Life After 1660

Abstract

Harrington’s political writings appear to have ceased with the Restoration of Charles II, but his alleged involvement with the Bow Street commonwealth club led him to be arrested in November 1661, interrogated and imprisoned. While he was eventually released, the experience affected his health, and there is no evidence of his engaging in writing or politics after this time. At some point during the 1660s he married Anne Darrell, who is described by Aubrey as his ‘old sweet-heart’. He lived out the last years of his life in Little Ambry, Westminster, dying on 11 September 1677 and being buried in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster. His ideas remained alive in the minds and writings of his friends, and were given new life by the publication in 1700 of Toland’s edition.