[1] He supported the Royalists during the English Civil War, but his ambition and instability of character caused serious problems to himself and both Kings he served.

However, after the failure of the impeachment, he opposed the attainder of Strafford, and made an eloquent speech on 21 April 1641, accentuating the weakness of Henry Vane's evidence against the prisoner, and showing the injustice of ex post facto legislation, in condemning a man for acts which were not treason when they were committed.

He was regarded in consequence with great hostility by the parliamentary party, and was accused of having stolen from Pym's table Vane's notes on which the prosecution mainly depended.

[3] King Charles mistakenly followed Digby's advice in preference to such men as Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon and Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland.

In November 1641 Digby was recorded as performing "singular good service", and "doing beyond admiration", in speaking in the Lords against the instruction concerning evil counsellors.

[3] In the same month Digby was ordered to appear in the Lords to answer a charge of high treason for a supposed armed attempt at Hull, but fled to the Dutch Republic, where he joined Queen consort Henrietta Maria of France, and on 26 February was impeached.

After a quarrel with Prince Rupert of the Rhine, he threw down his commission and returned to the King at Oxford, over whom he obtained more influence as the prospect became more gloomy.

[2] He now supported Henrietta Maria's policy of foreign alliances and use of help from Ireland, and took part in several imprudent and ill-conducted negotiations which damaged the king's affairs.

[3] "Have I not carried my body swimmingly," he wrote to Hyde in irrepressible good spirits, "who being before so irreconcilably hated by the Puritan party, have thus seasonably made myself as odious to the Papists?"

[3] In August 1656 he joined Charles II at Bruges, and wanting revenge on the cardinal, offered his services to John of Austria the Younger in the Southern Netherlands.

On 1 January 1657, he was appointed by Charles II secretary of state, but shortly afterwards, he was compelled to resign office as he had become a Roman Catholic — probably with the view of adapting himself better to his new Spanish friends.

[3] As Lord Bristol, he returned to the Kingdom of England at the English Restoration, when he found himself excluded from office on account of his religion, and relegated to only secondary importance.

He persuaded Charles to despatch him to Italy to view the Medici princesses, but the royal marriage and treaty with Portugal were settled in his absence.

In July, he broke out into fierce and disrespectful reproaches to the King, ending with a threat that unless Charles granted his requests within twenty-four hours "he would do somewhat that should awaken him out of his slumbers, and make him look better to his own business".

When the charge was dismissed he renewed his accusation, was expelled from the court, and only avoided the warrant issued for his apprehension by hiding for two years.

[3] In January 1664 Bristol appeared at his house at Wimbledon, and publicly renounced before witnesses his Roman Catholicism and declared himself a Protestant.

"[9] He pressed eagerly for Clarendon's committal, and on the refusal of the Lords accused them of mutiny and rebellion, and entered his dissent with "great fury".

"[3] Samuel Pepys in 1668 records in the great Diary an outburst against Bristol from an elderly Cavalier, Mr Ball: "I said at the King's coming back that the nation could never be safe while that man was alive".

[11] Besides his youthful correspondence with Sir Kenelm Digby on the subject of religion, already mentioned, he was the author of an Apology (1643) [Thomason Tracts, E. 34 (32)], justifying his support of the king's cause; of a comedy, Elvira (1667) [Printed in R. Dodsley's Select Collection of Old English Plays (Hazlitt, 1876), vol.