Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Digby, Lettice

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584196Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 15 — Digby, Lettice1888Jennett Humphreys

DIGBY, LETTICE, Lady, (1588?–1658), created Baroness Offaley, became heiress-general to the Earls of Kildare on the death of her father, Gerald FitzGerald, lord Offaley. About 1608 she married Sir Robert Digby of Coleshill, Warwickshire. In 1618 Sir Robert died at Coleshill, and in 1619 Lady Digby received the grant of her barony, which was regranted to her on 26 June 1620. She then returned to Ireland, inhabiting Geashill Castle, where she was besieged by the Irish rebels in 1642. She resisted them with spirit, though they sent four messages to remind her that the castle was only garrisoned by women and boys. The besiegers' guns burst upon themselves, and she was at last rescued, in October of the same year, by Sir Richard Grenville. She retired to Coleshill, where she died on 1 Dec. 1658, aged about seventy, and was buried with her husband. She was the mother of ten children—seven sons and three daughters. A portrait of her at Sherborne Castle represents her with a book inscribed Job xix. 20 (‘I am escaped with the skin of my teeth’).

[Hutchins's History of Dorset, iv. 134; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland (Archdall), vi. 280 et seq. notes.]

J. H.