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[Pg i]
[Pg ii]
SIR EVERARD DIGBY
From a portrait belonging to W. R. M. Wynne, Esq. of Peniarth, Merioneth
[Pg iii]
THE LIFE OF
A CONSPIRATOR
BEING A BIOGRAPHY OF SIR EVERARD DIGBY
BY
ONE OF HIS DESCENDANTS
BY THE AUTHOR OF
“A LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP LAUD,”BY A ROMISH RECUSANT, “THE
LIFE OF A PRIG, BY ONE,”ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., Ltd.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1895
[Pg iv]
[Pg v]
PREFACE
The chief difficulty in writing a life of Sir EverardDigby is to steer clear of the alternate dangers ofperverting it into a mere history of the GunpowderPlot, on the one hand, and of failing to say enoughof that great conspiracy to illustrate his conduct, onthe other. Again, in dealing with that plot, to condemnall concerned in it may seem like kicking adead dog to Protestants, and to Catholics like joiningin one of the bitterest and most irritating taunts towhich they have been exposed in this countrythroughout the last three centuries. Nevertheless,I am not discouraged. The Gunpowder Plot is anhistorical event about which the last word has notyet been said, nor is likely to be said for some timeto come; and monographs of men who were, eitherdirectly or indirectly, concerned in it, may not bealtogether useless to those who desire to make astudy of it. However faulty the following pagesmay be in fact or in inference, they will not havebeen written in vain if they have the effect ofeliciting from others that which all students ofhistorical subjects ought most to desire—the Truth.
I wish to acknowledge most valuable assistance[Pg vi]received from the Right Rev. Edmund Knight,formerly Bishop of Shrewsbury, as well as fromthe Rev. John Hungerford Pollen, S.J., who wasuntiring in his replies to my questions on somevery difficult points; but it is only fair to bothof them to say that the inferences they draw fromthe facts, which I have brought forward, occasionallyvary from my own. My thanks are also dueto that most able, most courteous, and most patientof editors, Mr Kegan Paul, to say nothing of hisservices in the very different capacity of a publisher,to Mr Wynne of Peniarth, for permission to photographhis portrait of Sir Everard Digby, and to MrWalter Carlile for information concerning Gayhurst.
The names