. 7007, f. 319.

The length of Harington’s sojourn in Venice is probably explained by his interest in the anti-papal polemicist Fra Paolo Sarpi, whose activities had been officially sponsored by the Republic since the imposition of the Papal Interdict. Wotton identified Sarpi as a potential ally in the Oath of Allegiance controversy, and the embassy chaplain William Bedell helped the Servite friar Fra Fulgenzio Micanzio, Micanzio should not be confused with the Franciscan Fra Fulgenzio Manfredi, who was subsequently executed for heresy at Rome, see Life and Letter of Sir Henry Wotton, 447-8, 496 n.1; CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 428. Sarpi’s ally and biographer, with the sermons which he delivered daily at the church of San Lorenzo during Lent 1609. Cochrane, 261-6; CSP Ven. 1607-10, pp. 7, 270. Prince Henry followed this controversy closely, and probably encouraged his friend to monitor developments: Harington duly reported that ‘every day during Lent a Brother Fulgenzio of the Servite order has preached the word of God purely and without intermixture’. Strong, 75-6; Harl. 7007, f. 319. The papal Nuncio complained to the doge about these sermons, adding that ‘I say nothing of the meetings of English, Germans, heretics [and] Jews that take place in that church’. CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 243; Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, i. 447-8. Harington also recounted the alleged interview between the Venetian ambassador at Rome and Pope Paul V, in which the former claimed that Fra Fulgenzio was obeying the instructions of the grand inquisitor by keeping to the Scriptures: ‘so I understand (said the pope), but do you not know that to preach the Gospel and the word of God is to destroy the Catholic faith?’ Harington justified his decision to repeat the tale, which was common currency in diplomatic circles, on the grounds that ‘the pope’s behaviour was denied in the last book published by Tortus [Bellarmine] against the Oath of Allegiance, so that Your Highness can see the fear of these men when faced with the truth’. Harl. 7007, f. 319. The tale is repeated verbatim in Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, i. 451-2.

Harington finally left Venice in July 1609, probably to avoid the heat of the summer, carrying himself off to the Venetian ambassador at the imperial Court in Prague, who showed him ‘every imaginable courtesy’. Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, i. 462; CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 388. He sent Prince Henry a concise digest of German politics at a time when the Emperor Rudolf’s brother, the Archduke Matthias, was seizing control of the Habsburg patrimony in the Austrian provinces and Hungary against the emperor’s wishes: in Vienna, he observed that Matthias was gathering troops to bully the estates of Lower Austria into reversing their policy of toleration for Protestants, against which threat ‘the estates have assembled their forces, fearing a Sicilian Vespers’. Harl. 7007, f. 299; R.J.W. Evans, Rudolf II and his World, passim. Harington’s return was delayed by illness, and by a visit to the lead mines of Bavaria or Saxony, during which he acquired the ore sample he sent the prince from Frankfurt on 14/24 Sept. 1609. Harl. 7007, f. 299. With the lower Rhine closed by the threat of war over the succession to the duchy of Jülich-Cleves, Harington must have taken a circuitous route to Paris, where he arrived on 8/18 October. He stayed for more than two months, possibly at Henry’s behest, as the French were rumoured to be considering a match between the Dauphin and Princess Elizabeth. SP78/55, ff. 208v, 225v, 241. Europe teetered on the brink of war at the beginning of December, when the prince de Condé fled from the French Court to Brussels, but Harington forbore to pass comment on the incident in his final letter to the prince, ‘knowing that [it] is well known to Your Highness’. However, he mentioned another of the French king’s snubs to the Habsburgs, the arrival in Paris of a notorious pirate known as ‘the Dansker’, who had captured a Spanish treasure ship. CSP Ven. 1607-10, pp. 388, 391, 396, 399; Harl. 7007, f. 223. Harington finally returned to England in the New Year, probably in the entourage of the Venetian diplomat Francesco Contarini, who passed through Paris en route for London. The party was delayed at Calais by storms, and did not reach England until 15/25 Jan. 1610, which would explain why Harington was not included in Prince Henry’s tournament-cum-masque The Barriers, presented at Court on Twelfth Night. CSP Ven. 1607-10, pp. 412-13; Strong, 141-51.

