58 Amye Robsart. 
with a long knife on one side and a cutlass on the other: in short, a 
compound of jailer, hangman and butcher. He too, meets with his 
reward in a way that is quite charming. ‘ When the alarm was 
given, the murderers fled and Tony wholly disappeared. Many 
years afterwards, in making some researches about Cumnor Hall, 
the eldest son and heir [who, by the way, never existed] discovered 
a secret passage closed by an iron door, descending to a cell: in 
which they found an iron chest containing a quantity of gold, and a 
human skeleton stretched above it. The fate of Anthony Foster 
was now manifest. He had fled to this place of concealment, for- 
getting the key of the spring-lock : and being barred from escape, 
he had there perished miserably. The groans and screams which 
had been heard were not wholly imaginary, but were those of this 
wretch who in his agony, was crying for relief and succour.” So 
half the world believes to this day. Now for the real facts. — 
Anthony Forster, or Forrester, Esq., was of an old Shropshire 
family, settled in Berkshire. His wife was Ann, neice of Lord 
Williams of Thame, Lord High Chamberlain in the reign of Philip 
and Mary. Mr. Forster rented Cumnor Hall of the Owen family, 
to whom it belonged, and was tenant of it at the time of Amye 
Robsart’s death, but purchased it soon after. His children all died. 
He was highly esteemed as a most honest gentleman, by his neigh- 
bours at Abingdon. He was sometimes sent for by the University 
of Oxford to assist in settling matters of controversy. He was a 
cultivator of the fine arts, a musician, a builder, a planter, and to- 
wards the close of his life was returned to Parliament for the Borough 
of Abingdon. In Cumnor Church there is a large brass plate to 
his memory, a rubbing of which I now exhibit. It has, from the 
accompaniment of coats of arms all the marks of gentility. He had 
always been a personal friend of Lord Robert Dudley’s and when 
Dudley was promoted to great honour, Mr. Forster was not only the 
principal receiver of his income, but was one of the chief controllers 
of the expense of a very stately and magnificent establishment. For 
with all his magnificence, the Earl of Leicester’s household and 
other expenses were kept in the most precise and careful. manner, 
At Longleat, there are some of the Inventories of his furniture, 
