In 1627 Digby fitted out and commanded a curious privateering expedition, and captured several French, Dutch, Spanish, Flemish, and Venetian ships, but his conduct was disavowed by the English government. Digby was suspected of popish sympathies and suffered various terms of imprisonment in consequence, but in 1643 he was allowed to leave England for France, and for a time he made his home in Paris, a town to which he had always been very partial, and he appears to have been well received by Louis XIV.
Sir Kenelm Digby wrote a large number of books, religious, philosophical, and scientific; he was a man of much imagination, and took delight in inventing quack medicines. He possessed a large library; many of his books were presented to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, others are said to have been given to Louis XIV., and others again were scattered. On some of the volumes the coat-of-arms of Digby alone occurs, but in the majority of cases the coat-of-arms is quartered with various other family coats, and has also the coat-of-arms of Venetia Stanley either impaled or borne as an escutcheon of pretence. Many of Sir Kenelm's books were bound in Paris.
DORMER, ROBERT, EARL OF CARNARVON
Arms.—Impaled.
Dexter: Az., 10 billets or, 4, 3, 2, and 1, on a chief of the second a demi lion rampant issuant sa. Dormer.
Sinister: Per pale, az. and gu., 3 lions rampant arg. Herbert.
Coronet.—That of an Earl.
[Common Prayer. Dublin, 1621.]