Kenelyn Digby, MP

Kenelm Digby (c1518–1590) was an English MP and High Sheriff.

He was born in Stoke Dry (or Drystoke) in Rutland, the eldest son of Sir Everard Digby and Margery (née Heydon) Digby and educated at Brasenose College, Oxford and the Middle Temple. He should not be confused with Sir Kenelm Digby (1603–1665), also son of a Sir Everard Digby (executed for taking part in the Gunpowder Plot), of Buckinghamshire.

He was first elected to parliament as MP for Stamford in 1539. He was then appointed High Sheriff of Rutland in 1541.

He was returned as MP for Rutland (as senior knight of the shire) in successive parliamentary elections in 1545, 1547, 1553 (March) and 1553 (October), 1555, 1558, 1559, 1571, 1572 and 1584. He was also appointed High Sheriff of Rutland a further six times in 1549, 1553, 1561, 1567, 1575 and 1585. He wes custos rotulorum for Rutland from c.1559 until his death.

He died in 1590 at the age of 70 plus and was buried in the church at Stoke Dry where his effigy lies. He had married Anna Cope, the daughter of Sir Anthony Cope; they had three sons and six daughters.

• From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenelm_Digby_(of_Stoke_Dry)
• __________________
• The history and antiquities of the county of Buckingham (1847) Vol. 4
• http://www.archive.org/details/historyantiquiti04lips
  • PEDIGREE OF DIGBY. From Harl. MSS. 1364.
• http://www.archive.org/stream/historyantiquiti04lips#page/145/mode/1up
• http://www.archive.org/stream/historyantiquiti04lips#page/146/mode/1up
  • CHART
• 1. EVERARD DIGBY, Esq., alias Greenleaf, of Tilton and Drystoke; died 1508. Will dated 16 Jan. 1508; proved 12 Feb. mar. JAQUETTA ELLYS; died in 1483. ch: 1. SIR EVERARD DIGBY, 2. SIMON, from whom descended the Digbys of Coleshill, Co. Warwick, and Earls Digby, 3. SIR JOHN DIGBY, Knt., of Eyekettleby. [Mentioned in his father's Will.], 4. LEBBEUS, of Luffenham., 5. ROWLAND, 6. THOMAS, of Olney., 7. BENJAMIN, 8. ALICE, 9. ELLEN, 10. KATHARINE, a Nun at Sempringham., 11. DARNEGOLD, mar. to Robert Hunt, of Lindon.
  • 1. SIR EVERARD DIGBY, of Drystoke. Executor to his father's Will. mar. MARGARET, dau. of Sir John Heydon, Knt., of Norfolk. ch: 1. KENELM DIGBY, 2. ANTHONY DIGBY, of Alston, a Gent. Pensioner to Queen Elizabeth., 3. KATHARINE, mar. to Anthony Meers, of Kirton, Co. Lincoln.
    • 1. KENELM DIGBY, of Drystoke. mar. ANNE, dau. of Sir Anthony Cope, Knt. of Hanwell, Co. Oxon. ch: 1. EVERARD DIGBY, 2. ANTHONY DIGBY, of Aston, Co. Rutland; ob. s.p., 3. THOMAS DIGBY, of Olney., 4. JOHN DIGBY, 5. JAMES DIGBY, of Luffenham. 6. MARGARET, mar. to Edward Dudley, of Clopton, Co. Northampton., 7. ANNE, mar. to Edw. Watson, of Rockingham Castle; by whom she had Lewis Lord Rockingham. 8./9./10./11. Four other daughters.
      • 1. EVERARD DIGBY, of Drystoke; d. circ. 1592. mar. MARY, dau. and hr. of Francis Nele, of Keythorpe; b. 1513; living in 1632 she mar. SAMPSON ERDESWICKE, Esq., of Sandon, Co. Stafford. ch: 1. EVERARD DIGBY, 2. GEORGE DIGBY, 3. JOHN, 4. MARY, mar. to Sir Robt. Wright, Knt., alias Reeve, of Thwaite, Co. Stafford, 5. ELIZABETH.
      • 4. JOHN DIGBY, of Seaton, Co. Rutland, 1618. mar. THOMASINA. ch: 1. KENELM DIGBY, aet. 20, 1618. 2. JAMES, 3. URSULA, 4. MARY, 5. ELIZABETH. mar. . . . . dau. of . . . . Palmer, Co. Leicester. ch: 6. ANNE, mar. to Thomas Swinglehurst of Seaton, Co. Rutland.
