Nicholas Harrington

His father died in 1358, and his elder brothers, Robert and Thomas, both followed their father, in rapid succession; dying, supposedly, 'in parts beyond the sea'[2] in two separate events (February and then August 1361 respectively.[1] Harrington then being the remaining heir, he entered his inheritance in circa 1360, having been a ward of Sir James Pickering, who had purchased the wardship from John of Gaunt.[2] He fought in Ireland for at least two years, accompanied in service by his former guardian,[1] under one William Windsor (who was married to Alice Perrers, King Edward III's mistress).

In 1373, Harrington was party, with Sir William Curwen, to a raid on Beaumont (near Carlisle, Cumberland). This specifically attacked the lands of Ralph, Lord Dacre, and the large attacking force carried away much of value.[1] Called a 'a rapidly escalating vendetta,'[1] it was doubtless part of the same Dacre family feud that saw Ralph Dacre murdered by his own brother Hugh two years later;[2] indeed, it has been suggested that Harrington was probably implicated in his murder, as he was within a short time excommunicated by the Archbishop of York.[1] Still retained by John of Gaunt, and with Pickering acting as his mainprisor - putting up Harrington's bail, more or less - he returned to Crown favour by 1379, with his appointment as Lancashire sheriff, and was finally issued an official pardon by Gaunt.[1] In 1393, he received another pardon from Gaunt, this time for repeatedly poaching game and holding illegal hunts in Gaunt's ducal forests, which was then reissued four years later.[1]

Knighted by April 1369,[1] he was five-time MP for Lancashire; his final entry to the House of Commons of England was less than two years before his death.[2] In 1379 was appointed Sheriff, an office he held for the next five years.[2] He sat on a multitude of royal commissions of array, Oyer and terminer, assize, and shipwreck over thirty years until 1398.[1]

Harrington was twice wed, firstly to Isabel English (by September 1369),[1] and by August 1397,[1] he had married the twice-widowed Joan Venable. His first wife bore four children, William, James, Nicholas and Isobel.[3] His second marriage brought him an augmentation of his estates, as Joan was a widow, and controlled her dead husband's estates in Huyton and Knowsley. Indeed, it is likely they were well matched: she has been described as a 'somewhat notorious' figure, having taken her second husband as a live-in lover while her first husband was on his death-bed.[1] He appears to have died sometime before February 1404, after which he leaves no official trace.[2] His estates passed to his eldest son, Sir William, and Nicholas and James entered the household of Henry IV as squires.[1]Sir William became a Knight of the Garter displaying the arms Sable a fret argent, while Sir James combined the tinctures of his paternal arms (sable and argent) with the arms of Henry IV to create differenced arms, blazoned: Sable three leopards argent.