James Harrington (Yorkist knight)


James Harrington
Arms of the Harrington family of Hornby
Bornc. 1430
Died22 August 1485
Battle of Bosworth Field
Spouse(s)Elizabeth
IssueJohn (possibly illegitimate)
ParentsSir Thomas Harrington (father)
Elizabeth Dacre (mother)

Sir James Harrington of Hornby KB (c. 1430[1] – 22 August 1485) was an English politician and soldier who was a prominent Yorkist supporter in Northern England during the Wars of the Roses, having been retained by Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, who was brother-in-law to the head of the House of York, Richard of York. He was the second son of Sir Thomas Harrington, who had died with the king's father at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. James himself had fought with Salisbury at the Battle of Blore Heath in 1459, where he had been captured and imprisoned by the Lancastrians until the next year. He was a significant regional figure during the reign of King Edward IV, although the early years of the new king's reign were marred by a bitter feud between him and the Stanley family over a castle in Lancashire. On the accession of King Richard III in 1483, he was appointed to the new king's Household, and as such was almost certainly with him at the Battle of Bosworth Field two years later. It is likely that he fell in battle there, although precise details of his death are now unknown.

  1. ^ Pushon, M.C., Government and Society in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1399–1461 unpub. PhD. thesis, York 2002, 218.