Digby
Digby names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Digby SIR KENELM, an English natural philospher
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
SIR KENELM, an English natural philospher; born in Gayhurst, near Newport Pagnell, July 11, 1603. His father, Sir Everard Digby ( 1581- aperture 1606) in 1592 came into a large estate, enters but seven years later turned Catholic, through and was hanged as a Gunpowder conspir- the ator. A "Life" of him appeared in 1896. Kenelm himself was bred a Catholic, but in 1618, after a half-year in Spain, entered Gloucester Hall, Oxford (now Worcester College). At Madrid he fell in with Prince Charles, and, following him back to England was knighted, and entered his service. In 1625 he secretly married "that celebrated beautie and courtezane," Venetia Stanley (1600- 1633). With two privateers he sailed in 1628 to the Mediterranean, and on June 11 vanquished a French and Venetian squadron on Scanderoon. On his beloved wife's death he withdrew to Gresham College, and there passed two hermitlike years, diverting himself with chemistry. Meanwhile he had turned Protestant, but, in 1636 he announced to Laud his reconversion; and his tortuous conduct during the Great Rebellion was dictated, it seems, by his zeal for Catholicism. He was imprisoned by the Parliament (1642-1643), and had his estate confiscated; was at Rome (1645-1647), f and thrice revisited England (1649-1651- 1654), entering into close relations with Cromwell. At the Restoration, however, he retained his office of chancellor to Queen Henrietta Maria. He was one of the first members of the Royal Society (1663), and died June 11, 1665.
Digby KENELM HENRY, an English antiquarian
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
KENELM HENRY, an English antiquarian; born in 1800, the youngest son of the dean of Clonfert, gradu-h ated from Trinity, Cambridge, in 1819, and in 1822 published "The Broad Stone of Honour" "that noble manual for gentlemen," as Julius Hare called it. It was much altered in the 1828 and subsequent editions, its author having meanwhile turned Catholic. He died in London, March 22, 1880. Of 14 other works (32 vols. 1831-1874) eight were poetry.
Digby a small seaport of Nova Scotia
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a small seaport of Nova Scotia, on St. Mary's Bay, reputed for its curing of a variety of small herrings or pilchards ("Nova Scotia sprats").
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The two Digbys of the biographical entries are settled history, and Collier's 1921 accounts of them still read well; the one shift is in reputation rather than fact. Sir Kenelm is remembered today less as a "natural philospher" and duellist than for his "powder of sympathy" (a wound salve applied to the weapon, not the wound), for the posthumous recipe collection The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened (1669), and for a widely repeated claim that his glassworks produced the first strong dark wine bottles. Kenelm Henry Digby's The Broad Stone of Honour is now read chiefly by historians as a founding document of the Victorian revival of chivalry that fed the Gothic taste of the 1840s. The seaport has moved on most: Collier's put it on St Mary's Bay, when in fact the town of Digby sits on the Annapolis Basin behind Digby Neck, and its fame now rests on the scallop fleet and the Bay of Fundy ferry to Saint John rather than on the smoked herring once sold as "Digby chicks."
Written for this edition, 2026.