Children of a Saucy Godson

 

My mom’s family is the longest unbroken American family line in my background, starting in 1630 and ending in my case with my mother’s death in 2014: 385 years, 11 generations. Her immigrant ancestor James Harrington was the brother-in-law of Arabella Clinton, for whom the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet, the Arabella was named.  Her father, Thomas Clinton, 3^rd Earl of Lincoln, was one of the backers of the venture. There is a street named after him in Boston, right next to Faneuil Hall. I discovered there one time when I was eating a $14 pretzel.

As is well known, we inherit most of our nature from our longest and strongest family lines. And the Harringtons, as it happens, were not model Puritans.  James was the son of Sir John Harington, Queen Elizabeth’s Godson, who was mostly known for writing naughty satircal  poems and making flip and disrespectful jokes at court, earning him the nickname “The Saucy Godson”.I feel a STRONG connection to this ancestor.  Posterity remembers Harrington best for also inventing the flush toilet, which is said by some to be called “John” in his honor.

 Whereas John had merely been critical of the monarchy in a provocative way; his son James up and joined the Puritans and sailed to America. But he died almost immediately upon arriving, leaving his tween son Benjamin in the care of a cruel Puritan uncle Charles Clinton-Fiennes. Ben ran away from him and proceeded to grow up to be a fairly wayward, churlish borderline criminal specimen. And HIM I take to be the true founder of the American branch of my mother’s family.