• http://www.archive.org/stream/historyantiquiti04lips#page/148/mode/1up
• _____________________
• Francis died in 1435 in his father's lifetime, (fn. 29) leaving a son Francis who died in the following year, and a daughter Agnes who became his sole heir and married Simon, alias Everard Digby of Tilton; (fn. 30) thus the Digbys came to Stoke Dry, which they made their chief seat. Everard was killed at the battle of Towton in 1461 and was succeeded by his son Everard, who married Jacquetta Ellis (d. 1496). (fn. 31) They had a son Everard, who succeeded to the property on his father's death in 1509. (fn. 32) He married Margery, daughter of Sir John Heyton, (fn. 33) kt., of Norfolk, and died in 1540, when his son Kenelm succeeded. (fn. 34) Kenelm was dealing with the manor in 1553 (fn. 35) and conveyed it in 1574 to his son Everard, charged with payments after his own death to Katherine, Elizabeth, Ursula and Bridget his daughters. (fn. 36) He settled the manor in 1588. (fn. 37) He died in 1590. His wife Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cope, (fn. 38) was still living at Stoke Dry at the death of their son Everard in 1592, who had settled on his wife Mary, daughter of Francis Neale of Keythorpe (co. Leic.), his manor of Tilton in that county. (fn. 39) Mary, too, survived Everard, who left a son and heir Everard, then in his fourteenth year. (fn. 40) The younger Everard's wardship was bought by Roger Manners, lessee of the manor and of Holy Oaks, (fn. 41) who transferred it to Mary, Everard's widow. Everard, who was knighted in1603, married Mary, daughter of William Mulsho of Gayhurst or Gothurst (co. Bucks), (fn. 42) and was a prominent person at the court of James I, where he came under the influence of the Jesuit Gerrard. He settled the manor on his son Kenelm in 1604. (fn. 43) Being attainted and hanged for high treason for his share in the Gunpowder Plot in 1606, his lands were taken into the king's hand. (fn. 44) Sir Everard's wife survived him for a widowhood of nearly fifty years, and Holy Oaks in Stoke Dry, demised by her in 1645, was still under sequestration for her recusancy in 1653, by which date she was dead. (fn. 45)
• From: 'Parishes: Stoke Dry', A History of the County of Rutland: Volume 2 (1935), pp. 221-227. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66239 Date accessed: 28 November 2011.
• ___________
• In 1486 the office of steward of the manor was granted to Simon Digby, probably the second son of Sir Everard Digby who was killed at the battle of Towton in 1461, but he surrendered it in 1515 in favour of Everard Digby, his brother. (fn. 53) In 1519 Sir John Digby, third son of Sir Everard (d. 1461), and Simon his son were appointed bailiffs of the lordship in survivorship, (fn. 54) with a fee of 4d. a day. In a similar grant made in 1529 it was stated that Sir John had held the office of bailiff from 1500 to 1519 without fees, for which he was then to receive payment. (fn. 55) The reversion of the office of steward after Sir Everard Digby's tenure was granted in 1535 to Roger Ratclyff, Usher of the Privy Chamber, (fn. 56) and in 1537 Kenelm Digby, son of Sir Everard (d. 1540), obtained a grant of the reversion. (fn. 57) In 1545 Kenelm Digby, grandson of Sir Everard (d. 1461), was holding the office with an annuity of 20 marks, and was exempted from attending the king in war. (fn. 58)
• From: 'Parishes: Barrowden', A History of the County of Rutland: Volume 2 (1935), pp. 170-175. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66229 Date accessed: 28 November 2011.
• _________
• DIGBY, EVERARD (fl. 1590), divine and author, was nearly related to the Rutland family of that name. He is said to have been great-grandson of Everard Digby, sheriff of Rutlandshire, a Lancastrian who was killed at Towton in 1461. It is also usually stated that his father was Kenelm Digby of Stoke Dry, Rutland, and his mother Mary, daughter of Sir Anthony Cope [q. v.] Everard was undoubtedly the name of their eldest son, who married Maria, daughter of Francis Neale of Keythorpe, Leicestershire; was the father of Sir Everard Digby [q. v.], the conspirator in the Gunpowder plot; and died 24 Jan. 1592. But the inquisitio post mortem expressly styles this Everard Digby as an 'esquire,' which makes it plain that he is not identical with the divine and author, who, as a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, must have been unmarried at the time of Sir Everard's birth in 1578. The divine's parentage cannot be precisely stated. Born about 1550, he matriculated as a sizar of St. John's College, Cambridge, 25 Oct. 1567; was admitted a scholar 9 Nov. 1570; .....
