ABSTRACT
Thomas Harriot was 30 when he appears to have been introduced by Sir Walter Ralegh to Henry Percy, Ninth Earl of Northumberland, who was four years his junior. Harriot had been associated with Ralegh for seven or eight years by 1591. They had been at Oxford a decade apart in adjoining colleges: Ralegh had studied at Oriel between 1568 and 1572, and Harriot graduated from St Mary Hall in 1580. Harriot's new security was seriously threatened on two occasions in the early years of James's reign. When Ralegh was arrested in July 1603 and tried at Winchester in the November, Harriot was mentioned by Lord Chief Justice Popham as someone of heretical views who had much influence with him. Harriot visited Northumberland and Ralegh in the Tower regularly and it is difficult to believe that he was not involved in their famous experimentations and distillations of which mention is made in the accounts, particularly in the period 1606-10.
