of the great physicians from Oxford, that nothing could save him, Father Gerard refused to give up all hope, and persuaded him to send for a certain doctor of his own acquaintance from Cambridge. “By this doctor, then, he was cured beyond all expectation, and so completely restored to health that there was not a more robust or stalwart man in a thousand.”

Not very long after he had become a Catholic, Digby was roughly reminded of the illegality of his position, by a rumour that his friend, Father Gerard, who had gone to a house to visit, as a priest, a person who was dying, was either on the point of being, or was actually, in the hands of pursuivants. This news distressed him terribly. He immediately told his wife that, if Father Gerard were arrested, he intended to take a sufficient number of friends and servants to rescue him, and to watch the roads by which he would probably be taken to London; and that “he would accomplish”his “release one way or another, even though he should spend his whole fortune in the venture.”The danger of such an attempt at that period was obvious. Certainly his desire to set free Father Gerard was most praiseworthy, but whether, had he attempted it in the way he proposed, he would have benefitted or injured the Catholic cause in England, may be considered at least doubtful. A rescue by an armed force would have meant a free fight, probably accompanied by some bloodshed, with this result, that, if successful, the perpetrators would most likely have been discovered, and sooner or later very severely dealt with as aggressors against the officers of the law in the execution of their duty, and that, if unsuccessful, the greater proportion of the rescuing party would have met their deaths either on the field at the time, or on the gallows afterwards. To attempt force against the whole armed power of the Crown seemed a very Quixotic undertaking, and the idea of dispersing the whole of his wealth, whether in the shape of armed force or other channels, in a chimerical effort to set free his friend, however generous in intent, scarcely recommends itself as the best method of using it for the good of the cause he had so much at heart. This incident shows Digby’s hastiness and impetuosity. Fortunately, the report of Father Gerard’s arrest turned out to be false; so, for the moment, any excited and unwise action on Sir Everard’s part was avoided.