DIGBY, SIR EVERARD (1578-1606), English conspira tor, son of Everard Digby of Stoke Dry, Rutland, was born on May 16, 1578. In 1605 he joined the conspirators in the Gun powder Plot (q.v.). His share in the plan was to organize a rising in the Midlands ; and on the pretence of a hunting party he assembled at Danchurch, Warwickshire, on Nov. 5, a party of gentlemen who, on receiving news of the destruction of the king and the House of Lords, were to seize the person of the princess Elizabeth, who was residing in the neighbourhood. The con spirators arrived late on the evening of the 6th to tell their story of failure, and Digby was persuaded by Catesby, with a false tale that the king and Salisbury were dead, to join the small band of conspirators in their hopeless endeavour to raise the coun try. He went with them to Huddington, Worcs., and on the 7th to Holbeche, Staffs. On the 8th, he abandoned his companions, and, with two servants, hid in a pit, where he was discovered and captured. He was tried in Westminster Hall, on Jan. 27, 1606, and alone among the conspirators he pleaded guilty, declaring that the motives of his crime had been his friendship for Catesby and his devotion to his religion. He was condemned to death, and executed on the 31st, in St. Paul's Churchyard, with the customary brutalities.
See narrative of Father Gerard, in Condition of the Catholics under James 1., by J. Morris (1872), etc. A life of Digby under the title of A Life of a Conspirator, by a Romish recusant (Thomas Longueville) was published in