ABSTRACT
After this he fell to private communication with Sir William, to the effecting of the matters begun the day before; to which I thought it not fit to intrude myself, but took occasion the while to entertain his two sons, by posing them in their learning, and their tutors, which were one Fryar Nangle, a Franciscan; and a younger scholer, whose name I know not; and finding the two children of good towardly spirit, their age between thirteen and fifteen, in English cloths like a nobleman's sons; with velvet gerkins and gold lace; of a good chearful aspect, freckle-faced, not tall of stature, but strong, and well set; both of them [learning] the English tongue; I gave them (not without the advice of Sir William Warren) my English translation of "Ariosto," which I got at Dublin; which their teachers took very thankfully, and soon after shewed it to the earl, who call'd to see it openly, and would needs hear some part of it read. I turn'd (as it had been by chance) to the beginning of the 45th canto, and some other passages of the book, which he seemed to like so well, that he solenmly swore his boys should read all the book over to him. (248-50)
that wrate in the window at W oodstocke with a Diamond: Much suspected by me} Nothing proued can be} quoth Elizabeth prisoner. 2
treason: Surrey was executed, as was Wyatt's son. John Harington of Stepney (as the father is usually known) was 'much skilled in musicke, which was pleasing to the King, and which he learnt in the fellowship of good Maister Tallis, when a young man' (184). He wrote a translation of Cicero's De Amicitia (On Friendship) while in his first confinement to the Tower for his support for the 'Lord Admirall', Thomas Seymour. It was his father's experience of loyalty among this imprisoned group, 'the old Admiral tie (so he called them)', that Harington remembers in the 'Morall' of Book XIX of Orlando Furioso. His father 'but a weeke before he died' recalled 'that noble peere', some 'fortie yeares since that noble man was put to death', and translated the first stanza of this canto, on loyal friendship, as especially apt, 'for his servants who loued him so dearely, that euen in remembrance of his honourable kindnesse, they loued one another exceedingly', even though some 'were but meane men'. 5
While his father was in the Tower, he attended on the young imprisoned Princess, a kindness and loyalty which she never forgot, and from which the younger John Harington benefited throughout his life. In tum, he never ceased to 'blesse her memorye, for all hir goodnesse to me and my familie'(355).
