James Harrington (author)

James Harrington (or Harington) (3 January 1611 – 11 September 1677) was an English political theorist of classical republicanism, best known for his controversial work, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656). This work was an exposition on an ideal constitution, designed to facilitate the development of a utopian republic.

Memorial to Harrington's mother, Dame Jane, Holy Cross Church, Milton Malsor, England.

James Harrington was born in 1611 in Upton, Northamptonshire, eldest son of Sir Sapcote(s) Harrington of Rand, Lincolnshire who died 1629, and great-nephew of the first Lord Harington of Exton who died 1615. His mother was Jane Samwell of Upton, daughter of Sir William Samwell. He was also for a time a resident, with his father, in the Manor House at Milton Malsor, Northamptonshire. A blue plaque on the Manor house marks this fact. The village church contains a quite decorative plaque on the Chancel wall, on the south side, to Dame Jane, the late wife of Sir Sapcote(s). According to a memorial in Holy Cross Church in Milton, she died on 30 March 1619 when James was 7 or 8 years old. The memorial reads, in modern English but punctuated as in the original

"Here under lies the body of Dame Jane, daughter of Sir William Samwell Knight, & late wife to Sir Sapcotes Harington [sic] of Milton Knight, by whom he had issue 2 sons & 3 daughters, viz James, William, Jane, Anne & Elizabeth. Which Lady died March 30, 1619".

Knowledge of Harrington's childhood and early education is practically non-existent; both, it seems, were conducted at the family manor in Rand. In 1629, he entered Trinity College, Oxford as a gentleman commoner and left two years later with no degree. For a brief time, one of his tutors was the royalist High Churchman William Chillingworth. He entered then abruptly left the Middle Temple despising lawyers forever, an animus which later appeared in his writings.

Portrait of James Harrington, oil on canvas, ca.1635.

By this time, Harrington's father had died, and his inheritance helped pay his way through several years of continental travel. He enlisted in a Dutch militia regiment (apparently seeing no service), before touring the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy. He was in Geneva with James Zouche in the summer of 1635 and subsequently travelled to Rome where on 14 January 1636 he dined at the Jesuit-run English College with Zouche and perhaps Henry Neville or his elder brother Richard. In the light of this, Toland's reference to his visiting the Vatican, where he 'refused to kiss the Pope's foot' , probably refers to early 1636; meanwhile his visit to Venice helped bolster his knowledge of an enthusiasm for the Italian republics. Harrington returned to England in the same year. The following decade, including his comings and goings during the Civil Wars, are largely unaccounted for by anything other than unsubstantiated stories of the ilk: that he accompanied Charles I to Scotland in 1639 in connection with the first Bishops' War; and that he came to Parliament's financial assistance with loans and solicitations in 1641–42 and in 1645. Otherwise, he appears to have simply "resided at Rand, an unmarried country gentleman of studious tastes."

Harrington's apparent political loyalty to Parliament did not interfere with a strong personal devotion to the King. Following his capture, Harrington accompanied a "commission" of MPs appointed to persuade Charles to move from Newcastle to Holmby House, as to be nearer London. When a further attempt was made to forcibly transfer the King to the capital, Harrington successfully intervened. In May 1647, he became a gentleman groom of the royal bedchamber; we see him acting in that capacity through the end of the year and also in 1648 at Hurst Castle and at Carisbrooke. Sometime around New Year 1649, his attendance on the King was abruptly terminated by parliamentarians furious, it is said, over his refusal to swear to report anything he might hear of a royal escape attempt. At least two contemporary accounts have Harrington with Charles on the scaffold, but these do not rise above the level of rumour.

Title page of The Commonwealth of Oceana.

After Charles' death Harrington devoted his time to the composition of his The Commonwealth of Oceana. By order of England's then Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, it was seized when passing through the press. Harrington, however, managed to secure the favour of Cromwell's favourite daughter, Mrs Claypole; the work was restored to him, and appeared in 1656, newly dedicated to Cromwell. The views embodied in Oceana, particularly those bearing on vote by ballot and rotation of magistrates and legislators, Harrington and others (who in 1659 formed a club called the "Rota") endeavoured to push practically, but with no success.

Following the Stuart Restoration, on 28 December 1661, Harrington was arrested on a charge of conspiring against the government in the "Bow Street" cabal and, without a trial, was thrown into the Tower. There, he was "badly treated" until his sisters succeeded in bribing his jailers to obtain a writ of habeas corpus. Before it could be executed, however, the authorities rushed him to St Nicholas Island off the coast of Plymouth. Other relatives won Harrington's release to the fort at Plymouth by posting a £5000 bond. Thereafter, his general state of health promptly plunged and quickly deteriorated, apparently from his ingestion on medical advice of the addictive drug guaiacum. Harrington's mind appeared to be affected. He suffered "intermittent delusions;" one observer judged him "simply mad." He recovered only slightly, then slipped decidedly downhill. He proceeded to suffer attacks of gout and palsy before falling victim to a paralysing stroke. In 1675, just two years before his death, he married "a Mrs Dayrell, his 'old sweetheart'", the daughter of a Buckinghamshire noble. The short-lived couple had no children. Following his death at Little Ambry, he was buried next to Sir Walter Raleigh in St Margaret's Church, Westminster.

Harrington has often been confused with his cousin Sir James Harrington, 3rd Baronet of Ridlington, MP, a member of the parliamentary commission which tried Charles I, and twice president of Cromwell's Council of State. He was subsequently excluded from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act which pardoned most for taking up arms against the King during the Civil Wars (1642–46).

Editorial history

Harrington's manuscripts have vanished; his printed writings consist of Oceana, and papers, pamphlets, aphorisms and treatises, many of which are devoted to its defence. The first two editions are known as the "Chapman" and the "Pakeman". Their contents are nearly identical. His Works, including the Pakeman Oceana and the somewhat important A System of Politics, were first edited with biography by John Toland in 1700. Toland's edition, with numerous substantial additions by Thomas Birch, appeared first in Dublin in 1737 and 1758, and then in England in 1747 and 1771. Oceana was reprinted in Henry Morley's Universal Library in 1883; S.B. Liljegren reissued a fastidiously prepared version of the Pakeman edition in 1924.

Harrington's modern editor is J. G. A. Pocock. In 1977, he edited a comprehensive compilation of Harrington tracts, with a lengthy historical introduction. Harrington's prose was marred by what Pocock described as an undisciplined work habit and a conspicuous "lack of sophistication." He never attained the level of "a great literary stylist." For example, as contrasted with Hobbes and Milton, "nowhere" to be found are:

"important shades of meaning...conveyed [through] rhythm, emphasis and punctuation; ...He wrote hastily, in a baroque and periodic style in which he more than once lost his way. He suffered from Latinisms...his notions of how to insert quotations, translations and references in his text were at times productive of confusion."