John was running through his money faster than he could replenish it. His friend Devereux advised him to ‘lay good hold on her Majesty’s bounty and ask freely’, so John penned a verse to this effect and bribed someone to place it behind the cushion of the Queen’s chair of state. It read:
For ever dear, for ever dreaded prince,
You read a verse of mine a little since;
And so pronounced each word and every letter,
Your gracious reading graced my verse the better:
Since then your Highness doth by gift exceeding
Make what you read the better for your reading;
Let my poor muse your pains thus far importune,
Like as you read my verse so – read my fortune.
19
He signed the verse ‘From your Highness’s saucy Godson’.
Apart from his writing talents, John Harington is also credited with being the inventor of the flush toilet. This is not as incongruous as it first seems since the theory arises from a satirical book that John wrote in 1594 called
A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called The Metamorphosis of Ajax
(‘Ajax’ referring to a toilet, in reference to the slang word ‘jakes’ for a privy). However, the historian Gerard Kilroy points out that the design of a water-closet shown in the middle of the book is actually by Thomas Combe, Harington’s servant.
20
According to John, the book used an earthy subject to broach more serious matters: ‘… may not I, as a sorry writer among the rest, in a merry matter, and in a harmless manner, professing
purposely of vaults and privies … draw the readers by some pretty draught to sink into a deep and necessary consideration, how to mend some of their privy faults?’ Then, as now, it seems toilet humour worked as an effective means of attracting attention as the book was popular.
21
However, the Queen was not particularly amused by John’s latest text, partly because it was thought to contain a ribald reference to the late Robert Dudley (who had died in 1588) and was also a coded political attack on certain instruments of state such as torture. John’s cousin, Sir Robert Markham, reassured him that the Queen enjoyed his wit, but felt he sometimes took it too far, stating:
Your book is almost forgiven, and I may say forgotten; but not for its lack of wit or satire … and though her Highness signified displeasure in outward sort, yet did she like the marrow of your book … The Queen is minded to take you to her favour, but she sweareth that she believes you will make epigrams and write micasmos [‘Micasmos’ was his penname for
The Metamorphosis of Ajax
] again on her and all the court; she hath been heard to say, ‘that merry poet, her godson, must not come to Greenwich, till he hath grown sober, and leaveth the ladies sports and frolics’.
22
Unfortunately John gained the Queen’s disapproval again after taking part in Devereux’s disastrous military expedition in Ireland in 1599 against the rebel Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone.
The campaign attracted a number of the younger gentlemen of the Court seeking fame and fortune. John was sent by the Queen as Captain of the Horse, partly to keep an eye on Devereux, as well as to keep a record of the activities of the expedition. John’s cousin Sir Robert Markham wrote to him, ‘You are to take account of all
that passes in your expedition, and keep journal thereof, unknown to any in the company; this will be expected of you. I have reasons to give for this order.’
23
Like many others on the campaign, John was knighted by Devereux, an honour the latter had been expressly forbidden to bestow and certainly not to all his cronies and supporters. However, the light-hearted John apparently did not take the knighthood too seriously: when the list of those receiving the honour was sent to London, he was listed as ‘Sir Ajax Harington’.
At the end of September, John corresponded with his servant Thomas Combe, explaining that Devereux had divided his forces, and instead of going north had sent some to Munster in the south and some to Connaught in the west. John had gone to Connaught with four of his Markham cousins, and reported that they had some skirmishes, as had Devereux in Munster, ‘without any great loss on either side’. The rebels harried them from the bogs, rocks and woods, and burned everything in their path: settlements, crops and livestock. Amidst the carnage, the pro-English Governor of Connaught took a force of 1,400 men into Sligo, where they were attacked and slaughtered by the rebels. John’s cousin Griffin Markham took part in a cavalry charge to try and relieve the battered troops, but was shot and wounded and obliged to retreat. John ended his letter by asking Combe to relay to the Queen the wages that each man, from captain to footman, was receiving and what clothing they were given, for summer and winter. He showed his loyalty to her in the last lines, which read, ‘Her Majesty, with wonted grace hath graced our bodies, and may heaven’s grace cloth her in everlasting robes of righteousness, and on earth peace to her who always sheweth good will toward all men.’
