The Commonwealth of Oceana | Page 4

in problems of government began to be
awakened while he was among the Dutch. He served in the regiment of
Lord Craven, and afterward in that of Sir Robert Stone; was much at
The Hague; became familiar with the Court of the Prince of Orange,
and with King James's daughter, the Queen of Bohemia, who, with her
husband the Prince Elector, was then a fugitive to Holland. Lord
Harrington, who had once acted as governor to the princess, and won
her affection, was James Harrington's uncle, and she now cordially
welcomed the young student of life for his uncle's sake, and for his own
pleasantness of outward wit and inward gravity of thought. Harrington
was taken with him by the exiled and plundered Prince Elector, when
he paid a visit to the Court of Denmark, and he was intrusted afterward
with the chief care of the prince's affairs in England.
From Holland, James Harrington passed through Flanders into France,

and thence to Italy. When he came hack to England, some courtiers
who were with him in Rome told Charles I that Harrington had been
too squeamish at the Pope's consecration of wax lights, in refusing to
obtain a light, as others did, by kissing his Holiness's toe. The King told
Harrington that he might have complied with a custom which only
signified respect to a temporal prince. But his Majesty was satisfied
with the reply, that having had the honor to kiss his Majesty's hand, he
thought it beneath him to kiss any other prince's foot.
Of all places in Italy, Venice pleased Harrington best. He was deeply
interested ill the Venetian form of government, and his observations
bore fruit in many suggestions for the administration 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. Harrington's friendly
interventions on the King's behalf before the Parliament commissioners
at New-port caused him, indeed, to be suspected; and when the King
was removed from Carisbrooke to Hurst Castle, Harrington was not
allowed to remain in his service. But afterward, when King Charles was
being taken to Windsor, Harrington got leave to bid him farewell at the
door of his carriage. As he was about to kneel, the King took him by
the hand and pulled him in. For a few days lie was left with the King,
but an oath