Sir John Harington (4 August 1561 – 20 November 1612), of Kelston, Somerset, England, but baptised in London, was an English courtier, author and translator popularly known as the inventor of the flush toilet. He became prominent at Queen Elizabeth I's court, and was known as her "saucy Godson", but his poetry and other writings caused him to fall in and out of favour with the Queen. He was the author of the description of a flush-toilet forerunner installed in his Kelston house appears in A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596), a political allegory and coded attack on the monarchy, which is nowadays his best-known work. Early life and family Harington was born in Kelston, Somerset, England, the son of John Harington of Kelston, a poet, and his second wife Isabella Markham, a gentlewoman of Queen Elizabeth I's privy chamber. He was honoured as a godson of the childless Elizabeth, one of 102. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. Harington married Mary Rogers, daughter of George Rogers of Cannington (son of Sir Edward Rogers) and Jane Winter, on 6 September 1583. Courtier under Elizabeth Although he had studied the law, Harington was attracted early in life to the royal court, where his free-spoken attitude and poetry gained Elizabeth's attention. Elizabeth encouraged his writing, but Harington was inclined to overstep the mark in his somewhat Rabelaisian and occasionally risqué pieces. His attempt at a translation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso caused his banishment from court for some years. Angered by the raciness of his translations, Elizabeth told Harington that he was to leave and not return until he had translated the entire poem. She chose this punishment rather than actually banishing him, but she considered the task so difficult that it was assumed Harington would not bother to comply. Harington, however, chose to follow through with the request and completed the translation in 1591. It received great praise, and is one of the translations still read by English speakers today. One of his epigrams is widely quoted: Treason doth never prosper? What's the reason? for if it prosper, none dare call it treason. Invention of the flush Around that time, Harington also devised England's first flushing toilet – called the Ajax (i.e., a "jakes", then a slang word for toilet). It was installed at his manor in Kelston. This forerunner to the