FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27  
28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   >>   >|  
dministration of the Commonwealth of Oceana. After his return to England, being of age, James Harrington cared actively for the interests of his younger brothers and sisters. It was he who made his brother William a merchant. William Harrington throve, and for his ingenuity in matters of construction he was afterward made one of the Fellows of the newly formed Royal Society. He took pains over the training of his sisters, making 110 difference between sisters and half-sisters, and treating his step-mother as a mother. He filled his home with loving-kindness, and was most liberal in giving help to friends. When he was told that he often threw away his bounty on ungrateful persons, he playfully told his advisers they were mercenary and that he saw they sold their gifts, since they expected so great a return as gratitude. James Harrington's bent was for the study of life, and he made no active suit for court employment. But he went to court, where Charles I liked him, and admitted him as one of his privy chamber extraordinary, in which character he went with the King in his first expedition against the Scots. Because Charles I knew him and liked him, and because he had shown himself no partisan of either side in the civil war, though he was known to be inclined, in the way of abstract opinion, toward a form of government that was not monarchy, the commissioners appointed in 1646 to bring Charles from Newcastle named Harrington as one of the King's attendants. The King was pleased, and Harrington was appointed a groom of the bedchamber at Holmby. He followed faithfully the fortunes of the fallen King, never saying even to the King himself a word in contradiction of his own principles of liberty, and finding nothing in his principles or in his temper that should prevent him from paying honor to his sovereign, and seeking to secure for him a happy issue out of his afflictions. Antony a Wood says that, "His Majesty loved Harrington's company, and, finding him to be an ingenious man, chose rather to converse with him than with others of his chamber: they had often discourses concerning government; but when they happened to talk of a commonwealth the King seemed not to endure it." Harrington used all the influence he had with those in whose power the King was, to prevent the urging of avoid-able questions that would stand in the way of such a treaty as they professed to seek during the King's imprisonment at Carisbrooke
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27  
28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Harrington

 

sisters

 

Charles

 
government
 

chamber

 
principles
 

mother

 
return
 

appointed

 

William


prevent

 

finding

 

temper

 

inclined

 
abstract
 
opinion
 
contradiction
 

liberty

 

Holmby

 

attendants


Newcastle
 

commissioners

 

monarchy

 
pleased
 

faithfully

 

fortunes

 

fallen

 

bedchamber

 
Antony
 
influence

happened
 

commonwealth

 
endure
 

urging

 
professed
 

imprisonment

 

Carisbrooke

 

treaty

 

questions

 

afflictions


sovereign

 

seeking

 

secure

 

Majesty

 

converse

 

discourses

 

company

 
ingenious
 

paying

 

making