Another friend and frequent guest of young Sir Everard's, after he became a Catholic, should be noticed. A younger son of a Worcestershire family, Thomas Winter had attractions for Digby, in his profound zeal for the Catholic Church, his scholarship, his knowledge of foreign languages, his powers of conversation, and his military experiences, as he had served in Flanders, France, and, says Father Gerard, "I think, against the Turk." Unlike Catesby, he was "of mean stature, but strong and comely," and of "fine carriage." He was very popular in society, and "an inseparable friend to Mr Robert Catesby." In age he was about ten years older than Sir Everard. Whatever his zeal may have been for the Catholic Church, he did not always live in the odour of sanctity, and on one occasion he incurred the grave displeasure of Father Garnet by conveying a challenge to a duel from John Wright, one of the earliest conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot, to an adversary who had offended him. The combatants met, and Winter, as Wright's second, measured the swords of both duellists to ascertain whether they were of equal length; but the actual encounter was somehow prevented at the last moment.[107] Father Garnet says that he had a "hard conceit of him." [107] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xix. n. 41. Garnet's statement. In dealing with the subject of Digby's friends, certainly his page, William Ellis, ought not to be forgotten. I have been unable to discover any details of his birth, except that he was heir to L80 a year--a much larger income, of course, in those days than in these--"if his father did him right." He entered Sir Everard's service at the age of seventeen, about May 1604.[108] How faithful he was to his master will appear by-and-bye. [108] S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Book, Part I., n. 108.