• [Biog. Brit. (Kippis) s.n. 'Sir Everard Digby;' Coopers Athenae Cantab. ii. 146, 646; Baker's
• Hist. of St. John's College (Mayor), pp. 167, 599, 600; Strype's Annals; Strype's Whitgift. i. 520; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Heywood and Wright's Camb. Univ. Transactions, i. 506-23; Rémusat's Philosophie Anglaise depuis Bacon jusqu'à Locke, i. 110-16, where Digby's philosophical position is fully expounded.]
• S. L. L.
• http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Digby,_Everard_(fl.1590)_(DNB00)
• __________
• The Visitation of the county of Rutland in the year 1618-19. Taken by William Camden, Clarenceaux king of arms (1870)
• http://www.archive.org/details/visitationcount10britgoog
• http://www.archive.org/stream/visitationcount10britgoog#page/n31/mo...
  • CHART - (Digby.)
• 1. Sir Everard Digby of Tilton in co' Leic. Kt. mar. Jaquet. ch: 1. Sir Everard Digby, 2. S'r John Digby of Eye Kettleby K't 3d sonne.
  • 1. Sir Everard Digby sonne & heir K't. mar. Margery da. of Sir John Heydon of . . . . co' Norfolk K't. ch: '1. Kenelyn Digby'
    • 1. Kenelyn Digby of Stoke sonne & heire. mar. Ann da. of Sir Anthony Coope of Hanwell in com' Oxon. K't. ch: 1 Everard Digby, 2. Anthony Digby, 3. *John Digby of Seaton in Com' Rutland Esq. 1618 mar. . . . . d. of . . . . Palmer of . . . . in Com' Leic. 1 wife. ch: Ann wife of Thomas Swinglehurst of Seaton in Com' Rutland., mar. Thomasin dau. of . . . . 2 wife ch: Ursula, Kenelin Digby 20 years old in 1618, 2. James Digby, Mary, Elizabeth.
    • *Note. -- According to Harl. MS. 1094, the children of John Digby should change places of the wives; but they are given as above in the Visitation in the College of Arms.
      • 1. Everard Digby sonne & heire. mar. Mary da & coh. of Francis Neale of Kethorpe in com' Leic. ch: 1. S'r Everard Digby, 2. George., 3. John., 4. Mary ux. S'r Rob't Wright al's Reeve of Thwayte in com' Suff., 5. Elizabeth; She mar. Sampson Erdeswick of Sandon in com' Stafford (1st husb.) ch: Richard Erdeswick.
• _________________________
• Rockingham Castle and the Watsons (1891)
• http://www.archive.org/details/rockinghamcastl00watsgoog
• http://www.archive.org/stream/rockinghamcastl00watsgoog#page/n62/mo...
• Edward Watson, his only son and heir, was, according to genealogists, but thirty-five years of age when his father died. If so he must have married very young, for in April, 1567, he married Anne Digby, a daughter of Kenelm Digby, of Stoke Dry, in Rutland, and their seven daughters were all born during the life of Edward Watson, the elder. He enjoyed the estates and family honors 32 year's, and, as will be seen, the records of his life during that period are full of interest, containing as they do accounts of his active administration of forest and other, now obsolete, laws of the Tudor and early Stuart periods, and thus bringing us into touch with the daily life of the rural population of the age. ....
• http://www.archive.org/stream/rockinghamcastl00watsgoog#page/n63/mo...
• ..... His grandson Kenelm, of Stoke Dry, was the father of Anne Watson. Her eldest brother, Everard, married Mary, daughter and heiress of Francis Nele of Keythorpe. If Nichols' account of this lady may be credited, she must have been a very extraordinary woman. He says she was born in 1513, and was living in 1632. This would make her to have attained the age of at least 119 years. Surely here is a fiction ! She married three husbands. The first was Everard Digby, Esq. of Drystoke, and their eldest son was Sir Everard Digby, of gunpowder-plot notoriety. Her second husband was Sampson Erdeswick of Sandon, Staffordshire ; and her third, Thomas Digby, a relative of her first husband. According to Doctor Plot she was a sort of female Cagliostro, and came near to discovering the elixir of life. He says she was "A most accomplished lady, and by her most exquisite and perspicuous insight into the most hidden recesses of nature, she discovered the restorative properties of the well in Willoughbridge Park, where three score springs are found within the space of ten square acres, and enclosed them for bathing and drinking, with divers appartments for lodging the poorer sort of diseased and impotent folk."
