![Edward Digges](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Edward_Digges.jpg)
Edward Digges (14 February 1620 – 15 March 1674/75) was an English barrister and colonist who served as
Colonial Governor of Virginia from March 1655 to December 1656. He was the son of the English politician
Dudley Digges
Sir Dudley Digges (19 May 1583 – 18 March 1639) was an English diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1610 and 1629. Digges was also a "Virginia adventurer," an investor who ventured his capital in the Virginia ...
. He invested heavily in planting mulberry trees and promoting the silk industry in the colony, in recognition of which he was appointed auditor-general of Virginia.
[Tyler, Lyon G., "Pedigree of a Representative Virginia Planter", ''William & Mary Quarterly'' Jan. 189]
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Early life
Born in Chilham Castle
Chilham Castle is a Jacobean manor house and keep in the village of Chilham, between Ashford and Canterbury in the county of Kent, England. The keep is of Norman origin and dates to 1174; the manor house was completed in 1616 for Sir Dudley Di ...
, Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, England,and christened in Chilham parish on 29 March 1620, Edward Digges was the fourth son of Sir Dudley Digges
Sir Dudley Digges (19 May 1583 – 18 March 1639) was an English diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1610 and 1629. Digges was also a "Virginia adventurer," an investor who ventured his capital in the Virginia ...
(1583–1638) and his wife Mary Kempe (1583–?). Sir Dudley was the Master of the Rolls
The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and Head of Civil Justice. As a judge, the Master of ...
for King Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
and an investor in the Virginia Company of London
The London Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of London, was a division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of North America between latitudes 34° and 41° N.
History Origins
The territor ...
.
Edward Digges entered Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and W ...
in 1637 to become a barrister. He emigrated to the Virginia Colony
The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertGilbert (Saunders Family), Sir Humphrey" (histor ...
about 1650 and purchased from Captain John West a plantation of 1250 acres in present-day York County, Virginia
York County (formerly Charles River County) is a county in the eastern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia, located in the Tidewater. As of the 2020 census, the population was 70,045. The county seat is the unincorporated town of Yorktown.
L ...
, near Yorktown.[ About 1653, he laid out ]Fort Mattapony
Fort Mattapony/Ryefield is a historic archaeological site located near Walkerton, King and Queen County, Virginia. The Fort Mattapony/Ryefield archeological sites, which has been dated archeologically to the fourth quarter of the 17th century, ...
near Walkerton, King and Queen County, Virginia
King and Queen County is a county in the U.S. state of Virginia, located in the state's Middle Peninsula on the eastern edge of the Richmond, VA metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,608. Its county seat is King and Qu ...
.
Experiments in silk production
Digges developed a strong interest in reviving the production of silk in Virginia. The cultivation of the silkworm had been attempted previously in the colony, in response to King James's interest in the subject.[Hatch, Charles E. Jr, "Mulberry Trees and Silkworms: Sericulture in Early Virginia", ''VA Mag. of History & Biography'', Jan 1957, pp3-61] However, these early efforts had been unsuccessful, perhaps due to lack of enthusiasm among the colonists. Digges, in contrast, became deeply absorbed in his project. He brought over two Armenians(which are considered to be the first armenians in america) to help him experiment with silk production, and even wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Reformed Virginia Silkworm", in which he claimed that "native silkworms could be kept outdoors on native mulberry trees and that Indians could be employed to care for the worms."
Digges sent a parcel of his silk to the Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, by way of his cousin Dudley Palmer, one of the original Fellows of the Society. In the letter accompanying the silk sample, Digges comments on his findings, for example:
Digges's efforts to create a silk industry in Virginia proved futile. By 1656 the Virginia Assembly had become disillusioned with silkworms, and passed the following terse act to signal its loss of enthusiasm:
To this day there are numerous mulberry trees, which were used to raise the silk worms, still standing on the land of the old plantation. In recognition of his efforts, Edward Digges was given a seat in the council in November 1654, "having given a signal testimony of his fidelity to this colony and commonwealth of England."
