As a child, James Harrington was studious, and so sedate that it
was said playfully of him he rather kept his parents and teachers in
awe than needed correction; but in after-life his quick wit made
him full of playfulness in conversation. In 1629 he entered Trinity
College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner. There he had for tutor
William Chillingworth, a Fellow of the college, who after
conversion to the Church of Rome had reasoned his way back into
Protestant opinions. Chillingworth became a famous champion of
Protestantism in the question between the Churches, although
many Protestants attacked him as unsound because he would not
accept the Athanasian Creed and had some other reservations.

Harrington prepared himself for foreign travel by study of modern
languages, but before he went abroad, and while he was still under
age, his father died and he succeeded to his patrimony. The
socage tenure of his estate gave him free choice of his own
guardian, and he chose his mother's mother, Lady Samuel.

He then began the season of travel which usually followed studies
at the university, a part of his training to which he had looked
forward with especial interest. He went first to Holland, which
had been in Queen Elizabeth's time the battle-ground of civil and
religious liberty. Before he left England he used to say he knew of
monarchy, anarchy, aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, only as
hard words to be looked for in a dictionary. But his interest in
problems of government began to be awakened while he was
among the Dutch. He served in the regiment of Lord Craven, and
afterward in that of Sir Robert Stone; was much at The Hague;
became familiar with the Court of the Prince of Orange, and with
King James's daughter, the Queen of Bohemia, who, with her