• http://www.archive.org/stream/rockinghamcastl00watsgoog#page/n309/m...
  • CHART - THE DIGBYS OF TILTON AND DRY STOKE.
• 11. EVERARD DIGBY, of Tilton and Dry Stoke, died 1509. mar. Jaquetta Ellis, died 1483. ch: SIR EVERARD DIGBY
  • 12. SIR EVERARD DIGBY, of Dry Stoke. mar. Margaret, d. of Sir John Haydon (Norfolk). ch: KENELM DIGBY.
    • 13. KENELM DIGBY, of Dry Stoke, Sheriff of Rutland, 1541, 1554, 1561, 1567, and 1585; M.P. for Rutland, from 1 Ed. VI., to 14 Eliz., died 1590 mar. Anne, d. of Sir Anthony Cope, of Hanwell, co. Oxon. (Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Catherine). ch: EVERARD DIGBY of Dry Stoke, died cir. 1592. (see page 34)., Anne, m. in April, 1567, to Edward (afterwards Sir Edward), Watson, of Rockingham Castle. (See Pedigree No. 1).
• ____________________
• Collins's Peerage of England; Genealogical, Biographical, and Historical (1812)
• http://www.archive.org/details/collinsspeerage05brydgoog
• http://www.archive.org/stream/collinsspeerage05brydgoog#page/n362/m...
• SIR EVERARD, the eldest son of Everard Digby, Lord of Tilton, and Drystoke, was progenitor to the families of Drystoke, in tbe county of Rutland, and Sandon, in the county of Stafford. He was Sheriff of the former county in 1459, 1486, and 1499; and from the 25th to tbe 38th years of Henry VI. inclusive, its representative in parliament. He died in 1509, and was buried under a tomb in the church of Tilton, leaving
  • SIR EVERARD, his heir, who also served the office of Sheriff for the said county in 1513, 1518, 1528, and 1532, and for Leicester and Warwick, in 1521. He deceased in 1540, and was buried in a chapel on tbe south side of the chancel of Drystoke church, under a handsome tomb, supporting the figure of an armed knight, with this circumscription; .....
  • He married Mary, daughter to Sir John Heydon, and had
    • KENELM Digby, of Drystoke, Esq. (by some falsely made a Knight), also Sheriff of the county of Rutland for the years 1541, 1549, 1554, 1561, 1567, and 1585, and representative thereof in parliament from 1 Edward VI. to 14 Eliz. inclusive. He married Anne, daughter to Sir Anthony Cope, of Hanwell, in the county of Oxford, Knt. Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Catbarine, wife of Henry VIII. and deceasing in 159O, was buried in the chancel of Stoke-Dry, adjoining to the partition wall of tbe chapel, where his father lay, under a tomb, with this memorial on the verge: ......
    • http://www.archive.org/stream/collinsspeerage05brydgoog#page/n363/m...
    • Their issue were three sons and one daughter: Everard; Anthony, of Aston, who died childless; John, of Seaton, both in Ratlandshire; and Anne, married in April, 1567, to Sir Edward Watson, of Rockingham castle, in the county of Northampton ; and she deceasing February the 17th, 1611, was mother of Lewis, created Lord Rockingham.
      • EVERARD, the eldest son, being educated in St. John's College, Cambridge, took the degree of A. M. and was Fellow of that House; a person of learning, and publisher, of several books. He died at Drystoke, in or about the year 1592, having issue by Mary, daughter and coheir to Francis Nele, of Prestwould, apd widow of Sampson Erdeswick, of Sandon, in Staffordshire, Esqrs, three sons and two daughters. 1. Sir Everard, his heir. 2. George. 3. John. 4. Mary, married to Sir Robert Wright, otherwise Reeve, of Thwaite, in the aforesaid county; and Elizabeth.
• _____________________
• DIGBY, Kenelm (by 1518-90), of Stoke Dry, Rutland.
