Editing Kenelm Digby

{{Short description|English courtier, diplomat, astrologer and scientist}}
{{About|the seventeenth-century English courtier, diplomat and natural philosopher|other people named Kenelm Digby|}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
[[File:Sir Kenelm Digby by Sir Anthony Van Dyck.jpg|thumb|210px|Sir Kenelm Digby by Sir [[Anthony van Dyck]], c. 1640]]

'''Sir Kenelm Digby''' (11 July 1603 – 11 June 1665) was an English [[courtier]] and diplomat. He was also a highly reputed [[natural philosopher]], astrologer and known as a leading [[Roman Catholic]] intellectual and [[Thomas White (scholar)|Blackloist]]. For his versatility, he is described in [[John Pointer (antiquary)|John Pointer]]'s ''Oxoniensis Academia'' (1749) as the "Magazine of all Arts and Sciences, or (as one stiles him) the Ornament of this Nation".<ref name=Pointer>{{cite book|last1=Pointer|first1=John|title=Oxoniensis Academia: Or, The Antiquities and Curiosities of the University of Oxford|date=1749|publisher=S. Birt, in Ave-Maria Lane; and J. Ward, in Little-Britain|location=Oxford|page=186|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pHZbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA186|access-date=5 May 2015}}</ref>

==Early life and education==
Digby was born at [[Gayhurst]], [[Buckinghamshire]], England. He was of [[gentry]] stock, but his family's adherence to [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholicism]] coloured his career. His father, [[Everard Digby|Sir Everard]], was executed in 1606 for his part in the [[Gunpowder Plot]]. Kenelm was sufficiently in favour with [[James VI and I|James I]] to be proposed as a member of [[Edmund Bolton]]'s projected Royal Academy (with [[George Chapman]], [[Michael Drayton]], [[Ben Jonson]], [[John Selden]] and Sir [[Henry Wotton]]). His mother was Mary, daughter of [[William Moulsoe|William Mushlo]]. His uncle, [[John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol|John Digby]], was the first Earl of Bristol.{{dubious|Relationship of Kenelm to John|date=May 2020}}<ref name=Academies>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Academies |volume=1 |page=105 |first=Francis |last=Storr}}</ref><ref name=Stain>{{cite book|title=A Stain in the Blood|date=2016}}</ref>

He went to [[Gloucester College, Oxford|Gloucester Hall, Oxford]], in 1618, where he was taught by [[Thomas Allen (mathematician)|Thomas Allen]], but left without taking a degree.<ref name=EB/> In time Allen bequeathed to Digby his library, and the latter donated it to the [[Bodleian]].<ref name=CE>{{cite Catholic Encyclopedia |last=Boothman |first=Charles |wstitle=Sir Kenelm Digby |volume=4}}</ref><ref name=Bodleian>{{cite web|title=Collection Level Description: Digby Manuscripts|url=http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/1500-1900/digbyCLD/digbyCLD.html|website=Bodleian Library|access-date=5 May 2015}}</ref>
[[File:Workshop of Anthony van Dyck - Portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby with a Sunflower.jpg|thumb|200px|''Kenelm Digby'' by workshop of [[Anthony van Dyck|van Dyck]]]]

He spent three years on [[Continental Europe|the Continent]] between 1620 and 1623, where [[Marie de Medici]] fell madly in love with him (as he later recounted). In 1623, in Madrid, Digby was appointed to the household of Prince Charles, who had just arrived there. Returning to England the same year, he was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] by James I and appointed gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles. He was granted a [[Master of Arts (Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin)|Cambridge Master of Arts]] on the King's visit to the university in 1624.<ref>{{acad|DGBY624K|name=Kenelm Digby}}</ref>

==Career==
Around 1625, he married [[Venetia Stanley]], whose wooing he cryptically described in his memoirs. He had also become a member of the [[Privy Council of the United Kingdom|Privy Council]] of [[Charles I of England]]. As his Roman Catholicism hindered appointment to government office, he converted to [[Anglicanism]].
[[File:Van Dyck, Sir Anthony - Venetia, Lady Digby, on her Deathbed - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|''Venetia Stanley on her Death Bed'' by van Dyck, 1633, Dulwich Picture Gallery]]

