DIGBY, John (1618-64), of Sherborne Castle, Dorset.

John Digby was the younger brother of George, Lord Digby*, and his career is interwoven with that of his more famous sibling. Digby followed his brother to Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1634, and in the spring and summer of 1640, while his brother volunteered to raise forces in Dorset to fight the Scots, he was commissioned as captain of a horse troop, serving under Sir John Conyers.7CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 521; E352/293, unfol. Digby soon proved himself a brave soldier, capturing a number of Scottish raiders in a skirmish at Croft Brigg – an action which did something to salvage the reputation of the English army after the humiliating defeat at Newburn.8CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 79-80.

In the elections for the Long Parliament Lord Digby was double-returned for Milborne Port in Somerset and for the county seat in Dorset, and chose to sit for the latter.9CJ ii. 25a. In the ensuing by-election, held by the end of November, the borough duly elected John Digby in his brother’s place. At Westminster Digby also followed his brother’s lead. He was named with George to the committee to consider the removal of the courts of star chamber and high commission on 3 December, and on 21 April he supported his brother in voting against the attainder of Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford.10CJ ii. 44b; Procs. LP iv. 42. In the debate on the preamble of the Protestation, which detailed Catholic plots against Parliament and again attacked Strafford, Digby was the only dissenter, although he went on to swear the oath with the rest of the Commons.11Procs. LP iv. 178; CJ ii. 133a. On 10 May, two days before Strafford’s execution, he was given leave to be absent from the House.12Procs. LP iv. 301, 306.

He had returned by 10 June, when he was again involved in controversy, this time in defence of his brother. In the midst of the debate on whether to summon Lord Digby to account for his part in printing his pro-Straffordian speech, John Digby was berated by the Speaker for sitting on the ladder which led to the gallery ‘as if he were going to a hanging’. Whether Digby intended to buy time by disrupting proceedings is unclear, but the incident provoked a row which led to the Digby client Richard King being forced to withdraw from the Commons. Digby had the last word, however. Ordered to summon his brother to face the House, he returned with news that his sibling had been admitted as a member of the House of Lords earlier in the day.13Procs. LP v. 79, 83. The delaying tactics – if that is what they were – had succeeded. With the family honour intact, Digby absented himself from the House, and was given leave to return to Dorset in July.14CJ ii. 202b.

With the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in late October 1641, Digby seems to have decided to resume his military career, possibly with the intention of joining his brother-in-law, Arthur Chichester, in Ulster. On 11 November Sir John Hotham* moved the Commons to allow Digby to go to Ireland, but it is unlikely that he ever crossed the Irish Sea.15D’Ewes (C), 119. In January 1642 Nathaniel Fiennes I* reported his concerns that Digby, with his cousin, Kenelm, and one ‘Mr Chichester’ were busy processing Irish intelligence on the king’s behalf in London.16D’Ewes (C), 377. Equally sinister was Digby’s apparent involvement in the escape of the Irish royalist Daniel O’Neill from the Tower of London in May 1642. Digby came to the House to protest his innocence, saying that he had only met O’Neill while visiting his father, the earl of Bristol, and that he had not seen him on the day of the escape.17PJ ii. 283.

Parliament was right to be concerned about Digby’s intentions, but the danger would come not from Ireland, but from Dorset. In July 1642 Parliament received reports that Digby had returned to Sherborne, and was raising cavalry to support the king. Fearing that they might be intended for the royal camp at York, or to seize the county magazine at Dorchester, the Commons hastily ordered that the troops were to be arrested, and on 5 August Digby was disabled from the House as a delinquent.18CJ ii. 672a, 675b, 676a, 704b. By then it was too late. On 8 August John Pyne* reported that Digby’s troop had joined the royalist forces which mustered at Wells in Somerset, under the command of William Seymour, 1st marquess of Hertford.19PJ iii. 286; Bellum Civile, 3. When this group was confronted by a large number of local parliamentarians, it was forced to retreat to Sherborne, but not before Digby had again seen action, in a skirmish at Somerton.20Bellum Civile, 7-8. Sherborne was not secure, however, and in early September Hertford took the infantry to join the royalists in southern Wales, while Sir Ralph Hopton led the cavalry, including Digby’s troop, into Cornwall through northern Somerset and Devon.21Bellum Civile, 18.

From 1643 Digby’s military career is easily confused with that of his cousin, Sir John Digby, who also operated in the west country, but a bare outline of his activities can be traced with some certainty. He remained with Hopton in early 1643, and commanded the reserves at the royalist victory at Stratton on 16 May.22HMC 4th Rep. 304; Bellum Civile, 42. He then seems to have taken command of the regiment of William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison, after the latter was killed in September 1643, and thereafter joined Prince Maurice’s army in the west. In April 1644 Lord Digby asked Maurice to promote his brother to be ‘general of the horse’, but then forced the commission through on his own authority, provoking angry complaints that he had overridden Maurice’s right to choose his own officers.23Mems. of Prince Rupert, ii. 411-2. John Digby was wounded in action at Torrington in February 1646, and was listed among the defenders of Pendennis Castle just before its surrender in August of that year.24CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 467; CCSP i. 323. A passing reference made by Edward Hyde*, complaining that he could not be expected to pay for General Digby’s stay in Jersey, suggests that Digby had escaped from the west country just before the royalist cause collapsed.25CCSP i. 352.

His movements in the later 1640s are obscure, but he no doubt joined his brother in exile in France. He had probably returned to England before 1652, when the council of state gave him a pass to travel to France.26CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 569. He did not use this privilege until June 1654, when he was arrested off the Kent coast, and held in custody until 4 August, when the protectoral council released him on a bond for good behaviour.27CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 195-6, 203, 224, 226, 258, 287; Clarke Pprs. v. 187. Later reports, from August 1654 and October 1655, implicated Digby in plots against the Cromwellian government, but it is unlikely that he returned to England in that period.28TSP ii. 512; iv. 106. In August 1656 he was resident in Bruges, in the Spanish Netherlands, where he corresponded with his brother, now 2nd earl of Bristol.29CCSP iii. 153. In the later 1650s the two brothers grew very close, and shared a growing attachment to Catholicism. Bristol had converted by the end of the decade, and his earlier sympathy with the Roman Church can be seen in his support for the foundation of an English Benedictine convent at Pontoise in 1653. John Digby converted at about the same time, and in October 1660 was ordained as a secular priest, joining the same convent as its chaplain.30Catholic Rec. Soc. vi. 37, 47, 50. Bristol visited Pontoise soon afterwards, and in March 1664 Digby was planning to return to England when he was taken ill, and died. He was buried in the convent church. The nuns’ annals give a graphic account of his last days.

Mr Digby was a severe man to himself, and fasted Lent most strictly, and having a great weakness in his head by the wounds he had received in the wars, was subject to pains in his head in those wounds; and fasting this Lent with nothing but a mess of pease porridge and bread, being a corpulent man became weak of his head by it; and some day or two before the designed journey, in the night fell into an apoplexy … and died the next day.31Catholic Rec. Soc. vi. 56-7.