My Restless Knight: Moll Harington and her Unquiet Marriage with Sir John

By Marion Knutsford

Moll Rogers had a long, mostly loving marriage to Sir John Harington. Sir John a godson of Queen Elizabeth I, was a courtier, port, wit, scamp, dog-lover, jailbird, sanitary engineer (he invested the water-flushing lavatory), briefly a soldier in Ireland and an indefatigable traveller through England and Wales. In My Restless Knight, Moll is seen casting and often sardonic eye, during his absences, over his multifarious writings, including his many private letters. The poems he wrote to her she finds sometimes exasperating, sometimes consoling. He also wrote several to her mother. These were not always conciliatory. His letter to noblemen and gentlemen is seen to give Moll an unusually clear insight into the life of the court. Her duties with her large family meant that she rarely got to go there with her husband. He, however, was often there, dancing in attendance to his godmother the Queen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035805488

Marion Knutsford

Marion Knutsford was born in Buckinghamshire; educated at New College, Oxford; lectured in English at the University of New England, New South Wales; is married with three children, and now lives at Armidale, New South Wales. Previous publications include Comedy (Oxford University Press), Children, Parents and the Rise of the Novel (Associated University Presses), and several articles on Sir John Harington.

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About thhe Author

Marion Knutsford was born in Buckinghamshire; educated at New College, Oxford; lectured in English at the University of New England, New South Wales; is married with three children, and now lives at Armidale, New South Wales. Previous publications include Comedy (Oxford University Press), Children, Parents and the Rise of the Novel (Associated University Presses), and several articles on Sir John Harington.

Dedication

In memory of my mother, Alice Marion (Mollie) Welch.

Copyright Information ©

Marion Knutsford 2024

The right of Marion Knutsford to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of historical fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or based on past times. Any resemblance to actual living persons, or current events, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035805471 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035805488 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.co.uk

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®1 Canada Square

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E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

Valued help and advice have come from the following people: Richard Bourne, Dominic Carmody, Sarah Gristwood, Juliet Greentree, Paul Hammer, Christopher Nelson, Geoff Quaife, Patricia Seppelt, Vanessa Todd.

Chapter 1

My Life and His

Good day. I’m Moll. Moll Harington. Lady Mary Harington if you want to be formal, and if you accept my husband’s knighthood, which the old Queen never heartily did, as he wasn’t touched on the shoulder by her but by the Earl of Essex, who was her deputy in Ireland and commander of her forces there, charged with suppressing the Earl of Tyrone’s rebellion. That gave him the right to dub knights, and he handed knighthoods out like sugarplums to all his sad captains.

They needed something to cheer them up because the weather was foul and they were spending a lot of time tramping through Irish mud, with the enemy slipping away through the bogs like marsh wiggles. But when the Queen heard how many new knights she was getting, with hardly a sniff of a victory to show for it, she wrote to tell Essex to stop dubbing, as he was making knighthoods cheap. He didn’t stop, of course – but more of that later.

My husband John was Sir John Harington of Kelston, a little village in Somerset. Most of John’s life, and most of mine, was spent as subjects of Queen Elizabeth, who was John’s godmother. She was quite fond of John, and he of her, but she knew how to put him in his place when he annoyed her. John used to say that in her angry moods it wasn’t hard to see whose daughter she was. (Her father was Henry VIII. Need I say more?)

For some time now we’ve had a king, Jamie – that’s to say, James the First of England and Sixth of Scotland. He’s the son of Mary, the late Queen of Scots. Nobody ever says that he’s like his mother (whom, by the way, he never knew. She left him behind in Scotland when he was a baby, at the time of her flight into England). Unlike Mary, James isn’t very handsome or regal-looking. I know it’s disrespectful of me to call him Jamie, but he’s never achieved the majesty, the respect that surrounded his predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, or his own mother for that matter. As a monarch, and as a human being, Jamie is about as different from Elizabeth as it’s possible to be. He’s generous, vain, peace-loving to the point of being cowardly, pedantic, obsessed with theology, and at times rather ridiculous. Elizabeth was brilliant, brave, sometimes gracious but often grumpy, virginal, long-lived, strong-willed, charming when she wanted to be but, it must be confessed, not especially beautiful, in spite of what her flatterers told her. But she was a great ruler, and a wondrous person, and there will never be anyone quite like her.

I won’t say any more for the moment about the queens or the kings, though there’s a lot more to be said about them. There are also quite a few other things which I’ll have to put off for the time being, like the magnificently produced volume that my husband John commissioned for his translation of that long but hugely entertaining Italian poem Orlando Furioso. Then there was his book announcing his invention of a water-flushing privy, which he thought would keep the air sweeter in noblemen’s and gentlemen’s houses. And until he was in his forties he released streams of satirical epigrams, which were short poems written to, or about, everyone from the Queen to Puritan clothiers and shoemakers, or country neighbours of ours whose wives were unfaithful. Towards the end he wrote another book devoted to the lives of Church of England bishops, which in parts was almost as satirical as his epigrams.