The significance of Harington’s travels should not be underestimated. Although conceived as an educational exercise, Harington’s well-known connection with Prince Henry, which was underlined by the portrait of the latter he carried on his travels, meant that he was often accorded unofficial diplomatic status: the Venetian ambassador in London was probably not the only diplomat who advised his masters that ‘any show of regard for them [the Haringtons] will be very well invested’. CSP Ven. 1607-10, pp. 216, 278. His importance was emphasized by the size of his entourage: though only licensed to take five servants, two horses and £100 abroad, he was accompanied by a fluctuating number of gentlemen who, with their tutors and servants, must have comprised a party of between 15-40 individuals. Ibid. 216; SO3/4, unfol. (18 July 1608). While partly a public relations exercise, the tour also helped to supply the prince with the diplomatic intelligence he needed to develop his own opinions on foreign policy. Strong, 70-8. Only a small proportion of Harington’s correspondence covers such issues, but he was demonstrably aware that his letters might be intercepted, and it is likely that much of the information which Prince Henry received either came by word of mouth, or was recorded in Harington’s journal. Furthermore, it was probably no accident that Harington’s itinerary included several of the most likely flashpoints of the conflict which seemed about to engulf the Continent in 1609-10. If the crisis had not been abruptly deflated by Henri IV’s assassination, Harington’s experience would have been invaluable to a prince whose role in The Barriers was intended to stake his claim to the leadership of the Protestant Cause. Ibid. 141-4. An early demise subsequently robbed Harington of the chance to develop his diplomatic talents, but his personal acquaintance with many of the key figures of the age makes it likely that Prince Henry sought his advice over the suitability of one of the Medici duchesses as a prospective bride in 1611-12, and that Princess Elizabeth made inquiries to him about the Elector Palatine before her marriage in 1613.

Harington’s return to the Commons at a by-election for Coventry less than two months after his return to England is probably best viewed as the final stage in his education: Lord Harington, one of the city’s most influential neighbours, probably persuaded the corporation to delay their petition for a by-election until his son became available to fill the seat. The petition reached the Commons on 2 Mar. 1610, whereupon it was perhaps tabled by Harington’s uncle Sir James Harington*, who was present in the chamber at the time. The return had reached Westminster by 13 Mar., when Harington was named to the committee for a bill to prevent fraud in the copying of legal documents, a measure in which he is unlikely to have had any personal interest. CJ, i. 303-4, 401a, 410a. Harington had less of an impact in the Commons than he had in the courts of Europe: the patchy records of the two sessions of 1610 make no mention of any speeches, but he was named to 14 committees in the spring session alone, an unusually large number for a youthful and inexperienced Member. The most important was that which was ordered to draft a report on the king’s offer to surrender his right to levy impositions on customs duties in return for a supply of £600,000 and a further £200,000 a year as compensation for lost revenue (27 Apr.); he may have been present at the conference the previous day when the offer was made, though he had not been ordered to attend. Ibid. 421b. For the conference, see ‘Paulet 1610’, p. 19. Harington’s Court connections suggest an interest in other bills, including one for the naturalization of Henry Gibb, a groom of Prince Henry’s bedchamber (15 June), CJ, i. 417b, 419b, 439b. another to reform the Marshalsea Court (29 Mar.), and a third for preservation of naval timber (22 Mar.), an area of particular interest to the prince. Ibid. 413b, 416a; ‘Paulet 1610’, p. 7; Strong, 57-60. His religious interests were reflected in his nomination to the committee for the bill excusing puritan clergy who failed to subscribe to the Canons of 1604 (14 Mar.), and his inclusion among a delegation petitioning the king for a Proclamation ordering all officeholders to take the Oath of Allegiance (26 May). CJ, i. 410a, 434a, 435a.

Lord Harington intended that his son’s marriage should complement the advantages conferred by education and status at the Prince’s Court. In 1607 he, his daughter the countess of Bedford and his relative Sir William Bulstrode* pressed for a match between Harington and Salisbury’s only daughter, Lady Frances Cecil, but this overture was rejected on the grounds that the principals were too young and might not prove mutually compatible. Lord Harington later invited Lady Frances to join Princess Elizabeth’s Household, and as late as 1609 Wotton insisted ‘it is thought certain that the young man will marry Lord Salisbury’s only daughter’. To the Haringtons, a match between Lady Frances and the man who looked likely to succeed Salisbury as chief minister to the putative King Henry IX made perfect sense, but the earl, wishing to strengthen his links to the ancient aristocracy, eventually married Lady Frances to Lord Henry Clifford* in July 1610. HMC Hatfield, xvii. 629; xix. 45xx. 297; CSP Ven. 1607-10, pp. 215-16. Harington’s funeral oration insisted that ‘he spent not his time in courting of young ladies’, but according to Sir James Whitelocke, a match was considered with one of the daughters of the 9th earl of Northumberland, presumably either Dorothy or Lucy Percy, who had both lived at Combe Abbey in Princess Elizabeth’s Household. Stock, 71-3; Whitelocke, 39; Mems. of Queen Bohemia, 107-8.

