servations_ on a
surreptitious and unauthorized edition of the _Religio Medici_, by Sir
Thomas Browne, from the Roman Catholic point of view, which drew a
severe rebuke from the author. After his arrival in Paris he published
his chief philosophical works, _Of Bodies_ and _Of the Immortality of
Man's Soul_ (1644), autograph MSS. of which are in the Bibliotheque Ste
Genevieve at Paris, and made the acquaintance of Descartes. He was
appointed by Queen Henrietta Maria her chancellor, and in the summer of
1645 he was despatched by her to Rome to obtain assistance. Digby
promised the conversion of Charles and of his chief supporters. At first
his eloquence made a great impression. Pope Innocent X. declared that he
spoke not merely as a Catholic but as an ecclesiastic. But the absence
of any warrant from Charles himself roused suspicions as to the solidity
of his assurances, and he obtained nothing but a grant of 20,000 crowns.
A violent quarrel with the pope followed, and he returned in 1646,
having consented in the queen's name to complete religious freedom for
the Roman Catholics, both in England and Ireland, to an independent
parliament in Ireland, and to the surrender of Dublin and all the Irish
fortresses into the hands of the Roman Catholics, the king's troops to
be employed in enforcing the articles and the pope granting about
L36,000 with a promise of further payments in obtaining direct
assistance. In February 1649 Digby was invited to come to England to
arrange a proposed toleration of the Roman Catholics, but on his arrival
in May the scheme had already been abandoned. He was again banished on
the 31st of August, and it was not till 1654 that he was allowed by the
council of state to return. He now entered into close relations with
Cromwell, from whom he hoped to obtain toleration for the Roman
Catholics, and whose alliance he desired to secure for France rather
than for Spain, and was engaged by Cromwell, much to the scandal of
both Royalists and Roundheads, in negotiations abroad, of which the aim
was probably to prevent a union between those two foreign powers. He
visited Germany, in 1660 was in Paris, and at the Restoration returned
to England. He was well received in spite of his former relations with
Cromwell, and was confirmed in his post as Queen Henrietta Maria's
chancellor. In January 1661 he delivered a lecture, which was published
the same month, at Gresham College, on the vegetation of plants, and
beca