Why do I already find myself talking about my husband and his doings when I started off meaning to talk about me? I suppose it’s because I’ve spent most of my life in the country, where nothing much happens, while my husband’s life was really quite eventful. He would scamper off, at the drop of a hat, to dance attendance on his godmother the Queen at court, leaving me at home in Somerset, while he became involved in all sorts of crazy projects.

Elizabeth’s court was a magnet. It certainly drew John away from me far too often. He longed to be, as he put it, the worst in the company, meaning that he liked to rub shoulders with lords (and ladies). But it wasn’t just titles of honour that attracted him. The acquaintances he preferred were those who liked poetry and who spoke foreign languages and also, preferably, had influence in matters of state. John wanted to understand state affairs, and always longed to get himself appointed to a post that would win him influence and, of course, a salary.

John also loved our home in rural Somerset. He loved to stride down to the river (at the right season, of course) to catch a few trout. (Yes, he did love his food.) He was proud of our small herd of wild deer – there were enough clumps of woodland on our estate to provide them with some shelter when they needed it. He also took an active interest in our sheep and cattle, oves and boves as he loved to call them. From time to time he would drive the plough. He was even quite fond of some of the neighbouring country gentlemen, though compared to him they were bumpkins. After his fashion, too, he loved me. But he could never bear to be, as he put it, buried in the country for too long. The court always drew him back, especially over the twelve days of Christmas, when there was banqueting, music and dancing, plays, glittering company and, I’m afraid, much drinking and gambling. Only very rarely did John take me there.

My life hasn’t been very eventful – most women’s lives aren’t – so when I managed to take a break from the cares of managing a large household, my thoughts always turned to my husband, especially on the many occasions when he was away from home. The things he did, and even more the things he wrote, have always given me plenty to ponder on as I went about my daily tasks. I soon began to think of myself as someone a little superior to the ordinary gentlewoman-housewife, not just because I enjoyed quite an enviable social position but also because of those ever-present wandering thoughts and because of my connection with John, who, with all his failings, was definitely Somebody. So, I suppose what I’m doing is not so much telling the story of my life as telling my husband’s story and my own from my point of view.

All the same, you’ll probably feel surprised that I should have thought of writing our story at all. Writing about oneself is supposed to be a sign of outrageous vanity, especially if you’re a woman. I did hear of one noble lady, in another part of the country, who wrote about her own life, and of course, there are always saints, like Saint Theresa, who do it, but usually it’s only men, commonly kings or great generals, who get their lives written, and then it’s usually done for them by someone else.

But I’ve had my husband’s example before me. True, he didn’t ever write the full story of his own life, but he couldn’t resist peppering his writings with titbits about our marriage, our house (or mansion), our friends, his relations with his godmother the Queen, our brushes with politics and great events, our household servants, my mother (yes!) and even our dogs. He knew that some people might laugh at him for it, but he trusted that the people who mattered to him would understand and enjoy. In fact, I soon discovered that some of his best writing was to be found in the private letters he wrote to trusted friends.

In the course of my story you’ll be wondering how I came to know so many of my husband’s intimate thoughts and doings and to have so many thoughts of my own about them, especially things that went on at court, where I so seldom went. Chiefly there were John’s poems and letters, full of gossip and speculation about all sorts of people and events. Some of his poems were written to me and for me, and on the whole I liked that, but over the years I became almost more interested in what he wrote to and about his friends and rivals at court. I managed to read most of his letters to and from other people, often very confidential ones, involving important men and, of course, one important woman, the Queen.

John wrote the rough copies into a book, and I found out where he kept it. I’m not sure that he’d have approved, at first, of me going into his study and reading his writings during the many times when he was away – whether his letters, poems, or published books – but he never actually forbade me. Perhaps it didn’t occur to him that I’d do it. He wouldn’t have expected me to be a natural reader, or naturally curious. But when he was at home he used to read aloud to me – he loved reading aloud – mostly from his poetic translation of Orlando Furioso. Sometimes the children were allowed to listen. Then, of course, he would leave out many of the parts that concerned love and lust, and there were some passages that he didn’t want to read even to me. I, because I found myself so much enjoying the extracts he read, was eager to read the rest for myself, and after a while I did. It wasn’t until much later that I had the idea of doing some writing on my own behalf.

I’ve confessed that I pried into John’s letters, not just his published works, and that some of them were highly confidential. (Indeed, some of them would have landed him in serious trouble if they’d fallen into the wrong hands.) But my curiosity never caused a real breach between him and me. By the time he realised that I was reading everything I could lay my hands on, he’d begun to trust me and to rely on me more and more in our dealings with the wider world, so he didn’t chide me for looking into his private writings – he’d reached the point where he understood my curiosity and was ready to accept it. I’d obviously been prying for a good long time, and yet no harm had ever come of it – I had never blabbed.

