The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened | Page 5

were being infringed, and
the King drew back. Digby acted throughout as if he had a "publike
charge," but he was really little other than a pirate. He sailed from Deal
in December, 1627, his ships the "Eagle" and the "George and
Elizabeth." It was six months before the decisive fight took place; but
on the way he had captured some French and Spanish ships near
Gibraltar; and what with skirmishes and sickness, his voyage did not
want for risk and episode at any time. Digby the landsman maintained
discipline, reconciled quarrels, doctored his men, ducked them for
disorderliness, and directed the naval and military operations like any
old veteran. At Scanderoon [now Alexandretta in the Levant] the
French and Venetians, annoyed by his presence, fired on his ships. He
answered with such pluck and decision that, after a three hours' fight,
the enemy was completely at his mercy, and the Venetians "quitted to
him the signiority of the roade." In his Journal of the Voyage you may
read a sober account, considering who was the teller of the tale, of a
brilliant exploit. He does not disguise the fact that he was acting in
defiance of his own countrymen in the Levant. The Vice-Consul at
Scanderoon kept telling him that "our nation" at Aleppo "fared much
the worse for his abode there." He was setting the merchants in the
Levant by the ears, and when he turned his face homewards, the
English were the most relieved of all. His exploit "in that drowsy and
inactive time ... was looked upon with general estimation," says
Clarendon. The King gave him a good welcome, but could not follow it
up with any special favour; for there were many complaints over the
business, and Scanderoon had to be repudiated.
But Digby could not be merely privateer, and in the Scanderoon
expedition we are privileged to look on the Pirate as a Man of Taste.
His stay in Florence had given him an interest in the fine arts; and at

Milo and Delphos he contrived to make some healthy exercise for his
men serve the avidity of the collector. Modern excavators will read
with horror of his methods. "I went with most of my shippes to Delphos,
a desert island, where staying till the rest were readie, because idlenesse
should not fixe their mindes upon any untoward fansies (as is usuall
among seamen), and together to avayle myselfe of the convenience of
carrying away some antiquities there, I busied them in rolling of stones
doune to the see side, which they did with such eagernesse as though it
had been the earnestest business that they had come out for, and they
mastered prodigious massie weightes; but one stone, the greatest and
fairest of all, containing four statues, they gave over after they had been,
300 men, a whole day about it.... But the next day I contrived a way
with mastes of shippes and another shippe to ride over against it, that
brought it doune with much ease and speede"! What became of this
treasure so heroically acquired?
So much for art. Literature was to have its turn with the versatile pirate
ere he reached his native shores. During a time of forced inaction at
Milo, he began to write his Memoirs. A great commander was expected
during a truce, it appears, to pay lavish attentions to the native ladies.
Neglect of this gallantry was construed almost as a national insult. Sir
Kenelm, faithful to his Venetia, excused himself on the plea of much
business. But he had little or no business; and he used his retirement to
pen the amazing account of his early life and his love story, where he
appears as Theagenes and his wife as Stelliana, as strange a mixture of
rhodomontade and real romance as exists among the autobiographies of
the world. Of course it does not represent Digby at his maturity.
Among his MSS. the Memoirs were found with the title of Loose
Fantasies, and they were not printed till 1827.
It was quite a minor post in the Navy he received in recognition of
Scanderoon, and one wonders why he took it. Perhaps to gain
experience, of which he was always greedy. Or Scanderoon may have
emptied his treasuries. After the Restoration he had a hard struggle to
get repaid for his ransom of slaves on the Algerian coast. At any rate,
as Naval Commissioner he earned the reputation of a hard-working
public servant.

If his constantly-changing life can be said to have had a turning-point,
it occurred in 1633, when his wife died suddenly. The death of the
lovely Venetia was the signal for a great outburst of vile poetry on her
beauty and merits. Ben Jonson, her loyal friend and Kenelm's, wrote
several elegies, one of