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193 Appendix John Harington of Stepney and Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms Sir Thomas Wyatt’s verse paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms was first published in December 1549, with the title Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid, commonlye called thee .vii. penytentiall psalmes, drawen into englyshe meter by Sir Thomas Wyat knight.1 This octavo volume gives the names of three different men who were connected in one way or another with the publication. The first is the text’s printer, Thomas Raynald, who, in 1549, was conducting business at the sign of the Star in St. Paul’s Churchyard.2 The second is the dedicatee: Lord William Parr, Marquis of Northampton and younger brother of Katherine Parr.This appendix is concerned primarily with the third—a certain “John Harrington”(or “John Harryngton”), who signed the dedication to Parr and whose name appears alongside Raynald’s in the imprint on the title page.3 My goal here is to clear up some unrestrained imaginings in the scholarly literature regarding the identity of this particular figure. To begin with, the “Harrington” or “Harryngton” connected with the publication of 1549 is, I contend, John Harington of Stepney (b. ca. 1517, d. 1582)—literary collector, poet of minimal talent, and father of the more famous Sir John Harington of Kelston (1560–1612), who not 194 Appendix only translated Ariosto’s Orlando furioso into English but also wrote his own version of the Penitential Psalms. This identification has been made before; in fact, it was proposed just over a century ago.4 But it has also been challenged and complicated,quite needlessly,by Ruth Hughey and Richard Harrier. These scholars (whose works on Harington and Wyatt dating from the 1970s are still cited today) both argue that John Harington of Stepney could not have been involved in the production of Certayne psalmes at the end of 1549 because he was imprisoned in the Tower at the time.5 They also posit that there was a different “John Harrington,” a London bookseller (or printer) who died at some point in 1550, and that it was in fact this man who collaborated with Thomas Raynald on the publication of Wyatt’s paraphrase. — • — I will respond to the specific arguments made by Hughey and Harrier shortly. Before doing so, though, I must stress that it is not particularly difficult to link John Haringon of Stepney with the 1549 publication of Wyatt’s psalms for two principal reasons: (1) he was involved in the preservation of the Wyatt canon more broadly; and (2) he was also associated with Lord William Parr—to whom, as I have already mentioned , the 1549 text is dedicated. First, the famous Egerton manuscript,6 containing many of Wyatt’s poems (including the paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms) in the poet ’s own hand, came into the possession of John Harington of Stepney at some point around the middle of the sixteenth century, and many of Wyatt’s poems were later copied from it (with some revisions) into the lesser-known but nonetheless important Arundel Harington manuscript .7 It has not been possible to pin down the precise date when the Egerton manuscript was transmitted to Harington.8 Nor has it been possible to ascertain whether Certayne psalmes was prepared from that manuscript, or from another manuscript, or from a combination of the Egerton manuscript and another manuscript.9 However, it is clear that John Harington of Stepney cared about collecting and preserving­ Wyatt’s work. And this fact should not be dismissed too easily. Second, John Harington of Stepney must have known Lord­ William Parr personally. Indeed, although Harington was undoubtedly Parr’s social inferior, there is significant evidence that the two men Appendix 195 moved in the same circles. The Haringtons owned property in Westmoreland , close to the ancestral estates of the Parrs (in Westmoreland and Lancashire), and it is likely that the two families had established an amicable relationship with one another.10 Moreover, the political and religious allegiances of John Harington of Stepney and William Parr were very similar. When Harington was arrested in January 1549, for example, Parr only narrowly escaped imprisonment. And Harington and Parr both ended up in the Tower in 1554 after being suspected of involvement in the failed rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger (the son of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet).The two men were also present together at a series of religious disputations held at the home of...

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