Once you’ve learned to read it can quickly become a habit, indeed a greedy longing, especially if you live in England, in the country, where there’s so much wet weather, so little interesting company, and (at some seasons of the year) so much time on your hands. John’s handwriting was always beautifully clear, which made the task easier, and on the two occasions when he actually had a book printed he was careful to ensure that the result was a well-produced volume.

He gave inscribed copies to his personal friends – partly as a bid for their help in furthering his ambitions, for some of them were very influential – but to a great extent also because he simply loved writing and yearned for his works to be read. And many people did read and enjoy them, especially me. I learned to appreciate good writing, and now I’m finally venturing to have a try at it myself.

Reading gives way to thinking. Being a woman I was never encouraged to trouble my brain with matters of state, but there were times when I couldn’t help it. I may have read too much into some of the things John wrote about life in the outside world, and if so I must beg pardon, but now that I’m finally telling my own story I’m determined to say what I think. I have to admit that most of my ideas and impressions are founded on John’s, but that gave them plenty of variety, as he was someone who couldn’t resist commenting on just about everyone and everything.

Back to me, then. The house where I grew up was built on land where there’d been a nunnery – Cannington Nunnery – in the days before King Henry VIII dissolved every nunnery and monastery in England and took their lands to sell off at mouth-watering prices to families like mine. The nunnery buildings – the cloisters, the cells, the refectory, the chapel – were pulled down and the house where I grew up was mostly built out of the dismantled bricks and stones. I always think of it as my mother’s house because my father died before I was married and my mother was head of the family from then on. She lived to a great age. When she was young and beautiful, the locals – as she loved to remind me – called her the Fair Nun of Cannington, and many of them kept calling her that, out of courtesy, until almost the end of her life. It was the same with the old Queen: the courtiers went on praising her matchless beauty long after any good looks that she’d ever possessed had left her. In Mother’s later years a few people who’d crossed her path began to call her the Old Shrew of Cannington. I don’t know what the courtiers began calling the Queen in her last years, when they were beginning to get thoroughly impatient with her – John, with his fanatical loyalty to the poor old bag of bones, would never tell me – but I’m sure it would have been something disparaging.

When it came to be time for a husband to be found for me, my mother was quite happy to entrust me to John.

John was almost twenty-two years old when his father died. (My own father died in the same year, by the way). John was studying law at Lincoln’s Inn – at least, he was supposed to be studying it – but Harington senior had hardly breathed his last when his son dropped his law books and cantered down from London to Somerset to marry me. His father would have disapproved of him dropping his study of the law – any landed gentleman who didn’t want to be cheated of his property by lawyers was expected to learn something of their ways – but he wouldn’t have disapproved of the marriage. In fact, it may have been something he’d always had in mind. I was just the right sort of wife for his son. I lived quite close by – Cannington wasn’t far from Kelston – and I belonged to a well-respected landed family.

John’s legal studies didn’t seem to help him much in speeding up the granting of probate on the will. The real lawyers kept him waiting a whole year before releasing his inheritance, and it was a lot more than a year before we could afford to get married. Part of the problem was that the estate had debts. John’s father had started work on a magnificent new mansion with pilasters and pediments and other such new-fangled things. (The patterns for those came out of a book by a famous Italian architect.) There was still a deal of money to dole out before the house could be finished. In fact, it still wasn’t properly finished by the time of the Queen’s visit several years later. In spite of our good income from lands (some of which came originally from the Queen), we kept running out of money for the building.

Running out of money was something that kept happening to us, mostly because John’s ideas of what was due to him in his social position made him spend too lavishly. It was a common fault among those who wanted to keep in the swim with the Queen and court. John told me ruefully about the debts left by men like the Lord Chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton – a prominent courtier and a fine dancer – and the honey-tongued poet Sir Philip Sidney, to name just two.

Probably it had been part of John the Elder’s plan when he started the house to build a mansion fit for the Queen to stay in when the time came for her to visit the West Country. If that was his idea, his son followed it up enthusiastically. As well as all the fantastical adornments for the house itself, he contrived a splendid fountain outside, with a great bowl to catch the water. (John was like a little boy in that respect – he always loved playing with water, but his playing was on a rather grand scale). The canopy for the fountain was broad enough to leave a space beneath, big enough for guests to dine under while the water trickled down all around them. Wonderful for summer. The Queen dined there and thoroughly enjoyed it when she came to visit us on her royal progress into the West. She didn’t complain about the house not being finished. She and her ladies naturally got the best apartments. It was the less favoured members of her entourage who had to put up with the shortcomings.

The royal visit, of course, meant that we had to spend a lot more money. We hired a consort of musicians from Bristol to play for dancing in the evening, and most of the game on our estate was shot to provide delicacies for the guests. When the Queen arrived our eldest son (aged nine) made a speech in Latin (which of course John had written for him) and the Queen replied to it in the same language.

Naturally John and I had to buy rich clothes for the occasion. I wore a purple kirtle fringed with gold. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what John wore, but I know it cost a lot. A whole retinue of courtiers had to be fed – luxuriously fed – and accommodated. One of them, a rather dreadful man called Sir Gelly Meyrick who