Various
Bygone Berkshire
Wallingford Castle
By J.E. Field, m.a
The Castle, to which Wallingford owes its importance through six centuries of our annals, may have had its origin in a primitive fortress belonging to the original settlement upon the river-bank. But its actual history begins in the reign of Edward the Confessor, who, according to Domesday, had fifteen acres here, where a body of his huscarles or military retainers lived; these acres being the same that Milo Crispin, the Norman lord of the Castle, was occupying at the time of the Survey.
Whatever fortress existed in Edward's day was held by Wigod, the kinsman and cupbearer to the King; and the fact that Wigod favoured the cause of the Norman Duke, coupled with the circumstance of an advantageous position on an important ford of the river, caused Wallingford and its Castle to become what they were in history.
Hither, in consequence of the welcome offered by the English Thane, William came after the Battle of Hastings, when London was fortified against him; and here he received the homage of Archbishop Stigand and the English nobles. Before moving back towards London he made the Norman influence secure at Wallingford by the marriage of his favourite chieftain, Robert D'Oilgi, with Wigod's daughter, who became eventually, if she was not already, heiress of the castle; for her only brother fell in battle, fighting by William's side against his son Robert. The King remained to take part in the festivities of the marriage, and ordered D'Oilgi to build a castle upon his new inheritance. In five years the castle was completed. D'Oilgi had an only daughter, Maud, who was married to another Norman chieftain, Milo Crispin, and after his death she became the wife of Brien Fitz-Count.
Tradition and history point to each of these lords in turn as having made additions to the castle which their father-in-law erected; for Crispin is said to have been the founder of the Collegiate Church in the southern precinct, and Fitz-Count is recorded as the builder of the famous dungeon called Cloere Brien, or Brien's Close, in the north-western precinct. Further additions and renovations were made in later times; but under these Norman owners the Castle must have extended itself to the dimensions which it retained to the last, and of which we can still trace the relics.
From the river bank a few yards above the bridge it is easy to form an idea of what the great Norman fortress was. The lofty mound upon which the Keep was built, perhaps a prehistoric tumulus in its origin, is still the most prominent object, though all vestiges of the tower and its outworks have now disappeared, giving place to a luxuriant growth of forest trees. Close beside this mound, traces of the southern moat are to be seen, opening out upon the ditch which still separates the castle grounds from the meadow beside the river. The broken ground rising within the ditch shows the line of the eastern front of the castle with its projecting bastions overlooking the river, though all that now remains is an ivy-covered ruin with the opening of a large window, known as the Queen's Tower. In the background, and more to the right, is another fragmentary ruin, forming a central portion of the north wall; while a modern boat-house marks the outflow of the moat at its north-eastern angle. From this point along the northern front a triple entrenchment is clearly shown by the undulations of the ground; the innermost ditch, close beneath the wall, being the moat of the Castle itself, while the second is the moat of the Castle precincts enclosing a space of intermediate ground on the west and south, and the outermost is the moat which enclosed the whole town; the three being brought close together in parallel lines along this side of the Castle. It must have been from this point of view, that Leland, in Henry the Eighth's reign, described the Castle as having "three dikes, large, deep, and well watered; about each of the two first dikes are embattled walls, sore in ruin and for the most part defaced; all the goodly buildings, with the towers and dungeon, be within the three dikes." Camden, who tells that "the size and magnificence of the Castle used to strike me with amazement when I came hither, a lad, from Oxford," describes it more accurately as "environed with a double wall and a double ditch."
South of the great mound and its protecting moat is the ruined tower and south wall of the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, now surmounted by a modern turret; and adjoining it are some fragments of the other buildings of the college, with a good doorway and some windows of perpendicular character. Beyond these ruins a large portion of the second moat is to be seen. The south-western angle of the precincts, with the banks of the moat well preserved before it and behind it, is occupied by the modern dwelling-house. Lastly, near the north-western angle, where this outer precinct ends, the site of Brien Fitzcount's dungeon is shown; and the remains of it, with massive rings fixed to the stonework, existed here within the present century.