24
By late 1599, John wrote a perhaps misjudged report to Sir George Carey, Treasurer-at-war in Ireland and Lord Justice,
describing a meeting with the rebel leader O’Neill. John was impressed with O’Neill and they talked about friends they had in common in England. John also enjoyed the company of O’Neill’s sons, aged 13 and 15, and gave a copy of his English translation of
Orlando Furioso
to the boys. O’Neill was very pleased and drew John into the negotiations, sending a message via him to Devereux to say that it had been agreed to extend the current truce. O’Neill went on to praise Devereux for the honourable nature of the truce, which he hoped would eventually lead to peace.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth was furious with Devereux’s unapproved truce and liberally granted knighthoods, and when John arrived back in England, it was, as he said, ‘at the very heat and height of all displeasures’.
25
With Devereux under house arrest in Essex House, he sent John to the Queen to plead for him. John came to Court on December 1599 for this reason, but her Majesty wouldn’t budge, thundering, ‘By God’s son, I am no Queen, that man is above me.’
26
She told John to make himself scarce, to which, he recalled, ‘If all the Irish rebels had been at my heels, I should not have been better sped, for I did now flee from one whom I both loved and feared too.’
27
Despite the dangerous position of being in the Queen’s displeasure he retained his humour, writing to his friend, the diplomat Sir Anthony Standen, on 20 February 1560, ‘I was threatened with the Fleet [prison]; I answered poetically, that, coming so late from the land-service [army] I hoped I should not be pressed to service in her Majesty’s fleet in Fleet-Street.’
28
As a close supporter of Devereux who had spoken in person with O’Neill, he had stayed out of prison and he commented on his good fortune: ‘After three days every man wondered to see me at liberty.’
29
The Queen, loath to punish John unheard, at last granted him an audience at Whitehall, where in John’s own words, as she was
herself ‘accuser, judge and witness, I was cleared and graciously dismissed’.
30
His friend Devereux would not be granted the same fate and was beheaded for treason on 25 February 1601.
During this episode, the statesman and patron of the arts (and incidentally Robert Dudley’s nephew) Sir Robert Sidney wrote to let John know that some of his verses and prose writing had been happily received by the Queen. He was also pleased to say that the matter of Ireland, for the moment, was forgiven:
Your Irish business is less talked of at her Highness’s palace, for all agree, that you did go and do as you were bidden; and, if the great Commanders went not where they ought, how should the Captains do better without orders? … The Queen hath tasted your dainties [John’s writing] and saith you have marvellous skill in cooking good fruits.
31
Sidney reminded John how important it was to retain the Queen’s goodwill; she was now showing signs of her age, at 67 years. Elizabeth had stopped going for the long walks she loved and would sometimes be found in tears, remembering her friends and Councillors who had died. She would still dress in finery when required, and would take a little rich cake or wine, but now she walked with a stick and her temper was uncertain.
By 1601, even John was not always welcome at Court. The Queen had a long memory for a slight and her temper now was at its worst. She missed her former favourites and generally suffered from the strictures of old age.
In October, John went to see her to plead a case for one of Sir Hugh Portman’s friends and left precipitously. He wrote in a letter to Portman, ‘… it is an ill hour for seeing the Queen … I feared her Majesty more than the rebel Tyrone, and wished I had never
received my Lord of Essex’s honour of knighthood.’
32
He managed to get a short meeting with Elizabeth, but she was unsympathetic, saying, ‘if ill council had brought me so far from home, she wished Heaven might mar that fortune which she had mended.’
33
He went on to describe how she had lost interest in her clothes and now wore the same dress for days without changing her attire. When she ate, it was manchet (bread) and succory pottage (a thick soup of vegetables made with chicory). She kept to her Privy Chambers and was sharp and angry with her attendants. John asked to see the Queen again, but she sent a message back by the Lord Treasurer, Thomas Sackville, Baron Buckhurst, ‘Go tell that witty fellow, my godson, to get home; it is no season now to fool it here.’
34
Although so many plots against her over the years had been foiled, she feared more were being prepared and arranged to have a sword kept by her to defend herself.
