h these to
conceal himself in a pit. He was, however, soon discovered and
surrounded. He made a last effort to break through his captors on
horseback, but was taken and conveyed a prisoner to the Tower. His trial
took place in Westminster Hall, on the 27th of January 1606, and alone
among the conspirators he pleaded guilty, declaring that the motives of
his crime had been his friendship for Catesby and his devotion to his
religion. He was condemned to death, and his execution, which took place
on the 31st, in St Paul's Churchyard, was accompanied by all the
brutalities exacted by the law.

Digby was a handsome man, of fine presence. Father Gerard extols his
skill in sport, his "riding of great horses," as well as his skill in
music, his gifts of mind and his religious devotion, and concludes "he
was as complete a man in all things, that deserved estimation or might
win affection as one should see in a kingdom." Some of Digby's letters
and papers, which include a poem before his execution, a last letter to
his infant sons and correspondence with his wife from the Tower, were
published in _The Gunpowder Treason_ by Thomas Barlow, bishop of
Lincoln, in 1679. He left two sons, of whom the elder, Sir Kenelm Digby,
was the well-known author and diplomatist.

See works on the Gunpowder Plot; Narrative of Father Gerard, in
_Condition of the Catholics under James I._ by J. Morris (1872), &c. A
life of Digby under the title of _A Life of a Conspirator_, by a
Romish Recusant (Thomas Longueville), was published in 1895.
(P. C. Y.)

DIGBY, SIR KENELM (1603-1665), English author, diplomatist and naval
commander, son of Sir Everard Digby (q.v.), was born on the 11th of July
1603, and after his father's execution in 1606 resided with his mother
at Gayhurst, being brought up apparently as a Roman Catholic. In 1617 he
accompanied his cousin, Sir John Digby, afterwards 1st earl of Bristol,
and then ambassador in Spain, to Madrid. On his return in April 1618 he
entered Gloucester Hall (now Worcester College), Oxford, and studied
under Thomas Allen (1542-1632), the celebrated mathematician, who was
much impressed with his abilities and called him the _Mirandula_, i.e.
the infant prodigy, of his age.[1] He left the university without taking
a degree in 1620, and travelled in France, where, according to his own
account, he inspired an uncontrollable passion in the queen-mother,
Marie de' Medici, now a lady of more than