DIGBY, EVERARD, SIR

Courtier and Gunpowder Plot conspirator; b. Stoke Dry, Rutland, May 16, 1578; d. London, Jan. 30, 1606. On the death of his father, Everard Digby (1592), he became a page at court, and as a ward of the crown was brought up a Protestant. The large estates he had inherited were augmented by his marriage to Mary Mulso of Gothurst (now Gayhurst), Buckinghamshire, in 1596. Both he and his wife were converted to Catholicism by John gerard, SJ, who remained a close friend. Support for James's accession won him a knighthood on April 23, 1603. In May 1605 he unsuccessfully offered himself to Robert Cecil as an intermediary between the English government and the pope. The following October, disaffected by James's attitude toward Catholicism, he was easily recruited by Robert Catesby, the ringleader of the Gunpowder Plot, and although never fully admitted to the inner circle of the conspiracy, he agreed to provide money and arms to organize a rising in the Midlands immediately after the main blow had been struck. When the plot miscarried, the conspirators fled to Holbeach House in Staffordshire to make a desperate stand. Digby broke away with two attendants but was soon apprehended. He stood trial in Westminster Hall Jan. 27, 1606. Conducting himself with dignity, he pleaded guilty and suffered a traitor's death three days later. Of a noble but weak character, Digby was skilled in the arts. He left two sons, Kenelm, the author and diplomat, and John, a Cavalier General.

Bibliography: h. ross wiliamson, The Gunpowder Plot (New York 1952). t. longueville, A Life of a Conspirator (London 1895). j. gerard, The Condition of Catholics under James I …, ed. j. morris (2d ed. London 1872); The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, tr. p. caraman (London 1951). v. gabrieli, Sir Kenelm Digby (Rome 1957). a. jessopp, The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900 (London 1885–1900; repr. with corrections, 1908–09, 1921–22, 1938) 5:956–957. j. gillow, A Literary and Biographical History or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics from 1534 to the Present Time (London–New York 1885–1902; repr. New York 1961) 2:62–65.

[a. g. petti]