If the Norman Conqueror himself gained no direct advantage from the castle which he required D'Oilgi to build, his policy certainly bore its fruit in the days of his grandchildren. In the civil wars of Stephen's reign Brien Fitzcount was a leading supporter of Maud, the daughter of Henry Beauclerk and widow of the Emperor Henry IV. of Germany. The escape of the Empress from Oxford Castle, her flight in white garments through snow and ice by night to Abingdon, and her safe arrival at Wallingford Castle, are a familiar tale, perhaps embellished through the ages, but well grounded in history. Stephen set up opposing forts across the river at Crowmarsh, and traces of them may still be seen on either side of the road near the eastern end of the bridge, while the meadow on the north is still called the Barbican.
Terrible stories are told of the sufferings endured by followers of Stephen who had the misfortune to become prisoners here under Fitzcount's custody; and for one influential prisoner, William Martel, the new dungeon of Brien's Close was made, from which he was only released on condition of delivering up the Castle of Shirburn and its adjacent lands as a ransom. Throughout the war Wallingford Castle under its indomitable lord was the most powerful of all the strongholds of the empress; and it was here, in a meadow beneath the walls, that the war was ended, through the treaty proposed by the Earl of Arundel, granting the kingdom to Stephen for his life and the succession to the Empress's son, Henry Plantagenet.
Brien Fitzcount took the cross and died in the Holy Land; his wife spent the rest of her life in a convent; their two sons were lepers; and the Castle of Wallingford passed to the new King, Henry II. The part which it had taken in the cause of the Empress and her son had its reward in the high position which it occupied under the Plantagenet Kings. Henry favoured the town with special privileges, apparently exceeding any that were granted elsewhere; and here, at Easter 1155, he held his first Parliament. At Henry's death, Richard Cœur de Lion, before starting for the Holy Land, gave to his brother John the Honour of Wallingford; and one of John's first acts of rebellion was to gain possession of the Castle also, which the King had left in charge of the Archbishop of Rouen. When the barons under the Earl of Leicester recovered it for the King, the Queen Dowager, Eleanor of Poitou, became its custodian; and it is probably from her that the ruined fragment of the east front bore the name of the Queen's Tower, and from her also, we must presume, the meadow in front of it was called the Queen's Arbour. The value which John set upon the place still continued when he became King, as we may infer from his frequent visits to it, and the additions which he made to its garrison. His younger son, Richard, Earl of Cornwall and afterwards King of the Romans, was made Constable at the close of John's reign; and the Castle and Honour was eventually bestowed upon him by his brother Henry III.
Earl Richard probably did more both for the castle and the town than any other of its lords. He lived here in great state, enriching the townsmen by the liberal expenditure of his wealth and by the hospitality with which he entertained the court and the nobles of the realm. Two years after he came into possession he built the great hall of the Castle, and though this has disappeared, some of the arches of the bridge survive, vaulted with massive ribs, which certainly belong to this period and are probably Richard's work. Here too he brought his second bride, Senchia of Provence, in 1242, when the King and his court took part in sumptuous festivities to welcome her. He was elected King of the Romans in 1256, but the subsequent coronation at Rome, which would have made him German Emperor, never took place. Afterwards, when he was absent in Germany, the barons under Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, were rebelling against the King, and Wallingford Castle fell into their hands. The Countess of Leicester was residing here in 1262, when the Earl visited her and a hundred and sixty-two horses were picketed within the Castle walls. The next year Richard was again in possession, and repelled successfully an assault of the barons; but after the disastrous battle of Lewes in 1264, it fell into Leicester's hands once more, and both Richard and the King, as well as Prince Henry, the son of Richard, were prisoners in it. The two Kings were removed to Kenilworth; but the next year, when Prince Edward, the King's son, defeated the barons at Evesham, King Henry was restored to his throne and Richard returned to his Castle. He died in the spring of 1272, and Wallingford Castle, together with the earldom of Cornwall, passed to his son Edmund. The new earl maintained the magnificence of his father. At the close of the year he introduced his bride, Margaret de Clare, sister of the Earl of Gloucester, with a splendid entertainment; he frequently received as a guest his cousin, King Edward I.; and he so largely augmented the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas in the Castle that he is often called its founder. When he died, in 1299, Wallingford fell to the King. Immediately upon the accession of Edward II., the Earldom of Cornwall, with the lordship of Wallingford, was bestowed upon his unworthy favourite, Piers de Gaveston, who married Earl Edmund's widow; but his insolent career was cut short by the Earl of Warwick, under whose custody he was