On the 15th of September he was created earl of Bristol. He urged on the marriage treaty, believing it would include favourable conditions for Frederick, but the negotiations were taken out of his control, and finally wrecked by the arrival of Charles himself and Buckingham in March 1623. He incurred their resentment, of which the real inspiration was Buckingham's implacable jealousy, by a letter written to James informing him of Buckingham's unpopularity among the Spanish ministers, and by his endeavouring to maintain the peace with Spain after their departure. In January 1624 he left Spain, and on arriving at Dover in March, Buckingham and Charles having now complete ascendancy over the king, he was forbidden to appear at court and ordered to confine himself at Sherborne. He was required by Buckingham to answer a series of interrogatories, but he refused to inculpate himself and demanded a trial by parliament. On the death of James he was removed by Charles I. from the privy council, and ordered to absent himself from his first parliament. On his demand in January 1626 to be present at the coronation Charles angrily refused, and accused him of having tried to pervert his religion in Spain. In March 1626, after the assembling of the second parliament, Digby applied to the Lords, who supported his rights, and Charles sent him his writ accompanied by a letter from Lord Keeper Coventry desiring him not to use it. Bristol, however, took his seat and demanded justice against Buckingham (Thomason Tracts, E. 126 (20)). The king endeavoured to obstruct his attack by causing Bristol on the 1st of May to be himself brought to the bar, on an accusation of high treason by the attorney-general. The Lords, however, ordered that both charges should be investigated simultaneously. Further proceedings were stopped by the dissolution of parliament on the 15th of June; a prosecution was ordered by Charles in the Star Chamber, and Bristol was sent to the Tower, where he remained till the 17th of March 1628, when the peers, on the assembling of Charles's third parliament, insisted on his liberation and restoration to his seat in the Lords.
In the discussions upon the Petition of Right, Bristol supported the use of the king's prerogative in emergencies, and asserted that the king besides his legal had a regal power, but joined in the demand for a full acceptance of the petition by the king after the first unsatisfactory answer. He was now restored to favour, but took no part in politics till the outbreak of the Scottish rebellion, when he warned Charles of the danger of attacking with inadequate forces. He was the leader in the Great Council held at York, was a commissioner to treat with the Scots in September 1640 at Ripon, and advised strongly the summoning of the parliament. In February 1641 he was one of the peers who advocated reforms in the administration and were given seats in the council. Though no friend to Strafford, he endeavoured to save his life, desiring only to see him excluded from office, and as a witness was excused from voting on the attainder. He was appointed gentleman of the bedchamber on the king's departure for Scotland, and on the 27th of December he was declared an evil counsellor by the House of Commons, Cromwell on the 28th moving an address to the king to dismiss him from his councils, on the plea that he had advocated the bringing up of the northern army to overawe parliament in the preceding spring. There is no evidence to support the charge, but Digby was regarded by the parliamentary party with special hatred and distrust, of which the chief causes were probably his Spanish proclivities and his indifference on the great matter of religion, to which was added the unpopularity reflected from his misguided son. On the 28th of March 1642 he was sent to the Tower for having failed to disclose to parliament the Kentish petition. Liberated in April, he spoke in the Lords on the 20th of May in favour of an accommodation, and again in June in vindication of the king; but finding his efforts ineffectual, and believing all armed rebellion against the king a wicked violation of the most solemn oaths, he joined Charles at York, was present at Edgehill and accompanied him to Oxford. On the 1st of February 1643 he was named with Lord Herbert of Raglan for removal from the court and public office for ever, and in the propositions of November 1644 was one of those excepted from pardon. In January he had endeavoured to instigate a breach of the Independents with the Scots. Bristol, however, was not in favour of continuing the war, and withdrew to Sherborne, removing in the spring of 1644 to Exeter, and after the surrender of the city retiring abroad on the 11th of July by order of the Houses, which rejected his petition to compound for his estate. He took up his residence at Caen, passing the rest of his life in exile and poverty, and occasionally attending the young king. In 1647 he printed at Caen An Apology, defending his support of the royal cause. This was reprinted in 1656 (Thomason Tracts, E. 897, 6). He died at Paris on the 16th of January 1653.
He is described by Clarendon as "a man of grave aspect, of a presence that drew respect, and of great parts and ability, but passionate and supercilious and too voluminous a discourser in council." His aim was to effect a political union between England and Spain apart from the religious or marriage questions—a policy which would probably have benefited both English and European interests; but it was one understood neither in Spain nor in England, and proved impracticable. He was a man of high character, who refused to compound with falsehood and injustice, whose misfortune it was to serve two Stuart sovereigns, and whose firm resistance to the king's tyranny led the way to the great movement which finally destroyed it. Besides his Apology, he was the author of several printed speeches and poems, and translated A Defence of the Catholic Faith by Peter du Moulin (1610). He married Beatrix, daughter of Charles Walcot, and widow of Sir John Dyve, and besides two daughters left two sons, George, who succeeded him as 2nd earl of Bristol, and John, who died unmarried.
