Everard Digby - Early Life

Early Life

Everard Digby was the son of Everard Digby, and Maria Digby (née Neale), daughter of Francis Neale of Keythorpe in Leicestershire. He was also a cousin of Anne Vaux, who for years placed herself at considerable risk by sheltering Jesuit priests such as Henry Garnet. According to author Roy Digby Thomas, the Digby family may have been founded during the Norman conquest of England, when William the Conqueror was accompanied by Almar, who settled at Tilton in Rutland. Sir John Digby (d. 1269) served on two crusades, and by 1418 Sir Everard "Greenleaf" Digby was Lord of Tilton and owner of the manor at Drystoke, and Rutland's member of Parliament. Sir Everard lost his life (and his family much of their fortune) fighting in 1461 for Henry VI against Edward IV. The family had a reversal of fortune in 1485 when Sir Everard's sons fought for the victorious Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Digby may have been related to the 16th-century scholar, Everard Digby.

In 1596, while still a teenager, he married Mary Mulshaw, a young heiress who brought with her Gayhurst House in Buckinghamshire. By all accounts their marriage was a happy one, and they had two sons; Kenelm was born in 1603 at Gayhurst, and John in 1605. Unlike other English Catholics, Digby had little first-hand experience of England's recusancy laws. Following the death of his father he had been made a ward of Chancery and was raised in a Protestant household. His wife Mary was converted to Catholicism by the Jesuit priest John Gerard. When Digby fell seriously ill, Gerard used the occasion to convert him also, and the two subsequently became close friends, "calling eachother 'brother' when we wrote and spoke". Gerard was godfather to Digby's eldest son, Kenelm, and the Digbys also built a hidden chapel and sacristy at Gayhurst.

Digby frequented the court of Elizabeth I, and became informally associated with the Elizabethan gentlemen pensioners. His marriage had significantly expanded his holdings, however, and possibly for this reason he left court to manage his estates. He was apparently an unforgiving landlord, as his tenants in Tilton petitioned the Crown for redress when he failed to honour the expensive leases granted them by his father. He added to his property in Buckinghamshire by buying land in Great Missenden, and a month after the queen's death his social station was elevated when on 24 April 1603 he was knighted by James I at Belvoir Castle. Four days later he was present for Elizabeth's funeral in London.