Few people care for genealogies unless their own names are recorded in them. The keenest amateur herald in matters relating to his own family, will exhibit an amazing apathy when the pedigree of another person is offered for his inspection; the shorter, therefore, my notice of Sir Everard Digby's descent, the better. He was descended from a distinguished family. It had come over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, who had granted it lands at Tilton, which certainly were in its possession in the sixteenth century, though whether the subject of my biography inherited them, I am not quite sure. The first Sir Everard Digby lived in the reigns of Henry I. and Stephen.[1] This powerful family sided with Henry VII. against Richard III.; and on one occasion, King Henry VII.[2] "did make Knights in the field seven brothers of his house at one time, from whom descended divers houses of that name, which live all in good reputation in their several countries. But this Sir Everard Digby was the heir of the eldest and chiefest house, and one of the chiefest men in Rutlandshire, where he dwelt, as his ancestors had done before him, though he had also much living in Leicestershire and other shires adjoining." He was the fourteenth in direct eldest male descent from Almar, the founder of the family in the eleventh century. Five of his forefathers had borne the name of Everard Digby, one of whom was killed at the battle of Towton in 1641. Sir Everard's father had also been an Everard, and done honour to the name; but literature and not war had been the field in which he had succeeded. He published four books.[3] The only one of these in my possession is his _Dissuasive from taking the Goods and Livings of the Church_. It is dedicated "To the Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord High Chancellor of England, &c." [1] Harleian MSS., 1364. [2] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, Father Gerard, p. 87. _N.B._--"The Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot," and "The Life of Father John Gerard," are both published in one volume, entitled _The Condition of Catholics under James I._, edited by Father John Morris, S.J.: Longmans, Green & Co., 1871. It will be to this edition that I shall refer, when I quote from either of these two works. [3] See _Bibliographia Britannica_, Vol. iii. p. 1697. The books were:--I. _Theoria Analytica ad Monarchiam Scientiarum demonstrans._ II. _De Duplici Methodo, libri duo, Rami Methodum refutantes._ III. _De Arte Natandi; libri duo._ IV. _A Dissuasive from taking the Goods and Livings of the Church, &c._