George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol (22 February
1612 – 20 May 1677), was an
English
politician.
He was born in Madrid
, the eldest
son of John Digby, 1st
Earl of Bristol and his wife Beatrice Walcott.
Early life
At the age
of twelve he appeared at the bar of the House of
Commons
and pleaded for his father, then in the Tower of London
, when his youth, graceful person and well-delivered
speech made a great impression. He was admitted to
Magdalen
College, Oxford
, on 15 August 1626, where he was a favorite pupil
of Peter Heylin, and became M.A. in 1636. He spent the
following years in study and in travel, from which he returned,
according to
George
William Frederick Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, the most
accomplished person of our nation or perhaps any other nation, and
distinguished by a remarkably handsome person.
In 1638 and 1639 were written the
Letters between Lord George
Digby and Sir Kenelm Digby, Knt. concerning Religion
(published in 1651), in which Digby attacked
Roman Catholicism.
In June 1634 Digby was
committed to the Fleet
Prison
till July for striking Crofts, a gentleman of the
court, in Spring
Gardens
, and possibly his severe treatment and the
disfavour shown to his father were the causes of his hostility to
the court. He was elected member for Dorsetshire
in both the Short
and Long parliaments in 1640, and in
conjunction with John Pym and John Hampden he took an active part in the
opposition to Charles I of
England.
Politics and the civil war
He moved on
9 November for a committee to
consider the deplorable state of the kingdom, and off the 11th was
included in the committee for the
impeachment of
Thomas Wentworth, 1st
Earl of Strafford, against whom he at first showed great zeal.
He, however, opposed the
attainder, made
an eloquent speech on 21 April 1641, accentuating the weakness of
Henry Vane's evidence against
the prisoner, and showing the injustice of
ex post facto
legislation. He was regarded in
consequence with great hostility by the parliamentary party, and
was accused of having stolen from Pym's table Vane's notes on which
the prosecution mainly depended.
On
15 July his speech was burnt by the hangman
by the order of the House of Commons. Meanwhile on
8
February he had made an important speech in the Commons
advocating the
reformation
and opposing the abolition of
episcopacy.
On 8
June, during the angry discussion on the army plot, he narrowly
escaped assault in the House, and the following day, in order to
save him from further attacks, Charles I of England called him up to
the Lords
in his
father's Barony of Digby.
He now became the evil genius of Charles, who had the incredible
folly to follow his advice in preference to such men as
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of
Clarendon and
Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount
Falkland. In November he is recorded as performing singular
good service, and doing beyond admiration, in speaking in the Lords
against the instruction concerning evil counsellors. He suggested
to Charles the impeachment of the five members, and urged upon him
the fatal attempt to arrest them on 4 January 1642, but he failed
to play his part in the Lords in securing the arrest of
Lord Mandeville, to
whom on the contrary he declared that the king was very
mischievously advised, and according to
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of
Clarendon his imprudence was responsible for the betrayal of
the kings plan.
Next day he advised the attempt to seize them in the city by force.
The same
month he was ordered to appear in the Lords to answer a charge of
high treason for a supposed armed attempt at Kingston
, but fled to the Dutch
Republic, wisere he joined Queen
consort Henrietta Maria of
France, and on 26 February was
impeached. Subsequently he visited Charles at York
disguised as
a Frenchman, but on the return voyage to the Dutch Republic he was
captured and taken to Hull, where he for some time escaped
detection, and at last he cajoled Sir John
Hotham, after discovering himself, into permitting his
escape. Later he ventured on a second visit to Hull to
persuade Hotham to surrender the place to Charles, but this project
failed.
He was present at Edgehill, and greatly
distinguished himself at Lichfield
, where he was wounded while leading the
assault. He soon, however, threw down his commission in
consequence of a quarrel with
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, and
returned to the king at Oxford, over whom he obtained more
influence as the prospect became more gloomy.
