James Harrington (1611–1677) was the eldest son of Sir Sapcotes Harrington of Rutland. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford, without taking a degree, and travelled in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy, where the constitution of Venice impressed him deeply. Though a republican in principle, he attended Charles I as a groom of the bedchamber during the king's captivity in 1647–1649 and remained personally attached to him. He published Oceana in 1656 and defended it in a series of later tracts, and in 1659 he led the Rota Club, a debating society that practised election by ballot. Arrested in 1661 on suspicion of conspiracy, he was held in the Tower and on St Nicholas Island off Plymouth, where his health and mind broke down; he died at Westminster in 1677.
1656 · Renaissance Early Modern · Political Theory
The Commonwealth of Oceana, published in London in 1656 during Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, is a model constitution for a republic set in an island called Oceana, which is England under a thin disguise. Scotland is Marpesia, Ireland Panopea, London Emporium, and Cromwell himself appears as Olphaus Megaletor, the Lord Archon or sole legislator who founds the commonwealth and then gives up his power.
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