Digby became a [[privateer]] in 1627.<ref name=EB/> Sailing his flagship, the ''Eagle'' (later renamed ''[[Arbella|Arabella]]''),<ref>Davida Rubin, Kenneth Garth Huston. ''Sir Kenelm Digby, F.R.S., 1603–1665: a bibliography ...'' (1969), p. 2.</ref> he arrived off [[Gibraltar]] on 18 January and captured several Spanish and Flemish vessels.<ref name=EB/> From 15 February to 27 March he remained at anchor off [[Algiers]] due to illness of his men, and extracted a promise from authorities of better treatment of the English ships:<ref name=EB/> he persuaded the city governors to free 50 English slaves.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book|last1= Moshenska|first1= Joe|title= A Stain in the Blood: The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby|date= 2016| location= London| publisher= Heinemann |isbn= 9780434022892}}</ref> He seized a Dutch vessel near [[Majorca]], and after other adventures gained a victory over the French and Venetian ships in the harbour of [[Iskanderun]] on 11 June.<ref name=EB/> His successes, however, brought upon the English merchants the risk of reprisals, and he was urged to depart. He returned to become a naval administrator<ref name=EB/> and later Governor of [[Trinity House]].

His wife Venetia, a noted beauty, died suddenly in 1633, prompting a famous deathbed portrait by [[Van Dyck]] and a eulogy by [[Ben Jonson]]. (Digby was later Jonson's [[literary executor]]. Jonson's poem about Venetia is now partially lost, because of the loss of the centre sheet of a leaf of papers which held the only copy.) Digby, stricken with grief and the object of enough suspicion for the Crown to order an [[autopsy]] (rare at the time) on Venetia's body, secluded himself in [[Gresham College]] and attempted to forget his personal woes through scientific experimentation and a return to Catholicism. At Gresham College he held an unofficial post, receiving no payment from the college. Digby, alongside Hungarian chemist [[Johannes Banfi Hunyades]], constructed a laboratory under the lodgings of [[Gresham Professor of Divinity]] where the two conducted [[Botany|botanical]] experiments.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Adamson |first=I. R. |date=1980 |title=The Administration of Gresham College and its Fluctuating Fortunes as a Scientific Institution in the Seventeenth Century |journal=History of Education |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=20 |doi=10.1080/0046760800090102 }}</ref>

At that period, public servants were often rewarded with patents of monopoly; Digby received the regional monopoly of [[sealing wax]] in Wales and the [[Welsh Borders]]. This was a guaranteed income; more speculative were the monopolies of trade with the [[Gulf of Guinea]] and with [[Canada]]. These were doubtless more difficult to police.
[[File:Anthony van Dyck - Family portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby and Lady Venetia Anastasia Stanley with their sons Kenelm and John.jpg|thumb|280px|''Family portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby and Lady Venetia Anastasia Stanley with their sons Kenelm and John'' by van Dyck]]

==Marriage and children==
[[File:Aedes Althorpianae, or, An account of the mansion, books, and pictures of Althorp - the residence of George John Earl Spencer to which is added a supplement to the Bibliotheca Spenceriana (1822) (14779614345).jpg|thumb|Portrait by [[Cornelius Johnson (artist)|Cornelius Johnson]]]]
Digby married Venetia Stanley in 1625.<ref name=Stain/>
They had six sons:
*Kenelm Jr. (1625–1648), killed at the [[Battle of St Neots (1648)|Battle of St Neots]], 10 July 1648.
*John (1627–?), only son to survive Digby. He married and had two daughters.
*Everard (1629–1629), died in infancy.
*unnamed twins (1632), miscarriage.
*George ({{Circa|1633}}–1648), died of illness in school.

