Venetia, Lady Digby
By Sophie Rhodes, University of Cambridge and National Portrait Gallery Collaborative Doctoral Partnership student
Venetia, Lady Digby (1600-33) was a celebrated beauty of the Stuart period. Muse to the poet and playwright Ben Jonson (1572-1637) and a sitter in numerous paintings by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), she captivated many with her ‘lovely and sweet-turn’d face’,[1] and her ‘modesty, sweetnesse and gentleness’.[2] She is mostly remembered today for the part she played in a great romantic story of the seventeenth century, as well as her turbulent love life and tragic death.
Venetia was born in 1600 to Sir Edward Stanley and Lucy Percy and was presented at the court of King James I during her teenage years. From a young age, she was the childhood sweetheart of Kenelm Digby (1603-65), a leading English courtier and diplomat whose father had been executed in 1606 for his part in the Gunpowder Plot. Much of what is known about the relationship between Venetia and Kenelm has arisen out of Kenelm’s memoirs, entitled Loose Fantasies.[3] This is by no means a straightforward factual account and much was likely embellished by Kenelm. Kenelm recalls that his mother disapproved of the match, and sent Kenelm on a European Tour in 1619. Before parting, Kenelm gave Venetia a diamond ring, and she in return gave him a bracelet made out of her hair. On his travels, Kenelm supposedly encountered Marie de’ Medici (1575-1642), who pursued him as a love interest. In order to escape her advances, Kenelm pretended to have died in battle. He sent Venetia letters reassuring her that he was alive, however Kenelm’s mother intercepted them. The couple reconciled a few years after his return to England, and married in secret. Following the birth of four children, Venetia tragically died in her sleep at the age of 33, possibly of a cerebral haemorrhage. Digby was inconsolable; he commissioned a deathbed portrait of her by Van Dyck,[4] as well as numerous other portraits. He kept her hair as a relic, made casts of her hands and feet, and commissioned the sculptor Hubert Le Sueur (c.1580-1658) to make a bronze bust.
Rumours of Venetia’s affairs spread during her lifetime. Kenelm details in his memoirs that upon hearing of his supposed death, Venetia was heartbroken, and a man called Mardontius (likely Edward Sackville, 4th Earl of Dorset), took advantage of Venetia’s grief and seduced her. Kenelm describes a duel he had with Mardontius, in which Kenelm triumphed and Mardontius was wounded. It seems likely Kenelm exaggerated this anecdote to portray himself as a chivalrous gentleman, able to win the heart of Venetia and defend his honour in a duel. Other seventeenth century accounts indicate that Venetia also had affairs with Richard Sackville and Sir Edmund Wylde. By the time the antiquarian John Aubrey wrote his biographical Brief Lives later in the century.
Venetia’s affairs were further exaggerated. He records that Venetia was ‘kept as his [Richard Sackville’s] Concubine’, and even had children with him. Aubrey states that Kenelm fell so much in love with her [Venetia] that he married her, much against the good will of his mother; but he [Kenelm] would say that ‘a wise man, and lusty, could make an honest woman out of a brothel-house.’’[5]
Kenelm wrote that once married, Venetia was modest and virtuous. After her death, he went to great efforts to portray her this way. The present painting is an allegorical portrait by Van Dyck and Venetia is depicted as Prudence. Curled around her wrist is a snake, the sign of wisdom, whilst her other hand rests on a dove, the symbol of innocence. The snake and dove are biblical references: ‘Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves’.[6] Her foot is placed on Cupid, to indicate the triumph of Chastity over erotic love; next to her is a semi-clothed figure chained up representing Fraud, indicating the victory of truth over deceit. Nothing about this portrait alludes to the gossip about Venetia’s love life. Kenelm expands in his writings about her virtuous qualities, mentioning her piety and devotion to Catholicism, as well as her charitable donations to the poor, which were apparently entirely funded by gambling. This was an unusual activity for a seventeenth century woman, and somewhat contradicts Kenelm’s description of Venetia as modest and virtuous.
Today, Venetia continues to be an inspiration for writers. Hermione Eyre’s Viper Wine (2014) is a historical fantasy novel about Venetia, which explores the circumstances surrounding her death. An autopsy was performed, which was unusual for the period. The physicians found her brain was damaged, and it has since been suggested that she may have suffered from a cerebral haemorrhage. What has caused intrigue about her death is Venetia’s consumption of ‘viper wine’, a concoction supposedly prepared for her by Kenelm to preserve her beauty. It has been speculated this killed her. Aubrey writes ‘she dyed in her bed suddenly. Some suspected that she was poisoned’ and that ‘spitefull woeman would say ‘twas a viper-husband who was jealous of her that she would steale a leape.’[7]
Venetia’s life is a tragic one; not only did she die young, but she has also been remembered almost exclusively for her supposed exploits prior to marriage. Kenelm, on the other hand, who is recorded as having affairs during his marriage, has a ‘reputation as the hero of one of the great love stories of the seventeenth century.’[8] Venetia’s life is often recounted as a moral one: a dishonourable but beautiful woman marries and redeems herself, becoming a virtuous wife. Yet there is much more to Venetia, and her charitable donations funded by gambling tell us that she was an intriguing woman full of contradictions.
Footnotes:
[1] John Aubrey, Andrew Clark (ed.), Brief Lives, chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey between the years 1669 & 1696, Oxford, 1898.
[2] Extract from a letter written by Kenelm Digby to his sons in May 1633 following Venetia’s death, published in Ann Sumner (ed.), Death, Passion and Politics: Van Dyck’s Portraits of Venetia Stanley and George Digby (London: Dulwich Picture Gallery), p. 37.
[3] Kenelm Digby, Loose Fantasies, ed. by Vittorio Gabrieli, Temi e Testi, 14 (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 1968).
[4] Now at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (DPG194).
[5] Aubrey, Brief Lives.
[6] Matthew 10:16
[7] Aubrey, Brief Lives.
[8] Sumner (ed.), Death, Passion and Politics: Van Dyck’s Portraits of Venetia Stanley and George Digby (London: Dulwich Picture Gallery), 1995, p. 37.