The Haringtons’ position at Court and in the provinces was wholly extinguished during what the letter-writer John Chamberlain referred to as ‘a fatal year to that family’. Chamberlain Letters, i. 516. The first blow was the death of Prince Henry in November 1612, a tragedy by which Harington claimed that his senses ‘had been wholly captivated’. Birch, i. 371. He was, however, able to maintain his position at Court with an annuity of £1,000 from his father. He also secured a reversion to half the profits of the enormously lucrative post of chief clerk of Common Pleas. Stock, 92; Whitelocke, 29, 46. His parents’ standing at Court peaked during the winter of 1612-13, when Princess Elizabeth married the Elector Palatine, and they accompanied the couple to Heidelberg in the spring to ensure the settlement of the princess’s dowry lands. Chamberlain Letters, i. 427, 429, 442, 450; CSP Ven. 1610-13, pp. 523-4; SP81/12, ff. 139-40, 171-2. On his way home, Lord Harington died suddenly at Worms, and Harington, who had crossed to Calais to meet his parents, found himself required to organize the repatriation of the body for burial at Exton, and to obtain administration of his father’s estate. HMC Downshire, iv. 186, 245-6; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 268; Whitelocke, 31; PROB 6/8, f. 118.

Following the death of his father, Harington abandoned plans to assume the governorship of Guernsey, which he was reported to have been granted in return for surrendering his share in the clerkship of the Common Pleas to the favourite, the earl of Somerset. Birch, i. 266-7; Whitelocke, 46. His inheritance was saddled with £30,000 worth of debts due on Princess Elizabeth’s account, which had rarely been paid on time: the last half-yearly account alone showed a deficit of over £3,560. Chamberlain Letters, i. 434; CSP Dom. 1603-10, pp. 57, 434; 1611-18, p. 134; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 154, 257-8, 600; xviii. 338, 405-6; xix. 104, 299; LS13/280, f. 198; E407/57/2. Harington inherited a patent his father had been granted in April 1613 to strike brass farthings (quickly renamed ‘haringtons’) in compensation for his losses, but the duke of Lennox (who coveted a share in the patent) intervened to ensure that he was allowed to mint no more than £25,000 in coin. CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 174, 180, 215; Chamberlain Letters, i. 434; CSP Ven. 1610-13, pp. 523-4; C66/1992/17. For one mention of ‘haringtons’, see Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, ii. 308. Harington’s plans were cut short in February 1614, when he contracted smallpox: it was said that ‘from the first day of his sickness he apprehended strongly the expectation of death’, and on 18 Feb. he assigned his Rutland estates to his mother, who was to pay off the family’s creditors, then pass two-thirds of the remaining assets to his sister the countess of Bedford, and the other third to his other sister, Lady Frances Chichester. Stock, 94-6; C142/356/117. On the following day he confirmed this indenture in his will, adding small bequests to his servants and £500 to the soldier Sir Edward Harwood. Though the probate copy of the will lacked any religious preamble, he apparently declared to those present ‘his faith and undoubted hope of salvation by Christ, and with great alacrity he professed that he feared not death ... uttering near his death these longing words, "O that joy; O my God, when shall I be with Thee?"

Harington died at Kew on the night of 26-7 Feb. 1614. PROB 11/123, ff. 257-8; Stock, 94-6. His demise brought forth an outpouring of anguish similar to that which had greeted the death of Prince Henry only 16 months previously. Richard Stock implicitly linked the two in the sermon he preached at Harington’s funeral at Exton on 31 Mar. when he asked ‘can we not mourn when so many Noahs and Lots ... are taken away and hastened out of our lands and cities?’ Stock, 27-8, 63. Sir Thomas Roe* commented that ‘my Lord Harington’s death is ... much and worthily lamented’, and contributed an epitaph to the printed version of Stock’s sermon. Ibid. unpag. (at rear of volume); HMC Downshire, iv. 341. John Donne delivered the finest compliment in a poem probably written shortly after the dissolution of the Addled Parliament: envisaging Harington’s entry into heaven in the manner of a Roman triumph, he protested that

... till fit time had brought thee to that field

To which thy rank in this state destined thee,

That there thy counsels might get victory

And so in that capacity remove

All jealousies ‘twixt Prince and subject’s love

Thou could’st no title to this triumph have;

Thou did’st intrude on death, usurp’st a grave. J. Donne, Obsequies to the Lord Harington, ll. 186-92.

Lady Harington disposed of many minor estates and the manor of Exton, sold to the London merchant Sir Baptist Hicks*, which eventually passed to the latter’s son-in-law, Harington’s cousin Sir Edward Noell†. VCH Rutland, ii. 129. She retained Combe Abbey, in which she had a life interest, and Burley, which was visited by king James in the summer of 1614, though the latter property was eventually mortgaged to Sir Henry Montagu*, a relation by marriage. HMC Downshire, iv. 476; Eg. 2986, f. 36. Harington’s sister Lady Chichester, who died in 1615, was survived by a single daughter, which prompted speculation ‘that all the House of Harington is like to fail’. Chamberlain Letters, i. 600. After Lady Harington’s death in 1620, Combe and Burley passed to the countess of Bedford, who quickly disposed of the former to the London merchant Sir William Craven, and the latter to the then marquess of Buckingham. PROB 11/135, f. 505; C142/392/133; Grimble, 169-70. The countess died childless in 1628. CP sub earl of Bedford.