On the 28 September 1643 he was appointed secretary of state and a
privy councillor, and on the
31 October
high steward of Oxford University.
He now supported Henrietta Maria of
France's disastrous policy of foreign alliances and help from
Ireland
, and engaged in a series of imprudent and
ill-conducted negotiations which greatly injured the king's
affairs, while his fierce disputes with Rupert and his party
further embarrassed them. On the 14 October 1645 he was made
lieutenant general of the royal forces north of the Trent, with the
objct of pushing through to join Montrose, but he was defeated or
the
15 October at
Sherburn, where his correspondence was captured,
disclosing the king's expectations from abroad and from Ireland and
his intrigues with the Scots; and after reaching Dumfries, he found
his way barred.
He escaped on the 24
October to the Isle of
Man
, thence crossing to Ireland, where he caused
Glamorgan to be arrested. Here, on this new stage, he
believed he was going to achieve wonders. "Have I not carried my
body swimmingly," he wrote to Hyde in irrepressible good spirits,
"who being before so irreconcilably hated by the Puritan party,
have thus seasonably made myself as odious to the Papists?"
Exile
His
project now was to bring over Charles, Prince of Wales to head a
royalist movement in the island; and having joined Charles at
Jersey
in April
1646, he intended to entrap him on board, but was dissuaded by
Hyde. He then travelled to Paris
to gain
Henrietta Maria of France's consent to his scheme, but returned to
persuade Charles to go to Paris, and accompanied him thither,
revisiting Ireland on the 29 June once more, and finally escaping
toFrance on the surrender of the island to Parliament. At
Paris amongst the royalists he found himself in a nest of enemies
eager to pay off old scores. Prince Rupert challenged him, and he
fought a duel with
Lord Wilmot. He
continued his adventures by serving in
Louis XIV of France's troops in the
war of the Fronde, in which he
greatly distinguished himself. He was appointed in 1651
lieutenant-general in the French army,
and commander of the forces in Flanders. These new honours,
however, were soon lost.
During
Jules Cardinal
Mazarin's enforced absence from the court Digby aspired to
become his successor; and the cardinal, who had from the first
penetrated his character and regarded him as a mere adventurer, on
his restoration to power sent Digby away on an expedition in Italy;
and on his return informed him that he was included in the list of
those expelled from France, in accordance with the new treaty with
Oliver Cromwell.
In August
1656 he joined Charles II at
Bruges
, and
desirous of avenging himself upon the cardinal offered his services
to John of Austria the
Younger in the Southern
Netherlands, being instrumental in effecting the surrender of
the garrison of St. Ghislain to Spain
in 1657. On 1 January 1657 he was appointed by Charles II
secretary of state, but shortly afterwards, having become a Roman
Catholic — probably with the view of adapting himself better to his
new Spanish friends — he was compelled to resign office.
Charles,
however, on account of his "jollity " and Spanish experience took
him with him to Spain in 1659, though his presence was especially
deprecated by the Spanish; but he succeeded in ingratiating
himself, and was welcomed by Philip
IV of Spain subsequently at Madrid. By
the death of his father Digby had succeeded in January 1659 to the
peerage as
2nd Earl of Bristol, and
had been made
K.G. the same
month.
Restoration
He returned to the
Kingdom of
England at the
English
Restoration, when he found himself excluded from office on
account of his religion, and relegated to only secondary
importance. His desire to make a brilliant figure induced a
restless and ambitious activity in parliament. He adopted an
attitude of violent hostility to Clarendon. In foreign affairs he
inclined strongly to the side of Spain, and opposed the king's
marriage with
Catherine of
Portugal. He persuaded Charles to despatch him to Italy to view
the
Medici princesses, but the royal marriage
and treaty with Portugal were settled in his absence.