In addition, there was a daughter, Margery. Born c. 1625, who married Edward Dudley of Clopton and had at least one child. She is never mentioned by Digby in his writings. She may have been the daughter of [[Edward Sackville, 4th Earl of Dorset|Edward Sackville]], 4th Earl of Dorset and Venetia Stanley prior to her marriage to Sir Kenelm. The Earl of Dorset settled an annuity on her.<ref name=Stain/> There is some controversy and confusion about whether or not Venetia had affairs with both the third and fourth Earls of Dorset and, consequently, which Earl was the father of Margery.<ref name=Venetia>{{cite book|title=Sir Kenelm Digby and His Venetia|date=1932}}</ref>

==Catholicism and Civil War==
Digby became a Catholic once more in 1635. He went into voluntary exile in Paris, where he spent most of his time until 1660. There he met both [[Marin Mersenne]] and [[Thomas Hobbes]].<ref>[[Desmond M. Clarke]], ''Descartes: A Biography'' (2006), p. 279.</ref>

Returning to support [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] in his struggle to establish [[episcopacy]] in Scotland (the [[Bishops' Wars]]), he found himself increasingly unpopular with the growing [[Puritan]] party. In the time between 1639 and 1640, he supported [[Charles I of England|Charles I]]'s expedition against the Presbyterian Scots.<ref name="britannica.com">Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Sir Kenelm Digby". Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 Jul. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kenelm-Digby. Accessed 15 February 2023.</ref> He left England for France again in 1641. Following an incident in which he killed a French nobleman, Mont le Ros, in a duel,<ref>[[John Farquhar Fulton|John F. Fulton]], ''Sir Kenelm Digby, F.R.S. (1603–1665)'', Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 15, (Jul. 1960), pp. 199–210.</ref> he returned to England via [[Flanders]] in 1642, and was jailed by the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]]. He was eventually released at the intervention of [[Anne of Austria]], and went back again to France. He remained there during the remainder of the period of the [[English Civil War]]. [[Parliament of England|Parliament]] declared his property in England forfeit.

Queen [[Henrietta Maria]] had fled England in 1644, and he became her Chancellor. He was then engaged in unsuccessful attempts to solicit support for the English monarchy from [[Pope Innocent X]].<ref name="britannica.com"/> His son, also called Kenelm, was killed at the [[Battle of St Neots]], 1648. Following the establishment of [[the Protectorate]] under [[Oliver Cromwell]], who believed in freedom of conscience,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Haykin |first=Michael A.G. |title=Religious Freedom: The Puritans and Oliver Cromwell|url=https://credomag.com/2011/11/religious-freedom-the-puritans-and-oliver-cromwell/?amp |access-date=2025-02-26 |website=Credo Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref> Digby was received by the government as a sort of unofficial representative of English Roman Catholics, and was sent in 1655 on a mission to the [[Papacy]] to try to reach an understanding.{{Citation needed|date=August 2016}} This again proved unsuccessful.

At the [[English Restoration|Restoration]], Digby found himself in favour with the new regime due to his ties with Henrietta Maria, the Queen Mother. However, he was often in trouble with [[Charles II of England|Charles II]], and was once even banished from Court. Nonetheless, he was generally highly regarded until his death, a month before his 62nd birthday, from "the stone", likely caused by [[kidney stones]].<ref>[[Richard Westfall]]. ''Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England'' (1973), p. 142.</ref> He was buried in his wife's tomb (which was damaged in the [[Great Fire of London|great fire of 1666]]), in [[Christ Church, Newgate Street]], London.

==Character and works==
Digby published a work of [[apologetics]] in 1638, ''A Conference with a Lady about choice of a Religion''.<ref name=EB/> In it he argued that the Catholic Church, possessing alone the qualifications of universality, unity of doctrine and uninterrupted [[apostolic succession]], is the only true church, and that the intrusion of error into it is impossible.<ref name=EB/>

