Sir James Harington, 1st Baronet

Monument of James Harington in Ridlington church

Sir James Harington (1542–1614) of Ridlington, Rutland, was an English politician.

He was the third son of Sir James Harington of Exton, Rutland and Lucy Sidney of Penshurst[1] and educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ's College, Cambridge.[2]

Harington was High Sheriff of Rutland for 1593–94 and 1601–02 and Member of Parliament for Rutland in 1597 and 1604. He was knighted at Grimston Hall, the house of Sir Edward Stanhope, on 18 April 1603 by James VI and I. Harington was made a baronet on 29 June 1611.[3] He was made High Sheriff of Oxfordshire for 1606, having acquired property in that county from his second wife.

He died on 3 February 1614 (N.S.).[4][5] A monument on the north wall of the chancel of Church of St Mary Magdalene and St Andrew, Ridlington, commemorates him, his first wife Frances Sapcote and their nine sons and seven daughters, noting his death as occurring in "February 1613" (O.S.).

  1. ^ Simon Healy, 'HARINGTON, Sir James (c.1555-1614)', The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010.
  2. ^ "James HARRINGTON (HRNN594J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, 2 (London, 1828), p. 427.
  4. ^ Rachel Hammersley, James Harrington: An Intellectual Biography (Oxford, 2019), p. 31.
  5. ^ Simon Healy, 'HARINGTON, Sir James (c.1555-1614)', The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010.