Legacy
Edward Digges was more successful with tobacco than with silk. He became known for growing "E.D." tobacco, a sweet-scented variety which brought an unusually high price in London.
Digges served as Colonial Governor of Virginia from 30 March 1655 to December 1656, for which he received a salary of 25,000 pounds of tobacco, with the duties levied on vessels, and marriage license fees. In December 1656, The House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been establishe ...
selected Samuel Mathews as governor to replace Edward Digges, and Digges became the colonial agent to England. In this position, Digges was to go to England and meet with English merchants about the price of tobacco and to secure the rights of the colony. Leaving in March 1657, he took a letter from the House of Burgesses to Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...
, who had been ruling England since 1653, following the English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
, to settle the long pending controversy between the Colony and Lord Baltimore.
Marriage and family
Edward Digges married Elizabeth Page, daughter of Francis Page (1595-1678) of Bedfont, Middlesex, and sister of Col. John Page of Middle Plantation.[Dorman, John Frederick, ''Adventurers of Purse and Person'', 4th ed., v.1, pp.821-844.]
Digges died in 1675. A large tombstone was placed over his grave near his home at Bellfield, with the following inscription:
Digges' will (dated 28 August 1669, proved 16 June 1675) left legacies "to all my children being four boys and four girls", thus establishing that by 1669, when the will was written, only eight of the thirteen children mentioned in the grave inscription were still living.[Documents Online, National Archives, Prerogative Court of Canterbury, PROB11/38]
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Following Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion held by Virginia settlers that took place from 1676 to 1677. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against Colonial Governor William Berkeley, after Berkeley refused Bacon's request to drive Native American ...
, Mrs Digges was referred to in the Report of the Royal Commissioners as one of those who had suffered as a result of family loyalty to the King:
Elizabeth died intestate in 1691. An article published in the ''William and Mary Quarterly'' in 1893 recounts the division of her personal estate between her surviving heirs:
Mrs Digges' personal property was divided by the Court, in accordance with the law, among her four surviving heirs: three sons (William, Dudley, and Edward) and one granddaughter (Elizabeth Page, daughter of Mary Digges and Francis Page).
The plantation which Digges had purchased from Capt. John West (known as the E. D. plantation) remained in the family until 1787, when it was sold. It was known as "Bellfield" by 1811, when it was advertised for sale as "Belfield, 1.000 acres in York Co., the only estate where the famous E.D. tobacco was raised, which never failed to bring in England one shilling when other tobacco would not bring three pence."[
]
Descendants
Six of the thirteen Digges children survived to adulthood:[
*]William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
(– 24 July 1697); he married Elizabeth Wharton, step-daughter of Lord Baltimore, and had ten children.
*Dudley (1664 – 18 Jan 1710); he married Susannah Cole (1674 - 1708 and produced four children:
:*Cole (1692–1774); he married Elizabeth Foliott Power:
::*Dudley (c. 1728 – 1790), Cole's third son, served in the House of Burgesses from 1752 until the Revolutionary War. Dudley Digges was a member of the Committee of Safety established by the Virginia Conventions to act in the absence of the royal governor, he would become a lieutenant governor of Virginia and was one of the members of the Virginia Assembly captured by the British in a Charlottesville raid in 1781.
*Mary (– 1690/91); she married her first cousin Francis Page, and had a daughter Elizabeth, who in turn married a first cousin (John Page) and died in 1702, aged 19, leaving two children (John and Elizabeth), both of whom died without issue.
*Anne (– 1686); she married William Cole and had two sons, both of whom died in childhood.
*Edward; he shared in the 1692 division of his mother's estate, but died unmarried and without issue.
*Catherine (1654–1729); she lived in New Kent, Virginia, and married three times. She produced 3 sons (Edward, James, and William Herndon).
See also
* Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
References
External links
Biography
at Encyclopedia Virginia Virginia Humanities (VH), formerly the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is a humanities council whose stated mission is to develop the civic, cultural, and intellectual life of the Commonwealth of Virginia by creating learning opportunities f ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Digges, Edward
1620 births
1674 deaths
Silk production
Colonial governors of Virginia
Members of Gray's Inn
Independent scientists