Bristol, George Digby, 2nd earl of

▪ English statesman

born , before Feb. 22, 1611, Madrid

died May 20, 1676?, London

      English Royalist, an impetuous and erratic statesman who had a checkered career as an adviser to kings Charles I (ruled 1625–49) and Charles II (ruled 1660–85).

      The eldest son of John Digby, 1st earl of Bristol, he first became a royal adviser in 1641. In 1640 he was elected to the Long Parliament, and in January 1642 he urged the arrest of Charles I's leading Parliamentary opponents; the House of Commons retaliated by impeaching him for alleged treasonable activities (February 1642).

      Digby fled to the Continent but returned to England in time to fight in the opening battle of the Civil War (1642–51) between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians. He was made Charles I's secretary of state in 1643, and in 1645 he became lieutenant general of the King's army in the north. When he was defeated at Sherburn, Durham, in October 1645, the Parliamentarians captured his correspondence, which disclosed Charles I's intrigues with foreign powers. Digby escaped to Ireland, then to France; while in France he inherited the earldom of Bristol (1653). Although in 1657 he became secretary of state in the government-in-exile maintained by King Charles II before his restoration, Bristol was forced to resign (1658) after he converted to Roman Catholicism.

      Upon the restoration of King Charles II in 1660, Bristol returned to England. In 1663 he was expelled from court for bringing treason charges against the King's chief minister, Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, but he was again admitted to royal favour upon Clarendon's fall in 1667. Dorothea Townshend's George Digby, Second Earl of Bristol was published in 1924.

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