beheaded at Blacklow Hill. Another of the King's favourites, Hugh Despencer the younger, held the Castle and Honour for a time, until, in 1326, he fell a victim to the vengeance of Queen Isabella, who was now in open rebellion against her husband. She had already become possessed of the Castle, and eventually bestowed it upon her paramour, Roger Mortimer. Then followed the horrible murder of Edward II. at Berkeley; then Mortimer paid the penalty of his crimes at Tyburn, and Isabella became a prisoner at Castle Rising. Edward III. erected the earldom of Cornwall into a dukedom, and Parliament settled it in perpetuity upon the sovereign's eldest son, the Castle and Honour of Wallingford being one of the possessions by which the princely dignity was to be supported. Thus the Black Prince became its lord for forty years. After his marriage with Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, in 1361, this was their most frequent place of residence. Here also the princess remained during the nine years of her widowhood, and here she died, and probably was buried, in 1385. Meanwhile the Black Death had visited the town in 1343; the population had been greatly diminished; several of the fourteen churches had been closed, never to be re-opened; the prosperity and attractiveness of the place was gone, and the Castle was no longer chosen as a favourite residence of royalty. But when it reverted to the crown at the death of the Princess, it was kept up as a military fortress of the first rank, under a constable appointed by the king, and its prominence in history was scarcely lessened. John Beaufort, the son of John of Gaunt, became constable in 1397, and two years later Thomas Chaucer was appointed. He was the reputed son, probably the step-son, of Geoffrey Chaucer the poet, and was almost certainly, like his predecessor, of royal but illegitimate parentage. Under his custody, the youthful Queen Isabella of Valois, the affianced bride of Richard II., was protected at the time of Bolingbroke's invasion, until Richard became a prisoner and the Castle surrendered to the usurper, when the child-queen was carried from one place to another, and at last, in her fourteenth year, returned as a widow to her home in France. A letter of the new King, Henry IV., to his council, relating to Queen Isabella's departure, is dated from Wallingford in 1402. Chaucer was still the constable when the Castle and Honour were settled by King Henry V. upon his bride, Katherine of Valois, at their marriage in 1420. Two years later, the infant King Henry VI. succeeded to his throne, and in 1428, when he was taken from his mother's care, the Castle of Wallingford was assigned to him as one of his summer residences, under the guardianship of the Earl of Warwick. Chaucer died in 1434, and William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, his son-in-law, appears to have succeeded him as constable of the Castle. Here Suffolk had under his charge an important captive, Owen Tudor, an esquire of the body to the king, as he had been previously to Henry V. with whom he had fought at Agincourt; and here in his dungeon a secret marriage is said to have taken place between Tudor and the Dowager Queen Katherine, who had long been attached to him, the ceremony being performed by a priest who was his fellow-prisoner, while a servant who attended him was the only witness. Suffolk, now raised to a dukedom, was accused by the populace of betraying his country to the French and preparing to fortify Wallingford on their behalf; and while the King befriended him, he was barbarously beheaded at sea; but his widow Alice, Chaucer's daughter, was made custodian of the Castle in his place. The House of Lancaster had raised Alice de la Pole to her dignities and honours; yet when the commencement of the Wars of the Roses favoured the rival house, she at once transferred her support to the Yorkists. In 1461, Edward of York became King, and the reward of Alice's faithlessness was the marriage of the young Duke, her son, with the lady Elizabeth, the King's sister, while she herself retained her Castle. There the heartless duchess and her son received under their custody the ex-Queen Margaret of Anjou, who had been the friend and patroness of her youth, but who now remained for five years her prisoner, until in 1476 her ransom was paid, and she returned to France.
In the events of the succeeding years there is little of immediate connection with Wallingford. Lord Lovell, who had been a ward of the Duke of Suffolk, was made constable by Richard III., but he fled to Flanders when his master fell at Bosworth. Henry VII. reinstated Suffolk in the office, which he held for life, in spite of the rebellion of his son, Lord Lincoln, whom Edward IV., his uncle, had designated as his heir. After him the office was held for a time by Arthur, Prince of Wales. On one occasion at least, in 1518, Henry VIII. and his Court appear to have been residing here. Some twelve years later he entirely renovated the College of St. Nicholas; to which shortly afterwards "a fair steeple of stone," as Leland describes it, was added by Dr. Underhill, the Dean. No new appointment to the office of constable appears until 1535, when it was granted to Henry Norris, a nephew of the Lord Lovell who had held it fifty years before; but after six months he fell a victim to the King's displeasure and died upon the scaffold. In 1540 an Act of Parliament separated the Castle and Honour from the Duchy of Cornwall and annexed it to the Crown.
