English family which for several generations was honorably represented by scholars and authors.—Leonard Digges, a gentleman of good family and some means; born at Barham, Kent; educated at Oxford; devoted himself to geometry and its practical applications during a life of retirement at his ancestral home; died in 1574. He was author of Tectonicum (1556), a work relating to the measurement of lands, stone, timber, etc., and of A Prognostication Everlasting of Right Good Effect; or, Choice Rules to Judge of the Weather by Sun, Moon, Stars, etc. (1555–56, 1564).—Thomas Digges, son of Leonard, educated at Oxford, seems to have had a military career, and became eminent as a mathematician. He died in 1595. Among his works were Alæ sive Scalæ Mathematicæ (1573), “an arithmetical military treatise, containing so much of arithmetic as is necessary towards military discipline,” and Stratioticos, an arithmetical, warlike treatise—teaching the science of numbers—with so much of the rules of equations algebraical and equations cossical as are requisite for the profession of a soldier.—Sir Dudley Digges, eldest son of Thomas; born 1583; died 1639; educated at Oxford; an accomplished politician and elegant writer; is chiefly remembered for The Compleat Ambassador, a collection of letters between the ministers of Queen Elizabeth respecting her projected marriage with the Duc d’Anjou, published in 1655, after his death. In 1610 he appears as a friend of the navigator Hendrik Hudson, contributing money to equip his fleet. In 1618 he was ambassador at Rome; 1621, member of Parliament; 1630, Master of the Rolls; and in 1631, one of a committee appointed to consider Virginian affairs.—Edward Digges, son of Sir Dudley; born in England, 1620; died in Virginia, March 15, 1675; a resident of Virginia; employed Armenians to introduce the culture of the silk-worm in the valley of the James River, and was governor of Virginia during a portion of the year 1655. He then went to England to adjust a controversy between that colony and Lord Baltimore.—Dudley Digges, another son of Sir Dudley; born 1612; died 1643; was author of a treatise on the Illegality of Subjects Taking Arms Against Their Sovereign.