Digby was regarded as an eccentric by contemporaries, partly because of his effusive personality, and partly because of his interests in scientific matters. [[Henry Stubbe]] called him "the very Pliny of our age for lying".<ref name=EB>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Digby, Sir Kenelm |volume=8 |pages=261–262 |first=Philip Chesney |last=Yorke}}</ref> He lived in a time when scientific enquiry had not settled down in any disciplined way. He spent enormous time and effort in the pursuits of [[astrology]], and [[alchemy]] which he studied in the 1630s with Van Dyck.<ref name = Westfall>[[Richard Westfall]]. ''Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England'' (1973), p. 16.</ref><ref>Bruce Janacek, ''Catholic Natural Philosophy: Alchemy and the Revivification of Sir Kenelm Digby'', pp. 89–118 in Margaret J. Osler (editor), ''Rethinking the Scientific Revolution'' (2000).</ref><ref name=Galileo>{{cite web|title=Digby, Kenelm|url=http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/digby.html|website=The Galileo Project|access-date=5 May 2015}}</ref>

Notable among his pursuits was the concept of the [[powder of sympathy]]. This was a kind of [[sympathetic magic]]; one manufactured a powder using appropriate [[astrology|astrological]] techniques, and daubed it, not on the injured part, but on whatever had caused the injury. His book on this mythical salve went through 29 editions.<ref>[[Keith Thomas (historian)|Keith Thomas]], ''Religion and the Decline of Magic'' (1973), p. 225.</ref> Synchronising the effects of the powder, which allegedly caused a noticeable effect on the patient when applied, was actually suggested in 1687 as a means of solving the [[longitude]] problem.

In 1644 he published together two major philosophical treatises, ''The Nature of Bodies'' and ''On the Immortality of Reasonable Souls''.<ref name=CE/> The latter was translated into Latin in 1661 by [[John Leyburn]]. These ''Two Treatises'' were his major natural-philosophical works, and showed a combination of [[Aristotelianism]] and [[atomism]].<ref name = Pyle>[[Andrew Pyle (philosopher)|Andrew Pyle]] (editor), ''Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century British Philosophers'' (2000), article ''Digby, Kenelm'', pp. 258–261.</ref>

[[File:Kenelm Digby 1667 Discours sur la vegetation des plantes.jpg|thumb|right|''Discours sur la vegetation des plantes'', 1667]]
He was in touch with the leading intellectuals of the time, and was highly regarded by them; he was a founding member of the [[Royal Society]]<ref name=EB/><ref name = Westfall/> and a member of its governing council from 1662 to 1663. His correspondence with [[Pierre de Fermat|Fermat]] contains the only extant mathematical proof by Fermat, a demonstration, using his [[Proof by infinite descent|method of descent]], that the area of a Pythagorean triangle cannot be a square.<ref>{{cite book|first=Catherine|last=Goldstein|title=Un théorème de Fermat et ses lecteurs|year=1995|publisher=Presses Universaires de Vincennes|location=Saint-Denis}}</ref> His ''Discourse Concerning the Vegetation of Plants'' (1661) proved controversial among the Royal Society's members.<ref>Julie Robin Solomon, Catherine Gimelli Martin (editors), ''Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Early Modern Thought: Essays to Commemorate The Advancement of Learning (1605–2005)'' (2005), p. 196.</ref> It was published in French in 1667. Digby is credited with being the first person to note the importance of "vital air", or [[oxygen]], to the sustenance of plants.<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/218/1511.html The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. VIII.]</ref> He also came up with a crude theory of [[photosynthesis]].<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Digby is known for the publication of a [[cookbook]], ''[[The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened]],''<ref name=EB/> but it was actually published by a close servant, from his notes, in 1669, several years after his death. It is currently considered an excellent source of period recipes, particularly for beverages such as [[mead]]. He tried out many of his recipes on his wife, Venetia, one of which was [[capon]]s fed on the flesh of [[viper]]s.<ref>{{cite book|first=Rose|last=Bradley|title=The English Housewife in the Seventeenth & Eighteenth Centuries|url=https://archive.org/stream/englishhousewife00braduoft#page/88/mode/2up|year=1912|publisher=E. Arnold|location=London|page=88}}</ref>

