E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Pat McCoy, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/toronto) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 39612-h.htm or 39612-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/39612/pg39612-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39612/39612-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See http://archive.org/details/lifeofconspirato00longuoft Transcriber's note: A letter or letters contained within curly brackets was a superscript in the original text. Example: exam{t} Text enclosed by underscores is in italics. Example: _Criminal Trials_ Another transcriber's note is at the end of this text. THE LIFE OF A CONSPIRATOR [Illustration: SIR EVERARD DIGBY _From a portrait belonging to W. R. M. Wynne, Esq. of Peniarth, Merioneth_] THE LIFE OF A CONSPIRATOR Being a Biography of Sir Everard Digby by One of His Descendants by the author of "A Life of Archbishop Laud," By a Romish Recusant, "The Life of a Prig, by One," etc. With Illustrations London Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co., Ltd. Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road 1895 PREFACE The chief difficulty in writing a life of Sir Everard Digby is to steer clear of the alternate dangers of perverting it into a mere history of the Gunpowder Plot, on the one hand, and of failing to say enough of that great conspiracy to illustrate his conduct, on the other. Again, in dealing with that plot, to condemn all concerned in it may seem like kicking a dead dog to Protestants, and to Catholics like joining in one of the bitterest and most irritating taunts to which they have been exposed in this country throughout the last three centuries. Nevertheless, I am not discouraged. The Gunpowder Plot is an historical event about which the last word has not yet been said, nor is likely to be said for some time to come; and monographs of men who were, either directly or indirectly, concerned in it, may not be altogether useless to those who desire to make a study of it. However faulty the following pages may be in fact or in inference, they will not have been written in vain if they have the effect of eliciting from others that which all students of historical subjects ought most to desire--the Truth.