Arthur Agard

On the wall of the east cloister of Westminster Abbey, near the Chapter House entrance, is a decayed memorial to antiquary Arthur Agard and his wife Margaret. By 1683 the inscription was already very decayed and what can be seen of the present one was repainted in the 19th century but with errors. The Latin inscription can be translated:

Here lie, in hope of resurrection, Arthur Agard, who spent 42 years diligently researching the royal and ancient records which are preserved near to this spot, and Margaret his wife, who died 6 Sept. 1610 in her 82nd year. He, surviving her, in his 71st year, placed this here on 14 April 1611. He died, in his 80th year, in 1619. May God have mercy on us.

Earlier records give 62 as the number of years he was working on the state documents, which in his time were housed in the Abbey Chapter House, and he actually died in 1615.

He was a son of Clement Agard of Derbyshire and his wife Eleanor (or Elizabeth) Middlemore and was born at Foston in 1540. He was a deputy chamberlain of the Exchequer and one of the first and most active members of the Society of Antiquaries. Arthur was buried on 24th August 1615 and his nephew William proved his will. The date of death for Margaret is most probably 6th December and she was probably 62 rather than 82. In a pedigree at the Bodleian Library in Oxford she is called the daughter of George Butler of Bedfordshire.

The last male heir of the family of Agard of Foston died in the reign of Charles II and one of his co-heiresses married John Stanhope of Elvaston.

Further reading

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004

Burke's General Armoury.

His will is at The National Archives, Kew