An ancient Leicestershire family, to be traced nearly to the Conquest, and supposed to be of Saxon origin. The name is derived from Digby, in Lincolnshire; but Tilton, in the county of Leicester, where AElmar, the first recorded ancestor of the Digbys, held lands in 1086, also gave name to the earlier generations of the family. These ancient possessions have long ceased to belong to the Digbys; and by the will of the last Earl Digby, who died in 1856, the manor of Coleshill, in Warwickshire, granted by Henry VII. to Simon Digby, and the Castle of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, have also been alienated from the male line of the family.
There have been several branches of the Digbys both in England and Ireland, besides the extinct Earls of Bristol. During the seventeenth century the history of the family, as evinced in the lives of the celebrated Sir Kenelm Digby and the Earl of Bristol, is very remarkable.
See Leland's Itin., iv. fo. 19; Dugdale's Warwickshire, 2nd ed., vol. ii. 1012; and Pedigree of Digby of Tilton, Eye, Kettleby, Sisonby, North Luffenham, and Welby, in Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. pt. i. p. *261; for a more extended Pedigree see vol. iii. pt. i. p. 473, under Tilton; Brydges's Collins, v. 348; Hutchins's Dorset, iv. 133; and for an account of the famous Digby Pedigree, compiled by order of Sir Kenelm in 1634, at the expense, it is said, of £1200, see Pennant's Journey from Chester to London, 8vo. 1811, p. 441; and for portraits of the Digbys at Gothurst, ib. p. 449.
Arms.—Azure, a fleur-de-lis argent.
Present Representative, Edward St. Vincent Digby, 9th Baron Digby of Geashill.
Gentle.
Frampton of Moreton.
John de Frampton, M. P. for Dorset in 1373 and 1380, is the first recorded ancestor; his son Walter, having married Margaret heiress of the Manor of Moreton, became possessed of that estate as early as the year 1365, which has since continued the seat of the family.