the French and Venetian ships in the harbour of Iskanderun on 11 June. His successes, however, brought upon the English merchants the risk of reprisals, and he was urged to depart. He returned to become a naval administrator and later Governor of Trinity House. His wife Venetia, a noted beauty, died suddenly in 1633, prompting a famous deathbed portrait by Van Dyck and a eulogy by Ben Jonson. (Digby was later Jonson's literary executor. Jonson's poem about Venetia is now partially lost, because of the loss of the centre sheet of a leaf of papers which held the only copy.) Digby, stricken with grief and the object of enough suspicion for the Crown to order an autopsy (rare at the time) on Venetia's body, secluded himself in Gresham College and attempted to forget his personal woes through scientific experimentation and a return to Catholicism. At Gresham College he held an unofficial post, receiving no payment from the College. Digby, alongside Hungarian chemist Johannes Banfi Hunyades, constructed a laboratory under the lodgings of Gresham Professor of Divinity where the two conducted botanical experiments. At that period, public servants were often rewarded with patents of monopoly; Digby received the regional monopoly of sealing wax in Wales and the Welsh Borders. This was a guaranteed income; more speculative were the monopolies of trade with the Gulf of Guinea and with Canada. These were doubtless more difficult to police. Marriage and children Digby married Venetia Stanley in 1625. They had six sons: Kenelm Jr. (1625–1648), killed at the Battle of St Neots, 10 July 1648. John (1627–?), only son to survive Digby. He married and had two daughters. Everard (1629–1629), died in infancy. unnamed twins (1632), miscarriage. George (–1648), died of illness in school. In addition, there was a daughter, Margery. Born c. 1625, who married Edward Dudley of Clopton and had at least one child. She is never mentioned by Digby in his writings. She may have been the daughter of Edward Sackville, 4th Earl of Dorset and Venetia Stanley prior to her marriage to Sir Kenelm. The Earl of Dorset settled an annuity on her. There is some controversy and confusion about whether or not Venetia had affairs with both the third and fourth Earls of Dorset and, consequently, which Earl was the father of Margery. Catholicism and Civil War Digby became a Catholic once more in 1635. He went into voluntary