Sir James Harington (c.1511-1592), of Exton Hall, Rutland, was a landowner and administrator. He was married to Lucy, daughter of Sir William Sidney. His family held the most extensive estates in Rutland during the late sixteenth century and, with the Digbys of Stoke Dry and the Noels of Brooke, monopolized the parliamentary representation of the county throughout Elizabeth I's reign.
James' eldest son, John Harington, 1st Baron Harington of Exton (1539/40-1613), was appointed guardian to Princess Elizabeth (later Queen of Bohemia) in 1603. He incurred substantial costs in maintaining Elizabeth's household and in 1612 he petitioned for the privilege of coining brass farthings in recompense. These coins were known as Haringtons. In April 1613 Harington accompanied his former charge and her husband to Germany at his own expense and spent four months arranging the princess's financial and household affairs. During the return journey he died of fever at Worms on 23 August 1613, aged seventy-three. John Harington's elder son, Kelway, having died in infancy, he was succeeded by his younger son, John, who survived him by little more than six months. This branch of the family survived only through Anne, the child of Harington's younger daughter, Frances, and her husband, Sir Robert Chichester. Other branches of the family included many peers and gentry, including the Earls of Lindsey and the Earls of Manchester.
Source: Jan Broadway, 'Harington, John, first Baron Harington of Exton (1539/40-1613)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. By permission of Oxford University Press - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/12327.