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 t
hat 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.
Robert Cecil was slow to save his friend, but luckily John had other contacts who could help him. He had become friendly with one of James I’s gentlemen, Sir Thomas Erskine, later Earl of Kellie, Captain of the Guard and Groom of the Stool, who petitioned the King on his behalf. James agreed to arrange for the forfeited estates of Sir Griffin to go to John to settle the debts. This, however, took about a year, and in the meantime, John, fed up with his incarceration, simply escaped. He may have been helped by his wife Mary, who had come up to London, much against her better judgement, and lodged near the prison in Cannon Row. After John had fled, a Westminster bailiff broke into her house looking for him.
John then wrote to Cecil, explaining that Mary had had nothing to do with his escape and he thought it rather hard that she had to suffer the indignity of having her lodgings ransacked. He ended his letter by reminding Cecil that the debts he was imprisoned for were not his own and that Cecil had promised to help him. Cecil’s reply was terse and tetchy. He had rather a lot on his plate at that time, he explained, running the country. He had done his best, but hardly needed to be lectured on compassion. He would also appreciate it if John would stop treating him as if he were his ‘solicitor’. However, they had been close since childhood and Cecil ended the letter, ‘as I have been, your loving friend’.41
John’s friendship with Robert Cecil was somewhat unusual. Cecil was brilliant, small, very slightly hunchbacked and sensitive, and was possibly the most powerful man in the Council thanks to his father’s instruction and guidance. He had a limited circle of friends, the best of whom seems to have been John. By the age of 28, he had been given his first title, knighted by Elizabeth, and made a Councillor. He was also a protégé of Sir Francis Walsingham, so that on his death, Cecil took over the running of the secret service. He served Elizabeth I and then James I as Secretary of State. It was largely down to Cecil’s handling of the transition that led to James I assuming the throne so seamlessly, and he was duly rewarded. He was made Baron Cecil of Essendon in 1603, Viscount Cranborne the following year, and 1st Earl of Salisbury in 1605.
John’s fortunes improved in 1604, when he was invited to a private meeting with the King. Unsure what to expect, he was relieved to find James most interested in an intellectual discussion: ‘… he [the King] enquired much of learning, and showed me his own in such sort, as made me remember my Examiners at Cambridge aforetyme. He sought much to know my advances in philosophy and uttered such profound sentences out of Aristotle, and such like writers, which I had never read, and which some are bold enough to say others do not understand.’42
The King then turned to his favourite subject of witchcraft, asking John’s opinion of certain biblical references and telling him tales of Scottish witches. John, as ever, could not resist a touch of raunchy levity. When asked if he thought Satan favoured old women as his servants, he could ‘not refrain from a scurvy jest’ and riposted that ‘the Devil walketh in dry places’, a crude sexual reference to older women.43
The King enjoyed the joke, but when they moved on to more serious subjects, including the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, John was more uncomfortable. James told him that there had been a vision seen in Scotland of his mother’s severed head before she was executed, and suggested John might like to study the subject of precognition, but that he should be careful which books he consulted as some were particularly evil. They finished their discussion with his Majesty asking John’s �
�opinion of the new weed Tobacco, and said it would, by its use, infuse ill qualities on the brain, and that no learned man ought to take it, and wished it forbidden.’44
John made a good impression on the King, as he did with almost everyone with whom he came into contact. In 1611, the Lord Chamberlain, Thomas Howard, wrote to invite John back to Court, if his health permitted. The King had been asking after the ‘merry blade’ who had so entertained him before. He required a good stimulating conversation, and the fact that John was a fine, handsome man was a bonus. James had lately taken against people he thought of as ugly and was demanding a better dress code so that those appearing before him looked their best. Lord Thomas did not think this would be a problem for John. He also informed him that any meeting with James I was preceded by one with his current favourite, Robert Carr, and that when speaking to the King, one should keep the conversation light and change subjects frequently. To stay on the King’s good side, it was best to ask his opinion and discover that it is, by chance, exactly your own. Admire his favourite horse if you get the chance, and always remark in awe and amazement on any new items you notice about him.
However, John had had his fill of the Royal Court. His last visit had been in 1606, when James I’s brother-in-law, Christian IV (King of Denmark and Norway 1588–1648), came on a state visit. There was heavy and indiscriminate drinking, so much so that during a masque the performers and audience were so drunk that the event petered out. The two Kings were escorted out as they could not stand, and a number of ladies were sick or rendered unconscious. John preferred to remain at home in Kelston, reading his Bible and working to restore Bath Cathedral, surrounded by family and friends.
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