Sir John Harington of Kelston
Sir John Harington by Hieronimo Custodis, c. 1590–93
Born	4 August 1561 Kelston, Somerset, England
Died	20 November 1612(1612-11-20) (aged 51)
Spouse	Mary R

Sir John Harington KCB (also spelled Harrington) (4 August 1561 – 20 November 1612), of Kelston, was a courtier, author and master of art, popularly known as the inventor of the flush toilet. He became a prominent member of Queen Elizabeth I's court, and was known as her 'saucy Godson'. But because of his poetry and other writings, he fell in and out of favour with the Queen, as well as with her successor, James I.

The work for which he is best known today, A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596) is a political allegory. It is a coded attack, as his autograph marginal notes make clear, on the 'stercus' or excrement that was poisoning society with torture and state-sponsored 'libels' against his relatives Thomas Markham and Ralph Sheldon. The work enjoyed considerable popularity on its publication in 1596. His New Discourse described a forerunner to the modern flush toilet that was installed at his house at Kelston.

He is also remembered for the political epigram, "Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

Harington was born in Kelston, Somerset, England, the son of John Harington of Kelston, the poet, and his second wife Isabella Markham, a gentlewoman of Queen Elizabeth I's privy chamber. He had the honour of being accepted as a godson of the childless Queen, becoming one of her 102 godchildren.

The exact relationship between the John Harington of Kelston and the line of his contemporary John Harington, 1st Baron Harington of Exton has not been established. Apparently John of Kelston did not know the pedigree of his obscure grandfather, Alexander of Stepney. Nevertheless it is generally assumed that he was also descended from the first Lord Harington of Aldingham, a baron in Edward II's time.

He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge.^[1]

Although he had studied the law, Harington was attracted early in life to the royal court, where his freespoken attitude and poetry gained Elizabeth's attention. The Queen encouraged his writing, but Harington was inclined to overstep the mark in his somewhat Rabelaisian and occasionally risqué pieces. His attempt at a translation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso caused his banishment from court for some years, but was completed in 1591 and received great praise.[1] Angered by the raciness of his translations the Queen told Harington that he was to leave and not return until he had translated the entire poem. She chose this punishment rather than actually banishing him, but she considered the task so difficult that it was assumed Harington would not bother to comply. Harington, however, chose to follow through with the request. His version of the poem is the translation that is still read by English speakers today.^[2]

Harington wed Mary Rogers, daughter of George Rogers of Cannington (son of Sir Edward Rogers) and Joan Winter, on 6 September 1583 and together they had nine children, two of whom died young, as his autograph revisions make clear.

Harington fell ill in May 1612 and died on 20 November 1612, soon after Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died on 6 November; he was buried in Kelston.

In 1599 the queen sent an army, led by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, to Ireland during the Nine Years War (1595–1603). Following her strong recommendation that Essex include him in his army, Harington was put in command of horsemen under Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. Harington's legacy from this campaign were his letters and journal, which served to give the queen good intelligence about the progress of the campaign and its politics. Harington wrote, "I have informed myself reasonably well of the whole state of the country, by observation and conference: so I count the knowledge I have gotten here worth more than half the three hundred pounds this journey hath cost me." During the campaign Essex conferred a knighthood on Harington for his services. Essex fell into disfavour with the queen for concluding the campaign on a truce, and also caused her fury over the large number of knighthoods he awarded. Harington had been present at the truce negotiations, and on accompanying Essex when he returned to court to account to the queen, he experienced the royal wrath. However, his wit and charm soon secured the queen's forgiveness.

Harington continued to write, even though he had vowed to give up poetry upon the death of Elizabeth. He published one more slim volume of verse in 1607, but continued to send letters both to friends and to the king's eldest son, Prince Henry, until 1609. Some of these letters were later collected by Harington's descendant, Henry Harington, and published under the title of Nugae Antiquae in 1769.^[3] The volume is a significant source for the history of the Tudor conquest of Ireland.

A verse translation of the original Italian.

Around this time, Harington also devised Britain's first flushing toilet – called the Ajax (i.e. "a jakes"; jakes being an old slang word for toilet) – installed at his manor in Kelston, and which was reputed to have been current with the queen herself. In 1596, Harington wrote a book called A New Discourse upon a Stale Subject: The Metamorphosis of Ajax about his invention.^[4] He published it under the pseudonym of Misacmos. The book made political allusions to the Earl of Leicester that angered the Queen, and he was again banished from the court. The Queen's mixed feelings for him may be the only thing that saved Harington from being tried at Star Chamber.

The forerunner to the modern flush toilet had a flush valve to let water out of the tank, and a wash-down design to empty the bowl.^[5] "The Ajax" was not taken up on a wide scale in England, but was adopted in France under the name Angrez.

After the queen's death, Harington's fortunes faltered at the court of the new King, James I. He spent some time at his manor at Kelston, but then found himself serving time in prison. He had stood surety for the debts of his cousin, Sir Griffin Markham, in the sum of £4000, when the latter had become involved in the Bye and Main Plots. Not able to meet his cousin's debts without selling his own lands, and unwilling to languish in gaol, he escaped custody in October 1603. However, James I had already recognised his loyalty and created him a Knight of the Bath and also granted him the properties forfeited upon Markham's exile.

Towards the end of his life, Sir John Harington became the tutor to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. He annotated for him a copy of Francis Godwin's De praesulibus Angliae. Harington's grandson, John Chetwind later published these annotations in 1653, under the title of A Briefe View of the State of the Church.

Sir John Harington died on 20 November 1612 at the age of 51. Though he was never able to regain his place in high society in England, his poetry at the time was well known and much admired, despite lacking much place in modern literature.

A portrait, on loan from the National Portrait Gallery, London, is on show in Montacute House, Somerset, England and another is here.

• Grimble, Ian (1957). The Harington Family. Jonathon Cape, London.
• Kilroy, Gerard. Edmund Campion: Memory and Transcription, 2005.
• Park, Thomas ed., Nugae Antiquae by Sir John Harington, Knt, 3 vols, London (1804).
• Kinghorn, Jonathan (1986). "A Privvie in Perfection: Sir John Harrington's Water Closet". Bath History. 1: 173–188. ISBN 086299294X
• Scott-Warren, Jason (2004–2007), "Harington, Sir John (bap. 1560, d. 1612)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press

• The de Haverington connection
• The Harington and Harrington family
• Sir John Harington – the first flushing toilet?
• NNDB biographical notice

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