The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened | Page 4

Bellosguardo, could not
have been left unvisited by the eager young student. In after years,
Digby used to say that it was in Florence he met the Carmelite friar
who brought from the East the secret of the Powder of Sympathy,
which cured wounds without contact. The friar who had refused to
divulge the secret to the Grand Duke confided it to him--of which more
hereafter.
From Florence he passed to Spain; and his arrival was happily
timed--probably by his ever anxious kinsman; for a few days later
Prince Charles and Buckingham landed, on the Spanish Marriage
business; and so agreeable was young Digby that, in spite of
Buckingham's dislike of his name, he became part of the Prince's
household, and returned with the party in October, 1623. Court favours
seemed now to open out a career for him. King James knighted him, in
what might have proved a fatal ceremony; for so tremblingly nervous
of the naked steel was the royal hand, that Buckingham had to turn the
sword aside from doing damage instead of honour. He was also made
Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince Charles. But no other signal
favours followed these. For all his agreeableness he was not of the stuff
courtiers are made of--though James had a kindness for him, and was
entertained by his eagerness and ingenuity. Bacon, too, just before his
death, had come across this zealous young student of the experimental
methods, and had meant, Digby said, to include an account of the
Powder of Sympathy in an appendix to his Natural History.
In Spain, Kenelm had flirted with some Spanish ladies, notably with
the beautiful Donna Anna Maria Manrique, urged thereto by gibes at

his coldness; but Venetia was still the lady of his heart. Her amorous
adventures, in the meanwhile, had been more serious and much more
notorious. His letters had miscarried, and had been kept back by his
mother. Venetia pleaded her belief in his death. Aubrey's account of her
is a mass of picturesque scandal. "She was a most beautiful desirable
creature.... The young eagles had espied her, and she was sanguine and
tractable, and of much suavity (which to abuse was great pittie)."
Making all allowance for gossip, the truth seems to be that in Kenelm's
absence she had been at least the mistress of Sir Edward Sackville,
afterwards the fourth Earl of Dorset; that Dorset tired of her; and on
Digby's return she was more than willing to return to her old love. But,
alas! Sackville had her picture, which seemed to her compromising.
Digby, therefore, having accepted her apologies and extenuations,
challenged Sackville to a duel; whereupon the faithless one proved at
least magnanimous; refused to fight, gave up the picture, and swore
that Venetia was blameless as she was fair. A private marriage
followed; and it was only on the birth of his second son John that Sir
Kenelm acknowledged it to the world. To read nearly all his Memoirs
is to receive the impression that he looked on his wife as a wronged
innocent. To read the whole is to feel he knew the truth and took the
risk, which was not very great after all; for the lady of the many suitors
and several adventures settled down to the mildest domesticity. They
say he was jealous; but no one has said she gave him cause. The tale
runs that Dorset visited them once a year, and "only kissed her hand,
Sir Kenelm being by."
But Digby was a good lover. All the absurd rhodomontade of his
strange Memoirs notwithstanding, there are gleams of rare beauty in the
story of his passion, which raise him to the level of the great lovers. His
Memoirs were designed to tell "the beginning, progress, and
consummation of that excellent love, which only makes me believe that
our pilgrimage in this world is not indifferently laid upon all persons
for a curse." And here is a very memorable thing. "Understanding and
love are the natural operation of a reasonable creature; and this last,
which is a gift that of his own nature must always be bestowed, being
the only thing that is really in his power to bestow, it is the worthiest
and noblest that can be given."

But, as he naïvely says, "the relations that follow marriage are ... a clog
to an active mind"; and his kinsman Bristol was ever urging him to
show his worth "by some generous action." The result of this urging
was Scanderoon. His object, plainly stated, was to ruin Venetian trade
in the Levant, to the advantage of English commerce. The aid and
rescue of Algerian slaves were afterthoughts. King James promised him
a commission; but Buckingham's secretary, on behalf of his master
absent in the Ile de Ré, thought his privileges