It is generally accepted that the 17th century republican thinker James Harrington, author of The Commonwealth of Oceania, played very little part in the English civil wars of the 1640s. The one detail that is known about Harrington is that he was appointed gentleman of the bedchamber to the captured Charles I. Given the accounts of the positive relations between Harrington and the King, how is it that Harrington came to be one of the most prominent thinkers on republicanism?

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