ABSTRACT
On 18 July 1621, the Ninth Earl of Northumberland finally left the Tower of London after 16 years of imprisonment, having been accused of conniving at the Gunpowder Plot. Thomas Harriot, the most brilliant and renowned of the scientific practitioners maintained by Northumberland in his household, did not live to see his patron's release. He had died in London only a few days previously, on 2 July, and been buried in the Churchyard of St Christopher's Parish on the following day. One of the first gestures made by the newly freed Northumberland was that of donating a plaque in memory of Harriot. Here the scientist was praised as 'indagator studiosissimus'. His birth and education at Oxford were underlined, and after reference to his general scholarly merits, he was remembered with the words: 'Qui in omnibus excelluit, / Mathematicis, Philosophicis, Theologicis'. 1
