Kenelm Digby (1603-1665) (jul 11, 1603 – jun 11, 1665)

Description:

Education & Thomas Allen (1618)
He went to Gloucester Hall, Oxford, in 1618, where he was taught by Thomas Allen, but left without taking a degree.[4] In time Allen bequeathed to Digby his library, and the latter donated it to the Bodleian.[5][6]

Love Life
He spent three years on the Continent between 1620 and 1623, where Marie de Medici fell madly in love with him (as he later recounted).

Education (1624)
He was granted a Cambridge M.A. on the King's visit to the university in 1624.[7]

Marriage (1625)
Around 1625, he married Venetia Stanley, whose wooing he cryptically described in his memoirs.

Birth of Kenelm Jr. (1625)

Birth of Margery (1625)
She married Edward Dudley of Clopton and had at least one child. She is never mentioned by Digby in his writings. She may have been the daughter of Edward Sackville, 4th Earl of Dorset and Venetia Stanley prior to her marriage to Sir Kenelm

Privy Council of Charles I of England
He had also become a member of the Privy Council of Charles I of England. Due to his Roman Catholicism being a hindrance in being appointed to government office, he converted to Anglicanism.

Birth of John (1627)
Digby’s only son to survive Digby. John married and had two daughters.

Life of Piracy (1627)
Digby became a privateer in 1627.[4] Sailing his flagship, the Eagle (later renamed Arabella),[8] he arrived off Gibraltar on 18 January and captured several Spanish and Flemish vessels.[4] From 15 February to 27 March he remained at anchor off Algiers due to illness of his men, and extracted a promise from authorities of better treatment of the English ships:[4] he persuaded the city governors to free 50 English slaves.[9] He seized a Dutch vessel near Majorca, and after other adventures gained a victory over the French and Venetian ships in the harbour of Iskanderun on 11 June.[4] His successes, however, brought upon the English merchants the risk of reprisals, and he was urged to depart. He returned to become a naval administrator[4] and later Governor of Trinity House.

Birth & Death of Everard (1629)
Died in infancy

Miscarriage of Twins (1632)

Birth of George (1633)

Death of Wife & Following Grief (1633)
His wife Venetia, a noted beauty, died suddenly in 1633, prompting a famous deathbed portrait by Van Dyck and a eulogy by Ben Jonson… Digby, stricken with grief and the object of enough suspicion for the Crown to order an autopsy (rare at the time) on Venetia's body, secluded himself in Gresham College and attempted to forget his personal woes through scientific experimentation and a return to Catholicism.

Astrology & Alchemy (1630s)
He spent enormous time and effort in the pursuits of astrology, and alchemy which he studied in the 1630s with Van Dyck.[15][16][17]

Father of Wine Bottle (1630s)
Digby is also considered the father of the modern wine bottle. During the 1630s, Digby owned a glassworks and manufactured wine bottles which were globular in shape with a high, tapered neck, a collar, and a punt. His manufacturing technique involved a coal furnace, made hotter than usual by the inclusion of a wind tunnel, and a higher ratio of sand to potash and lime than was customary. Digby's technique produced wine bottles which were stronger and more stable than most of their day, and which due to their translucent green or brown color protected the contents from light. During his exile and prison term, others claimed his technique as their own, but in 1662 Parliament recognised his claim to the invention as valid.

Researching into Botany
At Gresham College he held an unofficial post, receiving no payment from the College. Digby, alongside Hungarian chemist Johannes Banfi Hunyades, constructed a laboratory under the lodgings of Gresham Professor of Divinity where the two conducted botanical experiments.[10]

Patent of Monopoly
At that period, public servants were often rewarded with patents of monopoly; Digby received the regional monopoly of sealing wax in Wales and the Welsh Borders.

Return to France & Catholicism (1635)
Digby became a Catholic once more in 1635. He went into voluntary exile in Paris, where he spent most of his time until 1660. There he met both Marin Mersenne and Thomas Hobbes.[12]

Return to England
Returning to support Charles I in his struggle to establish episcopacy in Scotland (the Bishops' Wars), he found himself increasingly unpopular with the growing Puritan party.

Return to France (1641)
He left England for France again in 1641.

Return to England (1642)
Following an incident in which he killed a French nobleman, Mont le Ros, in a duel,[13] he returned to England via Flanders in 1642, and was jailed by the House of Commons.

Return to France
He was eventually released at the intervention of Anne of Austria, and went back again to France. He remained there during the remainder of the period of the English Civil War. Parliament declared his property in England forfeit.

Chancellor of Queen Henrietta Maria (1644)
Queen Henrietta Maria had fled England in 1644, and he became her Chancellor. He was then engaged in unsuccessful attempts to solicit support for the English monarchy from Pope Innocent X.

Two Treatises (1644)
In 1644 he published together two major philosophical treatises, The Nature of Bodies and On the Immortality of Reasonable Souls.[5] The latter was translated into Latin in 1661 by John Leyburn. These Two Treatises were his major natural-philosophical works, and showed a combination of Aristotelianism and atomism.[19]

Death of Kenelm Jr. (1648)
Killed at the Battle of St Neots, 10 July 1648.

Death of George (1648)
Died of illness in school

Sympathetic Powder (1658)
In 1658, Digby held a discourse on the sympathetic powder before the University of Montpellier.

Vegetation of Plants (1661)
His Discourse Concerning the Vegetation of Plants (1661) proved controversial among the Royal Society's members.[21] It was published in French in 1667. Digby is credited with being the first person to note the importance of "vital air", or oxygen, to the sustenance of plants.[22] He also came up with a crude theory of photosynthesis.[9]

Royal Society: (1662-1663)
He was in touch with the leading intellectuals of the time, and was highly regarded by them; he was a founding member of the Royal Society[4][15] and a member of its governing council from 1662 to 1663.

Death (1665)
At the Restoration, Digby found himself in favour with the new regime due to his ties with Henrietta Maria, the Queen Mother. However, he was often in trouble with Charles II, and was once even banished from Court. Nonetheless, he was generally highly regarded until his death.

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