Henry Digby Beste

In September 1791, Beste took deacon's orders in the Anglican church, and a little later retired to Lincoln, where he was active as a preacher.

Doubts about the spiritual authority of the Established Church sprang up in his mind, which were strengthened by intercourse with Beaumont, then in charge of the small Catholic chapel at Lincoln.

In 1800, he married Sarah, daughter of Edward Sealy, with whom he became the father of the author John Richard Digby Beste (e. g. Modern Society in Rome.

Beste's first works were a treatise entitled The Christian Religion briefly defended against the Philosophers and Republicans of France (octavo, 1793) and in the same year a discourse on Priestly Absolution, which was republished in 1874.

In 1826 Beste's English Family's Residence covers that period, preceded by some account of the author's conversion to Catholicism.