styled Ld. Digby 1653-77; suc. fa. 20 Mar. 1677 as 3rd earl of BRISTOL
First sat 30 Mar. 1677; last sat 19 Mar. 1697
MP Dorset 18 Oct. 1675-24 Mar. 1677.
bap. 26 Apr. 1634, 1st s. of George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol and Lady Anne Russell. educ. privately. m. (1) 26 Mar. 1656, Alice (d.1658), da. and h. of Robert Bourne of Blake Hall, Essex, s.p.; (2) lic. 13 July 1663, Rachel (d.1709), da. and coh. of Sir Hugh Wyndham, j.c.p. 1673-84, of Silton, Dorset, s.p. d. 18 Sept. 1698; will, 1 Dec. 1681- 9 Sept. 1698.1
Commr. oyer and terminer, Western circuit July 1660, assessment Dorset 1661-74, Som. 1664-74; ld. lt. and custos rot. 1679-June 1688, Oct. 1688-d.; freeman, Lyme Regis 1683.
Likeness: monument, Sherborne Abbey, Dorset.
There may have been a hint of scandal about the young Lord Digby. In 1661 Richard Boyle, earl of Cork [I] and later earl of Burlington, considered him an unsuitable candidate for his daughter’s hand, but on the whole the young man seems to have been relatively inoffensive.2 He did not share his father’s resentment of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, or his catholicism and had little interest in making a mark as either a parliamentarian or a politician. When he stood for election for Dorset in 1675 he did so as a court candidate, backed by Guy Carleton, bishop of Bristol, and opposed by Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury. During the ill-tempered election campaign Digby accused Shaftesbury of being ‘a fanatic and a traitor’. As a result Shaftesbury sued him for scandalum magnatum, winning damages of £1,000. The decision of a group of Dorset gentlemen to offer to pay his costs and damages suggests that he was popular locally, though whether they actually did so is unknown; at least one of his contemporaries thought that the two men had privately compounded the affair.3
He took his seat as earl of Bristol on 30 March 1677, having received a writ of summons dated 23 Mar., just three days after his father’s death.4 He was then present on only 19 sitting days during the session, just over 20 per cent of possible attendances. He was immediately appointed to the committee considering the bill to prevent clandestine marriages and in the course of the session was named to a further seven committees. Shaftesbury listed him as vile. Bristol covered a long absence between January and the end of April 1678 with a proxy in favour of Heneage Finch, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham).
Bristol’s attendance for the May-July 1678 session was slightly higher at 35 per cent; on 24 June he again registered a proxy in favour of Finch. He was named to five committees. During the October-December 1678 session he was present for just under 20 per cent of sitting days. A third proxy in favour of Finch was registered on 22 Oct. and vacated by Bristol’s arrival in the House on 16 December. Bristol then attended assiduously for the remaining weeks of the session, probably at the behest of Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting upon the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer and on 26 Dec. against committing Danby.
Bristol attended none of the sittings of the abandoned first session of the first 1679 Parliament (6-13 Mar.). He also missed the beginning of the second session, not taking his seat until 1 April. He was present for 57 per cent of sitting days. On 30 Apr. he was deputed, together with William Russell, 5th earl of Bedford, and James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, to carry the thanks of the House to the king for his speech. Danby consistently listed him as a supporter, assigning Charles Bertie to manage him. Bristol’s arrival on 1 Apr. meant that he was present for the first reading of the bill of attainder against Danby and voted against it. The list of those who voted on the third reading of the bill on 4 Apr. suggests that Bristol voted in favour of the attainder which had been much amended by the Lords. Danby’s own list for the vote on 14 Apr. on whether to agree with the Commons about the bill again identifies Bristol as a supporter, which may reflect the benefit Bristol gained by the recent reinstatement of pensions that had not been paid since the stop of the exchequer.5 On 10 May 1679 Bristol voted in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords and entered a dissent when the motion was lost. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.
Bristol was absent when the second 1679 Parliament finally assembled on 21 Oct. 1680. He arrived on 8 Nov. in time to take part in the debates over exclusion and despite his late arrival had an overall attendance rate of 74 per cent; he was named to one committee. On 15 Nov. he voted to put the question that the exclusion bill be rejected at its first reading. On 23 Nov. he voted against the appointment of a committee to consider the state of the nation in conjunction with the Commons. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. Before the brief 1681 session, Danby listed Bristol as likely to support his request to be bailed from the Tower. However, Bristol attended on only one of a possible seven days. In the long interval between Parliaments it seems that Bristol busied himself with his responsibilities as lord lieutenant of Dorset, although almost the only evidence of this is a report that he had summoned William Gulston, bishop of Bristol, to meet him at Sherborne assizes in July 1683 to discuss public business.6
In later years William George Richard Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, included Bristol in his list of those he believed were in favour of the bill he had tried to secure for the restoration of his estates in May 1685 but he was mistaken – Bristol attended James II’s Parliament for only five days in November 1685.7 There were conflicting reports of his attitude to James II’s policies in 1687, with three out of four surviving lists indicating his support for them. His inability to persuade the gentlemen of Dorset to acquiesce to the three questions led to the loss of his lieutenancy in June 1688. He was reinstated in October but rapidly threw in his lot with the Prince of Orange, reportedly inviting him to dine at Sherborne Castle shortly after the landing at Torbay.8
During the first session of the Convention Bristol was present on 65 per cent of sitting days, with most of his absences concentrated in the period after 18 June 1689. The second (1689-90) session saw Bristol’s attendance fall back to just over 42 per cent. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of declaring the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen and on 4 Feb. voted in favour of the motion to agree with the Commons in the use of the word abdicated instead of deserted. When the motion was lost he entered his dissent. His service to the new regime secured a pension of £5,500 a year but in his response to the peers’ self assessment exercise in September 1689, he declared that he had no personal estate other than stock upon land.9
Bristol’s attendance during the first session of 1690 marked his highest level of attendance since the exclusion crisis, nearly 72 per cent. Unfortunately those records that survive are silent as to his contribution to the House and his motivation for attending. Thereafter his attendance declined markedly. He was present on only 22 per cent of sitting days during the 1690-1 session. On 6 Oct. Thomas Osborne, marquess of Carmarthen, noted that he was ‘expected in town this night’, although his first attendance of the session was on the 18th.10 His attendances were concentrated in October and November 1690 on days when the most controversial issues before the House were the arrest of Arthur Herbert, earl of Torrington, and the release of James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough. Other issues that may have attracted his attention were an appeal in the Albemarle inheritance case and the bill for the reformation of chancery but his attendance on the days these issues were discussed was erratic. He also had a more personal reason for attendance. On 12 Nov. he invoked privilege of peerage and of Parliament against William Turner who, together with an attorney and a bailiff and several servants had taken hay, several loads of stones and dung from Bristol’s land.