John was in London for Christmas 1602 and wrote to his wife that the Queen was slowly dying, which deeply saddened him. ‘I cannot blot from my memory’s table … her watchings over my youth, her liking to my free speech and admiration of my little learning and poesie, which I did so much cultivate on her command.’
35
The Queen, slipping into forgetfulness, asked him if he had met with O’Neill, and when he replied that he and Devereux had done so, she wept for Devereux, her lost favourite.
John recited a few of his new verses, which made Elizabeth smile briefly, but she admitted, ‘when thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate, these fooleries will please thee less. I am past my relish for such matters.’
36
He stayed with the Queen while she interviewed other courtiers, but it was obvious that she could not recall previous conversations, which made her angry. It was the last time John was to see her. He stayed in London during the last three months of her life, only returning to Kelston when she died on 24 March 1603.
John would go on to please Elizabeth’s successor, James I of England (also James VI of Scotland). In 1602, John had written ‘A Tract on the Succession’, a dangerous text laying out the reasons that Mary, Queen of Scots should be the successor to Elizabeth as she had no direct heir. The text was never published, but a copy had been sent to James in Scotland. In the argument he used some of the material from the 1584 book Elizabeth had banned,
Leicester’s Commonwealth
, which defamed Robert Dudley.
37
In April 1603, the new King wrote to John from Holyrood Palace in Scotland:
To our truly and well-beloved Sir John Harington, Knight, Right trusty and well beloved friend, we greet you heartily well. We have received your lantern [a piece of decorative metalwork in iron, brass, silver and gold, with a gold crown to hold perfume on top], with the poesie you sent us by our servant William Hunter, giving you hearty thanks; as likewise for your last letter, wherein we perceive the continuance of your loyal affection to us and your service: we shall not be unmindful to extend our princely favour hereafter to you and your particulars at all good occasions. We commit you to God, James R.
38
In a letter to the Lord Chamberlain, Thomas Howard, John wrote that he would stay away from Court unless summoned, as the King was already surrounded by gentlemen and ladies keen to offer him their services. He would, he said, stay at Kelston with a saucy verse and a glass of good wine to offer any passing friend. He was still writing on ‘matters both of merriment and discretion’; if he came to Court on the strength of his poems, he might find himself drawn into political intrigue. He finished his letter with a sound
piece of advice: ‘in these times discretion must stand at our doors, and even at our lips too; good caution never comes better, than when a man is climbing – it is a pitiful thing to set a wrong foot and, instead of raising one’s head, to fall to the ground and show one’s baser parts.’
39
In May 1603, John corresponded with the Secretary of State, Robert Cecil, regarding a variety of subjects, including some notes on household rules and the care of servants that had been practiced by John’s father (for example, a fine of 1d for swearing and 4d for teaching a swear word to a Harington child). Cecil wrote back, promising, ‘I shall not fail to keep your grace and favour quick and lively in the King’s breast.’ He wrote to John about the perils at Court, his attempts to please his new master, and how much there was to be done in this time of transition when all the King’s supporters wanted their loyalty to be rewarded. Somewhat indiscreetly, he even added that John was right to avoid the Court for awhile as ‘Too much crowding doth not well for a cripple [John was ill, possibly with gout], and the King doth find scant room to fit himself, he hath so many friends as they choose to be called, and Heaven prove they lie not in the end.’
40
John became embroiled in a series of problems, and the next time he wrote to Robert Cecil was from prison. He had tried to claim lands bequeathed to his father, Harington Senior, through a complicated line of succession. Lady Rogers, his mother-in-law, had also left lands to Mary and her brother Edward when she died in 1601. The contents of her house were bequeathed to the children of both Edward and Mary, but Edward claimed that John had broken into the house and looted it for his own benefit as Lady Rogers lay dying. John’s cousin, Sir Griffin Markham, had also been part of the ‘Bye Plot’ to kidnap King James and force him to have a greater degree of religious toleration towards Catholics.
Although John was not in any way involved in the traitorous plot, he had agreed to stand surety for his cousin, who was now imprisoned with several of his co-conspirators, resulting in John being imprisoned for non-payment of Sir Griffin’s debts after his estates had been seized by the Crown.