Edward VI. dissolved the College, and its buildings were shortly afterwards dismantled, together with those of the Castle-Keep and the Gatehouse. In the next reigns the lead and stones were conveyed in large quantities to Windsor Castle to be used in repairs and in building the Poor Knights' lodgings. Yet the main fabric of the Castle remained, and was used for the imprisonment of heretics in the early years of Elizabeth. During all this time Sir Francis Knollys was constable, having been appointed to the office by Edward VI. in 1551. In the latter part of Elizabeth's reign he was succeeded by his son, Sir William, who became Viscount Wallingford under James I., and Earl of Banbury under Charles I.
We come now to the closing scene. The Castle was strongly fortified by King Charles at the commencement of the Civil War, and Colonel Blagge, an officer of distinguished courage in the King's army, was placed in charge of it, the King coming for a day and night to inspect the fortifications in 1643. Three years later, when every other castle had been captured except Raglan on the Welsh border and Pendennis in Cornwall, Wallingford still held out for the King's cause. The town was closely surrounded by the troops of the Parliament; but as long as there was any possibility of resistance the Governor refused to yield. For sixty-five days the resistance lasted, and only five of the garrison had fallen. At last, when all supplies were exhausted, Colonel Blagge consented to make terms with Fairfax; and on July 29th, 1646, he was permitted to lead out his officers and men with flying colours and martial music as if they had been the victors. The Castle was a state prison during the remainder of the war, but the old sentiment seems to have lingered about the place to the last. In 1652 a conspiracy was detected for delivering it up to King Charles II., for which a soldier of the garrison was condemned to death, and an order was issued for the demolition of the building.
The last of the line of constables was Edmund Dunch, appointed by his cousin Oliver Cromwell, who also created him Baron Burnell of East Wittenham in 1658; but Dunch became a strong supporter of the King's restoration. The demolition had then been effected, and part of the materials were used in building the tower of St. Mary's Church. During the eighteenth century the estate was let on lease, and afterwards sold to private owners by the Commissioners of the Crown; while the broken fragments which are left of the Castle tell the story of the completeness of its ruin, and serve as a memorial of its ancient greatness.
Cumnor Place and Amy Robsart
By H.J. Reid, f.s.a
A Benedictine abbey was founded as is well known at Abingdon, in the seventh century, and to this rich and powerful monastery, Cumnor appears from the very first to have belonged. Its earliest mention is found in the "Chronicles of the Monastery of Abingdon," in which "the book," probably a register or cartulary is repeatedly referred to.
Cumnor according to Dugdale is derived from Cumanus, second abbot of Abingdon, who died circa 784, but Dr. Buckler, author of "Stemmata Chicheleana," and keeper of the Archives of Oxford University, who was vicar of Cumnor for twenty-five years, suggests St. Coleman or Cuman, an Irish or Scottish saint, who lived in the sixth and seventh century. As early as the year 689, Colmonora is mentioned in a Latin deed in the Abingdon Chronicle, twenty hides of land there being conferred upon the Abbey by a Charter of Ceadwalla, and again in a similar deed, being a Charter of Kenulph, dated 851, in which is an illuminated portrait of that King. An Anglo-Saxon boundary attached to Eadred's confirmation Charter to Abingdon in 955, mentions Cumnor, as does also a subsequent charter of Edgar, 968, which also has a carefully defined boundary attached to it, and the biography of St. Ethelwold, who refounded the Abbey after its destruction by the Danes, 240 years after the original foundation of Abbot Heane. It is very improbable that these documents are authentic. They may possibly be copies, but are more probably forgeries, made for various purposes in later years, based in many instances doubtless upon the fabulous history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who died about 1154, leaving what was professedly the translation of a work in the British tongue made at the request of Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. It contains perhaps a modicum of fact, but is not dependable; it has been largely drawn upon by later so called historians and romancers. Nevertheless there is every reason to believe that Cumnor from the very earliest times belonged to Abingdon Abbey, its name in early documents being written Cumenoran, and the Church is known to have been one out of but three spared by the Danes, when they ravished the district around and destroyed Abingdon in the reign of Alfred the Great.
