calling) he could not have been married at the time when the young Everard and some of his 13 siblings were born, nor was he "Esquire", as the father is named in his inquisition post mortem of 1592. In 1596, while still a teenager, he married Mary Mulshaw (or Mushlo), a young heiress who brought with her Gayhurst House in Buckinghamshire. By all accounts their marriage was a happy one, and they had two sons; Kenelm Digby was born in 1603 at Gayhurst, and John in 1605. Unlike other English Catholics, Digby had little first-hand experience of England's recusancy laws. Following the death of his father he had been made a ward of Chancery and was raised in a Protestant household. His wife Mary was converted to Catholicism by the Jesuit priest John Gerard. When Digby fell seriously ill, Gerard used the occasion to convert him also, and the two subsequently became close friends, "calling eachother 'brother' when we wrote and spoke". Gerard was godfather to Digby's eldest son, Kenelm, and the Digbys also built a hidden chapel and sacristy at Gayhurst. Digby frequented the court of Elizabeth I, and became informally associated with the Elizabethan gentlemen pensioners. His marriage had significantly expanded his holdings, however, and possibly for this reason he left court to manage his estates. He was apparently an unforgiving landlord, as his tenants in Tilton petitioned the Crown for redress when he failed to honour the expensive leases granted them by his father. He added to his property in Buckinghamshire by buying land in Great Missenden, and a month after the queen's death his social station was elevated when on 24 April 1603 he was knighted by James I at Belvoir Castle. Four days later he was present for Elizabeth's funeral in London. Robert Catesby In late August or early September 1605, Digby, his wife Mary, and their secret Jesuit chaplain Edward Oldcorne joined a pilgrimage organised by, amongst others, Henry Garnet and Anne Vaux. The party had set out from White Webbs at Enfield Chase, heading for the shrine of St Winefride's Well at Holywell, and had occasionally stopped along the way to collect more followers. As the thirty or so pilgrims returned from Holywell in mid-September, they stopped at Rushton Hall where Sir Thomas Tresham had recently died, and then continued on to Digby's seat at Gayhurst. On 21 October Digby, his wife Mary,