Digby is also considered the father of the modern [[wine bottle]]. During the 1630s, Digby owned a [[glassworks]] at [[Newnham-on-Severn]]<ref>[https://www.countrylife.co.uk/food-drink/210679-210679 Martin Fone, "Why are wine bottles all pretty much the same shape and colour?", ''Country Life'', 25 January 2020]. Retrieved 27 November 2024</ref> and manufactured [[glass onion]]s, which were globular in shape with a high, tapered neck, a collar, and a punt. His manufacturing technique involved a coal furnace, made hotter than usual by the inclusion of a wind tunnel, and a higher ratio of sand to [[potash]] and [[lime (mineral)|lime]] than was customary. Digby's technique produced wine bottles which were stronger and more stable than most of their day, and which due to their translucent green or brown color protected the contents from light. During his exile and prison term, others claimed his technique as their own, but in 1662 Parliament recognised his claim to the invention as valid.<ref name="Estreicher">{{cite book|author=Stefan K. Estreicher|title=Wine: From Neolithic Times to the 21st Century|pages=73–74|publisher=Algora Publishing|date=2006 |isbn=9780875864778|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hCzUiYsGNwkC&dq=Glass+onion+bottle&pg=PA73|access-date= 2022-07-15}}</ref>

==In fiction==
Digby and his wife are the subjects of the 2014 literary novel ''Viper Wine'' by [[Hermione Eyre]].<ref>London: Jonathan Cape. 
{{ISBN|9780224097598}}</ref>

He is mentioned in [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]]'s novel ''[[The Scarlet Letter]]''. In the chapter titled "The Leech", the narrator describes the antagonist, Chillingworth, as having an impressive knowledge of medicine, remarking that Chillingworth claims to have been a colleague of Digby "and other famous men" in the study of natural philosophy. Digby's "scientific attainments" are called "hardly less than supernatural".

Digby also appears in [[Umberto Eco]]'s novel ''[[The Island of the Day Before]]'' as "Mr. d'Igby". He explains the principle of his [[Powder of sympathy|sympathetic powder]] (''unguentum armarium'') to the main character.

==See also==

* [[Digby Mythographer]]
* ''[[The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened]]'' – a 1669 cookery book supposedly based on Digby's writings

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Bligh, E. W. ''Sir Kenelm Digby and his Venetia'', London: S. Low, Marston, 1932
* Fulton, John Farquhar. ''Sir Kenelm Digby: Writer, Bibliophile and Protagonist of William Harvey'', New York: Oliver, 1937
* Longueville, Thomas. [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_P2jSAAAAMAAJ ''The Life of Sir Kenelm Digby''] Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896
* Peterson, Robert T. ''Sir Kenelm Digby, the Ornament of England, 1603–1665'', Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956.
* Gabrieli, V. ''Sir Kenelm Digby. Un inglese italianato nell' etá della contrariforma''. Roma, 1957
* L. Georgescu/H. Adriaenssen (eds.), ''The philosophy of Kenelm Digby'' ''(1602-1665)'', Heidelberg 2022

==External links==
{{library resources box| by=yes | onlinebooksby=yes | viaf=49357645}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=6716| name=Kenelm Digby}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Sir Kenelm Digby |sopt=t}}
*[http://penelope.uchicago.edu/relmed/observations.html Digby's Observations upon ''Religio Medici'']
*[http://www.thearma.org/essays/digby.html The Extraordinary Streetfight of Kenelm Digby, The Association of Renaissance Martial Arts]
*[http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/rarebook/collections.htm Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College ]
*{{UK National Archives ID}}
*A short extract from one of Digby's [[:Image:Alchemy-Digby-RareSecrets.png|books on alchemy]] <!-- linked rather than inline, because it doesn't look representative of Digby's wider work. -->
* ''Medicina experimentalis Digbaeana, das ist: Außerlesene und bewährte Artzeney-Mittel : auß weiland Herrn Grafen Digby ... Manuscriptis zusammen gebracht; übers. und an Tag gegeben'' . Bd. 1–2 . Zubrodt, Franckfurt Nunmehro ... übersehen und ... verm. 1676 [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:061:2-170405 Digital edition] by the [[University and State Library Düsseldorf]]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20160325045657/http://www.johnsutton.net/DigbyResources.html SIR KENELM DIGBY 1603-1665, Resources and References by John Sutton]

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