DIGBY, John (c.1667-1728), of Mansfield Woodhouse, Notts.

Digby, a stag-hunting country gentleman, was re-elected as a Tory for Retford in 1715 but did not stand again. ‘I found Levinz and Jack Digby in possession of it’, Newcastle subsequently wrote of that borough, adding that he had ‘totally got the better’ of them.To Rockingham, 17 Nov. 1767, Add. 32987, f. 16. With other ‘gentlemen of the high party’, Digby was excluded from the list of deputy lieutenants of the county appointed during the rebellion of 1715, though ‘as zealous to put the laws in operation against the Roman Catholics as anybody’.Sir Francis Molyneux to Newcastle, 22 Aug. 1715, Add. 32686, f. 46. In 1721 he was included in a list of probable supporters sent to the Pretender, who wrote to him, 2 Sept. 1728, after his death 3 Aug., thanking him for the proofs he had given of zeal in his service.Stuart mss 65/16, 120/50.