Bibliography.—The best account of Bristol will be found in the scattered notices of him in the Hist. of England and of the Civil War, by S. R. Gardiner, who also wrote the short sketch of his career in
the Dict. of Nat. Biog., and who highly eulogizes his character and diplomacy. For lives, see Biographia Britannica (Kippis), v. 199; Wood's Ath. Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 338; D. Lloyd's Memoires (1668), 579; Collins's Peerage (Brydges, 1812), v. 362; Fuller's Worthies (Nichols, 1811), ii. 412; H. Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors (Park, 1806), iii. 49; also Clarendon's Hist of the Rebellion, esp. vi. 388; Clarendon State Papers and Cal. of Cl. State Papers; Old Parliamentary History; Cabala (1691; letters); Camden Soc., Miscellany, vol. vi. (1871); Defence of his Spanish Negotiations, ed. by S.R. Gardiner; Somers Tracts (1809), ii. 501; Thomason Tracts in Brit. Museum; Hardwicke State Papers, i. 494. The MSS. at Sherborne Castle, of which a selection was transcribed and deposited in the Public Record Office, were calendared by the Hist. MSS. Commission in Rep. viii. app. i. p. 213 and 10th Rep. app. i. p. 520; there are numerous references to Bristol in various collections calendared in the same publication and in the Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Series; see also Harleian MSS., Brit. Mus. 1580, art. 31-48, and Add. MSS. indexes and calendars.
(P. C. Y.)
[1] I.e. in the Digby line; for the Herveys see above.
BRISTOL, a township of Hartford county, Connecticut, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, about 16 m. S.W. of Hartford. It has an area of 27 sq. m., and contains the village of Forestville and the borough of Bristol (incorporated in 1893). Both are situated on the Pequabuck river, and are served by the western branch of the midland division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by electric railway to Hartford, New Britain and Terryville. Pop. (1890) 7382; (1900) 9643, including that of the borough, 6268 (1910) 13,502 (borough, 9527). Among the manufactures of the borough of Bristol are clocks, woollen goods, iron castings, hardware, brass ware, silverplate and bells. Bristol clocks, first manufactured soon after the War of Independence, have long been widely known. Bristol, originally a part of the township of Farmington, was first settled about 1727, but did not become an independent corporation until the formation, in 1742, of the first church, known after 1744 as the New Cambridge Society. In 1748 a Protestant Episcopal Church was organized, and before and during the War of Independence its members belonged to the Loyalist party; their rector, Rev. James Nichols, was tarred and feathered by the Whigs, and Moses Dunbar, a member of the church, was hanged for treason by the Connecticut authorities. Chippen's Hill (about 3 m. from the centre of the township) was a favourite rendezvous of the local Loyalists; and a cave there, known as "The Tories' Den," is a well-known landmark. In 1785 New Cambridge and West Britain, another ecclesiastical society of Farmington, were incorporated as the township of Bristol, but in 1806 they were divided into the present townships of Bristol and Burlington.
BRISTOL, a city, county of a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and seaport of England, chiefly in Gloucestershire but partly in Somersetshire, 118½ m. W. of London. Pop. (1901) 328,945. The Avon, here forming the boundary between Gloucestershire and Somerset, though entering the estuary of the Severn (Bristol Channel) only 8 m. below the city, is here confined between considerable hills, with a narrow valley-floor on which the nucleus of the city rests. Between Bristol and the Channel the valley becomes a gorge, crossed at a single stride by the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge. Above Bristol the hills again close in at Keynsham, so that the city lies in a basin-like hollow some 4 m. in diameter, and extends up the heights to the north. The Great Western railway, striking into the Avon valley near Bath, serves Bristol from London, connects it with South Wales by the Severn tunnel, and with the southern and south-western counties of England. Local lines of this company encircle the city on the north and the south, serving the outports of Avonmouth and Portishead on the Bristol Channel. A trunk line of the Midland railway connects Bristol with the north of England by way of Gloucester, Worcester, Birmingham and Derby. Both companies use the central station, Temple Meads.
The nucleus of Bristol lies to the north of the river. The business centre is in the district traversed by Broad Street, High Street, Wine Street and Corn Street, which radiate from a centre close to the Floating Harbour. To the south of this centre, connected with it by Bristol Bridge, an island is formed between the Floating Harbour and the New Course of the Avon, and here are Temple Meads station, above Victoria Street, two of the finest churches (the Temple and St Mary Redcliffe) the general hospital and other public buildings. Immediately above the bridge the little river Frome joins the Avon. Owing to the nature of the site the streets are irregular; in the inner part of the city they are generally narrow, and sometimes, with their ancient gabled houses, extremely picturesque. The principal suburbs surround the city to the west, north and east.