31 Facts About Everard Digby

The plot failed and Everard Digby joined the conspirators as they took flight through the Midlands, failing to garner support along their way.

Everard Digby left the other fugitives at Holbeche House in Staffordshire, and was captured and taken to the Tower of London.

Sir Everard Digby lost his life fighting in 1461 for Henry VI against Edward IV.

The family had a more positive reversal of fortune in 1485 when Sir Everard Digby's sons fought for the victorious Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

Everard Digby was the eldest son of Everard Digby, Esquire and his wife Maria, daughter of Francis Neale of Keythorpe in Leicestershire.

Everard Digby was probably a near kinsman of the 16th-century scholar Everard Digby, but it is clear that the scholar, who died in 1605, was not his father, because as a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge he could not have been married at the time when the young Everard and some of his 13 siblings were born, nor was he "Esquire", as the father is named in his inquisition post mortem of 1592.

Unlike other English Catholics, Everard Digby had little first-hand experience of England's recusancy laws.

Everard Digby frequented the court of Elizabeth I, and became informally associated with the Elizabethan gentlemen pensioners.

Everard Digby's marriage had significantly expanded his holdings and possibly for this reason he left court to manage his estates.

Everard Digby 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.

Everard Digby therefore planned to kill James by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder, and then inciting a popular revolt during which a Catholic monarch would be restored to the throne.

Everard Digby asked if Catesby had spoken of the matter with Garnet, or any other Jesuits; although Catesby was in no doubt that the Jesuits disapproved of any such action, he lied and said that he would not act without their approbation.

Keen not to implicate Gerard, despite being told less than two weeks earlier that the plot had Jesuit approval, Everard Digby told him that there was nothing he knew of "or could tell him of".

Everard Digby took with him several items of clothing, including "a white satin doublet cut with purple".

Everard Digby was won over, but many of his party were less than impressed at being so badly deceived, and worse, being associated with treason.

Catesby and Everard Digby asked Garnet to excuse their recklessness, before asking for his help in raising an army in Wales.

Still the locals refused to have anything to do with them; Everard Digby later admitted that "not one man" joined them.

Everard Digby described his refusal to cooperate with his interrogators, boasted of his deceit, and how there was nothing he could do to make the plot appear less abhorrent to fellow Catholics.

Everard Digby carved an inscription on the wall of his cell, extant as of 1996.

Everard Digby entreated him for the life of her husband and his intercession with King James.

Alone amongst them Everard Digby pleaded "Guilty", and was tried on a separate indictment.

Everard Digby accused King James of reneging on his promises of toleration for Catholics, and told of his fears of harsher laws against recusancy.

Everard Digby pleaded on behalf of his family, that they should not pay for his actions, before making a final request to be beheaded.

The prosecution poured scorn on James's supposed perfidy, and ridiculed Everard Digby for asking for leniency where he would have given none.

Everard Digby spent his last few days in the Tower writing letters to his wife and his sons, urging the two brothers to avoid the examples set by figures such as Cain and Abel.

Cold and grubby, Everard Digby was the first of the four to face the executioner.

Everard Digby mounted the scaffold and addressed the audience, telling them that he knew he had broken the law, but that morally, and in the eyes of his religion, he had committed no offence.

Everard Digby asked for God's forgiveness, and the country's, and protested the Jesuits' and Father Gerard's innocence.

Everard Digby refused the attentions of a Protestant clergyman, speaking to himself in Latin, before saying goodbye to his friends.

Everard Digby was then stripped of his clothing, except for his shirt.

The executioner cut the rope, and Everard Digby fell back to the scaffold, wounding his forehead.