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.
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