In June
1663 he made an attempt to upset Clarendon's management of the
House of Commons, but his intrigue was exposed to the parliament by
Charles, and Bristol was obliged to attend the House of Lords to exonerate himself, when he confessed that he had
"taken the liberty of enlarging," and his comedian-like speech
excited general amusement. Exasperated by these failures, in
a violent scene with the king early in July, he broke out into
fierce and disrespectful reproaches, ending with a threat that
unless Charles granted his requests within twenty-four hours "he
would do somewhat that should awaken him out of his slumbers, and
make him look better to his own business." Accordingly on the
10 July he impeached Clarendon in the Lords
of high treason, and on the charge being dismissed renewed his
accusation, and was expelled from the court, only avoiding the
warrant issued for his apprehension by a concealment of two
years.
In
January 1664 he caused a new sensation by his appearance at his
house at Wimbledon
, where he publicly renounced before witnesses his
Roman Catholicism, and declared himself a Protestant, his motive
being probably to secure immunity from the charge of recusancy
preferred against him. When, however, the fall of Clarendon
was desired, Bristol was again welcomed at court. He took his seat
in the Lords on the 29 July 1667. "The king," wrote
Samual Pepys in November, " who not long ago
did say of Bristol that he was a man able in three years to get
himself a fortune in any kingdom in the world and lose all again in
three months, do now hug him and commend his parts everywhere above
all the world." He pressed eagerly for Clarendon's committal, and
on the refusal of the Lords accused them of mutiny and rebellion,
and entered his dissent with "great fury."
In March, 1668 he attended prayers in the Lords. On the 15 March
1673 though still ostensibly a Roman Catholic, he spoke in favour
of the
Test Act, describing himself as "a
Catholic of the church of Rome, not a Catholic of the court of
Rome," and asserting the unfitness of Romanists for public office.
His adventurous and erratic career closed by death on the 10 March
1677.
Character
Bristol was one of the most striking and conspicuous figures of his
time, a man of brilliant abilities, a great orator, one who
distinguished himself without effort in any sphere of activity he
chose to enter, but whose natural gifts were marred by a restless
ambition and instability of character fatal to real
greatness.
Clarendon describes him as "the only man I ever knew of such
incomparable parts that was none the wiser for any experience or
misfortune that befell him," and records his extra-ordinary
facility in making friends and making enemies.
Horace Walpole characterized him in a series
of his smartest antitheses as "a singular person whose life was one
contradiction." "He wrote against popery and embraced it; he was a
zealous opposer of the court and a sacrifice for it; was
conscientiously converted in the midst of his prosecution of Lord
Strafford and was most unconscientiously a persecutor of Lord
Clarendon. With great parts, he always hurt himself and his
friends; with romantic bravery, he was always an unsuccessful
commander. He spoke for the
Test Act,
though a Roman Catholic; and addicted him-self to astrology on the
birthday of true philosophy."
Besides his youthful correspondence with Sir
Kenelm Digby on the subject of religion,
already mentioned, he was the author of an
Apology (1643)
[Thomason Tracts, E. 34 (32)], justifying his support of the king's
cause; of a comedy,
Elvira (1667) [Printed in R. Dodsley's
Select Collection of Old English Plays (Hazlitt, 1876), vol. xv],
and of
Worse and Worse, an adaptation from the Spanish,
acted but not printed.
Other writings are also ascribed to him, including the authorship
with Sir
Samuel Tuke of
The
Adventures of Five Hours (1663). His eloquent and pointed
speeches, many of which were printed, are included in the article
in the Biog. Brit. and among the Thomason Tracts; see also the
general catalogue in the British Museum. The catalogue of his
library was published in 1680.
Children
Bristol married Lady Anne Russell, a daughter of
Francis Russell, 4th Earl
of Bedford and Catherine Brydges. They were parents to four
children:
Notes
- i Clarendon State Papers,
- ii. Mimoires du Cardinal de Retz (2859), app.
- 437, 442.
- Pepys Diaries IV. 19
References
- The article is available here.
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