Henry Danvers, 1st Earl of Danby

He was born at Dauntsey on 28 June 1573, and at an early age became a page to Sir Philip Sidney, whom he accompanied to the Low Countries, and was probably present at the battle of Zutphen in 1586.

In 1597, Henry Danvers served under Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, apparently as a captain of a man-of-war in the expedition of that year to the coast of Spain.

[1] After Henry IV had interceded with Elizabeth I, and Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury with Sir Robert Cecil, the brothers were pardoned on 30 June 1598, and they returned to England in the following August; but it was not until 1604 that the coroner's indictment was found bad on a technical ground and the outlawry reversed.

By James I he was created Baron Danvers of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, in 1603 for service during the victory at Kinsale in Ireland, and two years afterwards was restored in blood as heir to his father, notwithstanding the attainder of his elder brother Charles, who had been beheaded in 1601 for his share in Essex's insurrection.

[2] On 15 June 1613 he obtained the grant in reversion of the office of keeper of St. James's Palace, and on 23 March 1621, he was made governor of the isle of Guernsey for life.

He was included in a number of commissions by Charles I, formed one of the councils of war appointed on 17 June 1637, and acted as commissioner of the regency from 9 August to 25 November 1641.

[3] On 12 March 1622 Danvers conveyed to the university of Oxford five acres of land, opposite Magdalen College, which had formerly served as a Jewish cemetery, for the encouragement of the study of physic and botany.

The gateway of the Oxford Botanic Garden, designed by Nicholas Stone, a master mason who frequently worked with Inigo Jones, still bears the following inscription, 'Gloriae Dei Opt.