The Norman Conquest has left us more certain and dependable records. From the survey of Domesday we ascertain that Comenore in 1086 contained thirty hides of land, having been rated tempore Regis Edwardi, at fifty hides. It will be remembered the early English Charters gave twenty hides as its extent, so that the Manor had by this time been either added to, or the hidation varied, possibly both. The Manor maintained sixty villani, sixty-nine bordarii or freemen, with four servi or bondsmen; the Church is mentioned, as also two fisheries of the value of forty shillings yearly. Sevacoord, or Seacourt, and Winteham probably Wytham, were a portion of Cumnor which is the first manor mentioned in Domesday Book, belonging to the Abbey of Abingdon, and in evidence of ancient right it is expressly written there: – "Semper fuit de Abbatia." Cumnor Church is again alluded to in a Papal Bull dated 1152, but there are now no visible traces of this edifice. The present church which underwent thorough restoration some forty years ago, having previously suffered by injudicious alterations at various times, is of the Transition period, the most ancient portion being the tower, according to the dicta of ecclesiastical architects, not erected before the year 1250. Many objects of great interest to the Archæologist are yet preserved in and about the church, despite the more recent restorations. Among others, are two stone coffins, enclosing the remains of former Abbots of Abingdon, two piscinæ, and of yet more recent date the tomb of Anthony Forster, of whom I shall have something to say presently. Some of the stone carvings within the church, are of great delicacy, being remarkably fine examples of fourteenth century work, in the shape of two corbels, the capitals of three columns, a window, and the portion of an arch.
In the chancel are some poppy heads, carved upon both sides; on one is the sacred monogram I.H. S. upon a shield, upon another the five stigmata, i. e., the pierced feet, the hands, and heart of the Saviour, also a cross; upon the reverses are also carved the crucifixial emblems, – the ladder, spear, and reed or staff, to which is affixed a sponge; there are also the hammer, pincers, and three nails. Upon the upper shield are the Vestments, the crown of thorns, and bag of money.
A letter referring to Cumnor Church during the Civil Wars, written by a member of the Pecock or Peacock family is printed in Mercurius Academicus. This family held the Manor at that period, Richard Pecock compounding for his estate by paying the considerable sum of £140. Many of the family lie buried in Cumnor Church, and the school is mainly supported by the legacy of a Mrs. Peacock.
The letter refers principally to the conduct of certain soldiers, who, finding nothing worth removing, took down the weathercock, "that might have been left alone to turn round," and did much other damage. The letter is dated Thursday, February 26th, 1644, and is as follows: – "To present you with as honest men as those of Evesham and honeste you will not deeme them to be when you heare they came from Abingdon, to a place called Cumner in no smaller a number than 500; where the chieftains view the church, goe up into the steeple and overlook the country as if they meant to garrison there, but finding it not answerable to their hopes and desires they descend, but are loathe to depart without leaving a mark of their iniquitie and impiety behind them. Some they employ to take down the weather cock (that might have been left alone to turn round), others take down a cross from off an isle of the church (and this you must not blame them for they are enemies to the cross), others to plunder the countrymens' houses of bread, beare, and bacon, and whatsoever else was fit for sustentation."
There is also copied in a late seventeenth century MS. volume in the British Museum, (Harl. 6365, 53 b.), an epitaph, which, I believe, may yet be seen in the church, and is rather quaint and curious.
From the same MS.,2 I copied a description of Anthony Forsters monument. "In ye chancell against ye north wall, a great marble monument with pillars of marble. On a plate of brass faced to it ye picture of a man in armour, kneeling before a table upon a book. At the foot thereof, his helmett, at ye sides his gauntletts, over against him his wife kneeling, as her husband. Behind her three children, between them this coat; 3 Bugles, Q, 3 phœons, points upwards, with mantling and crest, which is a stag, lodged, and regardant. Gu. charged on ye shoulder, with a martlett, or, and pierced thro' ye neck with an arrow, ar. Behind the man this coat; 3 Bugles, Q., 3 phœons, points upwards, impaling 2 organ pipes in saltere between 4 crosses, paty. Then follow the quarterings. Behind ye woman is this coat: Williams. Az. 2 organ pipes in saltere between 4 crosses, paty. Quarterings as before described. Under them both a great brass plate, on ye part of it under him the following verses – ." These need not now be recorded; they will be found in Ashmole, and also translated in most editions of Scott's Kenilworth. They record his many accomplishments and virtues, and relate he was wise, eloquent, just, charitable, learned in the classics, in literature, music, architecture, and in botany. The date of his death is not mentioned, his burial however is recorded as taking place Nov. 10th, 1572, by the parish register, which cannot err.