• Family and Education
• b. by 1518, 1st s. of Sir Everard Digby. educ. ?Brasenose, Oxf.; M. Temple. m. Anne, da. of Sir Anthony Cope of Hanwell, Oxon., 3s. 6da. suc. fa. 11 Apr. 1540.3
• Offices Held
  • Steward, lands in Rutland formerly of Duke of Clarence 1540-d.; sheriff, Rutland 1541-2, 1549-50, 1553-4, 1561-2, 1567-8, 1575-6, 1585-6; j.p. 1543-d.; commr. benevolence 1544/45, musters 1546, contribution 1546, relief 1550, goods of churches and fraternities 1553; other commissions 1543-d.; custos rot. 1558/59-d.4
• Biography
• Kenelm Digby began his long parliamentary career when on 14 Apr. 1539 he was elected junior Member for Stamford. It was the sole occasion on which he was to sit for a borough and he probably owed the nomination to his friend John Harington I, who may have been deputy steward of the town at the time of the election and who was himself returned to this Parliament as senior knight for Rutland. Nothing is known of Digby’s part in the proceedings of the House, but as his father was to die on 11 Apr. 1540, the day before the opening of the third session, he is likely to have missed at least the early part of that session.5
• Sir Everard Digby was about 70 when he died, so that the eldest son was doubtless well into his majority when he succeeded to the inheritance and may already have married the daughter of Catherine Parr’s wealthy chamberlain. He at once took his father’s place in local administration, being pricked sheriff in November 1541 and joining the county bench when the term was over. Excluded by his shrievalty from the Parliament of 1542—in which, however, his influence is probably to be seen in the election of his cousin Simon Digby—three years later he succeeded Harington as senior knight of the shire. This was the beginning of an exceptional performance: in the course of the next 40 years Digby was to sit for his county in nine more Parliaments, and the three which he missed were put out of his reach by two of his six further terms as sheriff. Even though conditions in Rutland were favourable to such a near-monopoly, it is a measure of Digby’s achievement that only one or possibly two of his fellows attained the same total, Thomas Warcop in Westmorland and perhaps Sir Thomas Cheyne in Kent. He does not figure on the opposition lists for the Parliaments of October 1553 and 1555.
• Whatever knowledge of the law Digby had acquired at the Middle Temple, an inn with which he retained a connexion for many years, was put to both public and private use: regularly named to commissions of oyer and terminer for the midlands, he was also consulted on legal matters by his friends and relatives, for whom he often acted as a feoffee. It was perhaps his legal bent which in 1572 prompted his demand to see the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon’s patent of lieutenancy before acknowledging Huntingdon’s standing in the county, a piece of officiousness which incensed the earl. With so ardent a Puritan as Huntingdon, however, Digby can have felt little at ease: in 1564 he was reported to be ‘indifferent’ in religion but towards the end of his life he was described as unsound in faith and one of his sons was a notable Catholic. Formerly a purchaser of ex-monastic lands, he was later obliged to sell the manor of Morcott bought by his father, as well as lands in Newton Burdett.6
• Digby died at a great age on 21 Apr. 1590 and was buried at Stoke Dry, where the tomb and inscription survive.7
• Ref Volumes: 1509-1558
• Author: S. M. Thorpe
• Notes
• 1. Stamford hall bk. 1461-1657, f. 129v.
• 2. Only ‘Ken...’ can be read on the indenture (C219/24/129), but the identity is obvious.
• 3. Presumed to be of age at election. Vis. Rutland (Harl. Soc. iii), 20; PCC 73 Drury; VCH Rutland, ii. 223, 227.
• 4. LP Hen. VIII, xii, xviii, xx, xxi; CPR, 1547-8, pp. 75, 88; 1550-3, pp. 141, 395; 1553, pp. 357, 415; 1553-4, p. 29; 1563-6, p. 42.
• 5. PCC 1 More.
• 6. PCC 14 Windsor, 8 Pyckering, 35 Mellershe; Egerton 2896; Cam. Misc. ix(3), 37; Lansd. 54, f. 78; VCH Rutland, i. 150, 182; ii. 208; LP Hen. VIII, xxi; CPR, 1560-3, p. 386; C142/219/98.
• 7. VCH Rutland, ii. 227; Pevsner, Leics. and Rutland, 325
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/di...
• _________________
• DIGBY, Kenelm (d.1590), of Stoke Dry, Rutland.
• 1st. s. of Sir Everard Digby† of Stoke Dry by Margery, da. of Sir John Heydon of Baconsthorpe, Norf. educ. ?Brasenose, Oxf.; M. Temple bef. 1549 m. Anne, da. of Sir Anthony Cope of Hanwell, Oxon., 3s. 6da. suc. fa. 1540.
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/di...
• ______________________