In Aubrey’s Bodleian Letters there is an anecdote concerning him, not devoid of humour:
He [Sir Kenelm Digby] married that celebrated beauty and courtesan, Mrs. Venetia Stanley, whom Richard, Earl of Dorset, kept as his concubine, had children by her, and settled on her an annuity of £500 per annum; which after Sir Kenelm Digby married her was unpaid by the Earl: Sir Kenelm Digby sued the Earl, after marriage, and recovered it. Venetia Stanley was a most beautiful and desirable creature ... sanguine and tractable, and of much suavity.
In those days Richard, Earl of Dorset, lived in the greatest splendour of any nobleman of England.
After her marriage she [Venetia Stanley] redeemed her honour by her strict living. Once a year the Earl of Dorset invited her and Sir Kenelm to dinner, where the Earl would behold her with much passion, yet only kiss her hand.
Later on in his life a certain Lady Peneystone appears, who considerably complicated the already difficult relations between Anne and himself.
Anne Clifford herself, in spite of all that she had to endure at his hands, gives a charitable account of him.
This first lord of mine was in his own nature of a just mind, of a sweet disposition, and very valiant in his own person.
He was ... so great a lover of scholars and soldiers, as that with an excessive bounty towards them, or indeed any of worth that were in distress, he did much to diminish his estate, as also with excessive prodigality in housekeeping, and other noble ways at court, as tilting, masqueing, and the like, Prince Henry being then alive, who was much addicted to these exercises, and of whom he was much beloved.
What his wife says of his being a great lover of scholars is borne out by his friendship with and patronage of Beaumont, Ben Jonson, Fletcher, and Drayton. Nothing else remains to his credit. He is utterly eclipsed—weak, vain, and prodigal—by the interest of that woman of character, his wife, knowing so well to “discourse of all things, from predestination to slea[[2]] silk,” and by the faithful picture that is her Diary.