Everard Digby

Sir Everard Digby was a member of the group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Although he was raised in a Protestant household, and married a Protestant, Digby and his wife were converted to Catholicism by the Jesuit priest John Gerard. In the autumn of 1605 he was part of a Catholic pilgrimage to the shrine of St Winefrides Well in Holywell. About this time he met Robert Catesby, a religious fanatic who planned to blow up the House of Lords with gunpowder, killing James I. Catesby then planned to incite a popular revolt, during which a Catholic monarch would be restored to the English throne.

In 1596, while still a teenager, he married Mary Mulshaw, a young heiress who brought with her Gayhurst House in Buckinghamshire. By all accounts their marriage was a happy one, and they had two sons Kenelm was born in 1603 at Gayhurst, and John in 1605. Unlike other English Catholics, Digby had little firsthand experience of Englands recusancy laws. Following the death of his father he had been made a ward of Chancery and was raised in a Protestant household. His wife Mary was converted to Catholicism by the Jesuit priest John Gerard. When Digby fell seriously ill, Gerard used the occasion to convert him also, and the two subsequently became close friends, calling eachother brother when we wrote and spoke. Gerard was godfather to Digbys eldest son, Kenelm, and the Digbys also built a hidden chapel and sacristy at Gayhurst.

Source: Wikipedia