John Harington (or Harrington) (fl. 1550) was an English official working for Henry VIII, and husband to one of his reputed illegitimate children, Ethelreda Malte.[1]
Harrington lived at Stepney, and filled the post of treasurer to the king's camps and buildings. While holding that office Harington employed John Bradford. Accounts differ on their professional relationship: it is said by Bradford's biographers that he compelled Harington about 1549 to make a restitution to the crown of a sum of money which Harington had misappropriated. John Strype, however, represents that Bradford was himself guilty of misappropriating public moneys, which Harington made good to shield his clerk from punishment.
Harington seems to have been a confidential servant of Henry VIII, and to have risen by marrying a natural daughter of the king, Etheldreda Malte, daughter of Joanna Dyngley or Dobson, who was brought up by the king's tailor, John Malte, as a daughter of his own. Henry granted her the monastic forfeitures of Kelston, Batheaston, and Katharine in Somerset, and on his marriage in 1546 Harington settled at Kelston, near Bath, on his wife's estate. Etheldreda later died, leaving behind her husband, and daughter Hester, whom died in 1568, her lands went to her husband.
Harington entered the service of Princess Elizabeth. He was a cultivated man and a poet, who in his visits to Elizabeth at Hatfield turned his talents to the praises of her six gentlewomen, but soon singled out among them Isabella Markham, daughter of Sir John Markham of Gotham. He married her early in 1559. Five years before their marriage he was imprisoned in the Tower at the same time as the Princess Elizabeth; his first wife and Isabella, both being her Ladies-in-Waiting, had accompanied the princess. In 1561 their son John was born, and Elizabeth, who had now ascended the throne, repaid their loyalty by acting as his godmother. He later became known as a writer at her court, where he was often in trouble.