Bristol’s attendance was even lower during the 1691-2 session when he was present on only six occasions (all of which were in the last two weeks of November 1691). The attendances were so scattered that it is difficult to identify a common thread other than concern about the situation in Ireland. On 8 Feb. 1692 he covered his absence for the rest of the session with a proxy registered in favour of John Egerton, 3rd earl of Bridgwater. Bristol’s attendance remained at this low level for the 1693-4 session (less than two per cent), the 1694-5 session (attended twice) and the 1695-6 session when he attended on nine days in March and April 1696, possibly spurred by discovery of the assassination plot. His attendance during the 1693-4 session did include several days when the Albemarle inheritance case was again before the House but on 17 Feb. 1694 when the matter came to a vote he was named as one of the peers who had not been present for all the hearings and who ought to withdraw from the chamber, which he duly did.11
Bristol’s attendances during the 1696-7 session were again in the order of two per cent. He arrived in the House on 23 Nov., probably in response to the order of 14 Nov. relating to the attainder of Sir John Fenwick‡ and which had threatened absentees with imprisonment. On 18 Nov. he entered a dissent to the passage of the second reading of the attainder bill. He voted against the third reading on 23 Dec. and also entered a protest against it. Thereafter he made a few scattered attendances until his final appearance in the House on 19 Mar. 1697.
In May 1697 it was said that Bristol had laid down his lieutenancy of Dorset and that the government ‘are at great loss to supply it.’12 No replacement was made so presumably he was persuaded to continue in post until his death in September 1698. His epitaph declared that he lay down his titles ‘unsullied’ and that,
he was naturally inclined to avoid the hurry of a public life … but scorned obscurity; and therefore never made his retirement a pretence to draw himself within a narrower compass, or to shun such expense as charity, hospitality, and his honour call’d for. He was kind and obliging to his neighbours, generous and condescending to his inferiors, and just to all mankind.13
After his death Bristol lay in state at Sherborne where he was visited by thousands of people before a public and ostentatiously splendid funeral. Perhaps part of his popularity in the county can be ascribed to his habit of paying his debts to local tradesmen whenever he left the county – a practice shared by few of his fellow peers. The probate copy of his will has not been traced but another copy exists locally. In it he left generous bequests to the church at Sherborne, to friends, servants and local charities.14 He also provided for a magnificent and still surviving monument to himself and his two wives to be erected in Sherborne Abbey. Bristol had no children and no brothers to inherit either his estate or his honours. His older sister had predeceased him, leaving a daughter who took the veil. Another sister was married to Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland. In 1694, during negotiations for the marriage of his son, Sunderland claimed Bristol had entailed his estate on Lady Sunderland but shortly after her brother’s death Lady Sunderland reported correctly that it had passed to their cousin, William Digby, Baron Digby of Gleashill [I].15
A.C./R.P.- 1 Dorset Hist. Cent. D-SHC, KG 2716. We are indebted to Ann Smith, archivist at Sherborne Castle for this reference.
- 2 Chatsworth, Cork mss misc box 1, Burlington diary, 25 Nov., 2 and 6 Dec. 1661.
- 3 Northants. RO, Montagu Letters, xvii. p.69; Verney ms mic. M636/29, Sir R. to E. Verney, 28 Apr. 1676; E. to Sir R. Verney, 1 May 1676; HP Commons 1660-90, ii. 213.
- 4 PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/384.
- 5 Eg. 3352, f. 111.
- 6 Bodl. Tanner, 34, f. 92.
- 7 Lancs. RO, DDK 1615/9.
- 8 Verney ms mic. M636/43, J. to Sir R. Verney, 29 Nov. 1688.
- 9 Chatsworth, Halifax Coll., B.4, Bristol, 11 Sept. 1689; HMC, 13th Rep. v. 381, 387.
- 10 Browning, Danby, iii. 181.
- 11 HMC Lords, n.s. i. 317.
- 12 Add. 75370, [F. Gwyn] to Halifax, 22 May 1697.
- 13 Bodl. Ballard 50, f. 171.
- 14 Sherborne Castle, FAM/C19.
- 15 HMC Portland, ii. 168; Add. 61442, f. 167.