He is therein mentioned as A.F., gentleman, the last word being written over an erasure, and it has been thought by some, that an epithet not so complimentary had previously been placed there, but erased, and "gentleman" substituted. I see no reason for such a suggestion; possibly some latin term may originally have been written, e. g., "miles," and the English word "gentleman" was thought more appropriate. At any rate, Anthony Forster was buried at Cumnor, Nov. 10th, 1572. Cumnor Place, Forster's residence, was an early fourteenth century house, used as a residence by the Abbots of Abingdon, and also as a place of removal or sanitorium by the monks, particularly during the plague, or black death, which decimated England under Edward III. At this period, it served both as rectory and manse house, where tithe and rents were paid, and Manorial Courts held, and where tenants were bound to attend to do suit and service for their lands to their superior lords. Such was Cumnor Place, until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. In 1538, it was granted for life by the Crown to Thomas Pentecost or Rowland, last Abbot of Abingdon, in consideration of his having willingly surrendered the Abbey and its possessions to the King. Rowland either died the following year or ceded Cumnor Place to the King, who seems to have retained possession for seven years, when, by patent, dated Windsor, Oct. 8th, 1546, the Lordship, Manor, and rectorial tithes of Cumnor, with all its rights and appurtenances, particularly the Capital Messuage, Cumnor Place, and the close adjoining, called the Park, and three closes called Saffron Plottye, etc., were granted to George Owen, Esq., the King's physician, and to John Bridges, doctor in physic, in consideration of two closes in St. Thomas' parish, Oxford, the site of Rowley Abbey, and the sum of £310 12s. 9d., cash. William Owen, son of Dr. Owen, married, April 24th, 1558, Ursula, daughter of Alexander Fettiplace, the estate being then settled upon him. Shortly afterwards, Cumnor Place was leased to Anthony Forster, and it was in his occupation when occurred the tragic incident which forms the concluding scene in Sir Walter Scott's Kenilworth, the death of Amy Robsart, wife of Sir Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester.
In the following year, Anthony Forster purchased the property from Owen, and seems to have greatly enlarged and otherwise improved the mansion. Dying in November, 1572, he devised the estate to Dudley, subject to a payment of £1,200 to Forster's heirs. These conditions, its seems the Earl accepted, but retained possession for a single year only, as is proved by a document among the Longleat papers purporting to be a record of the sale of Cumnor by the Earl of Leicester, to Harry le Norris, ancestor of the Earls of Abingdon, which bears date 15th February, 16th Elizabeth, 1575.
From this time Cumnor seems to have gradually fallen into decay. Possibly the sad end of Lady Dudley may have contributed to this; at all events, rumours were spread among the villagers that her ghost haunted the locality, and a tradition is even yet received by them that her spirit was so unquiet that it required nine parsons from Oxford to lay the ghost, which they at last effectually did, in a pond hard by, the water in which does not freeze it is said, even in the most severe winter. This pond is still shown by the villagers, although they are quite unable to assign any reason for the peculiar conduct of the ghost.
Neglected for nearly a hundred years, a portion of the ruined mansion was then converted into a malthouse, afterwards into labourer's dwellings, and finally demolished in 1810, for the purpose of rebuilding Wytham Church. Among other mementoes of its former owner was an arch bearing upon the label the inscription "Janua Vitæ Verbum Domini. Anthonius Forster, 1575." This, with some handsome tracery windows, was removed to Wytham, the arch being built into the entrance wall of the churchyard. The date and name were for some reason destroyed, possibly to evade an apparent anachronism, for Anthony Forster had been dead two years in 1575. These windows and other objects of interest were engraved in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1821.