CÆSAR'S TOWER, KENILWORTH
According to Scott's account, the unfortunate Amy, after falling completely into the toils of Varney, was carried back to Cumnor Place, and lodged in a tower room at the top of the building. A gallery, arranged by a secret contrivance to be used as a drawbridge, which, when dropped, would cut off all access to the chamber, was the only means of entrance or exit. After Amy had entered the chamber, Varney and Foster withdrew the supports of the bridge in such manner that the slightest weight would cause it to fall. Varney then reached the consummation of his villainy by imitating the whistle of Leicester. Amy, deceived by the signal and eager to meet her Lord, rushed upon the bridge and fell to the deepest vault of the castle. The method of the real Amy's death is not definitely known, but it was probably by no such elaborate invention. She was doubtless strangled in her room and her body carried to the foot of the stairs to suggest an accidental death.
Anthony Foster lies buried in Cumnor Church, which stands on land adjoining the site of Cumnor Place, near the entrance to the village on the road from Oxford. It is one of those stone churches, with square, substantial towers and ivy-clad walls, which add to the charm of the landscape throughout the length and breadth of England, as though she intended thereby to express both the beauty and the solidity of her religion.
The Foster tomb is an elaborate monument of grey marble, within the altar rail, and is easily the most noteworthy feature of the interior of the church. Two engraved brass plates represent the family at prayers, and beneath is a long inscription in Latin, indicating that Anthony Foster was a distinguished gentleman of good birth, skilled in the arts of music and horticulture, a good linguist and renowned for charity, benevolence, and religious fidelity. Looking upon this elaborate memorial, one cannot escape the conviction that Tony Foster was either a greatly maligned saint or the parent of a family of hypocrites. If the intention of those who composed the inscription was to convince the world of his innocence, they could not have been expected to foresee that, for every person who should read and understand the epitaph, ten thousand would be led to a perception of Foster's real character through the pen of a Scottish novelist, but for whom few of us would ever have known the sad story of the Lady of Cumnor Hall.
As for the Earl of Leicester, a more truthful epitaph exists, not indeed carved upon stone, but preserved in the Collections of Drummond of Hawthornden. It reads:—
Here lies a valiant warrior,
Who never drew a sword;
Here lies a noble courtier,
Who never kept his word;
Here lies the Erle of Leister,
Who govern'd the estates;
Whom the earth could never living love,
And the just Heaven now hates.
The escape of Amy Robsart from Cumnor Place was achieved through the aid of Wayland Smith, a blacksmith, pedler, and strolling juggler, who had picked up from a former master some knowledge of medicine which he employed to good advantage. There was a legend current in Berkshire of a mysterious smith, who lived among the rocks and replaced lost horseshoes for a fee of sixpence, feeling offended if more were offered. Scott used this tale as the basis of his story of Wayland Smith. The idea of having his smithy in a cave may have been suggested by just such a place in Gilmerton, a village on the outskirts of Edinburgh, with which Scott must have been familiar. I had no difficulty in finding it. It is an artificial cavern, with many ramifications, and as the light can enter only from the door at the head of a stone stairway, its farther corners are extremely dark. Near the entrance is a blacksmith's forge. In a small and dark alcove opposite is an oblong stone, evidently intended as a dining-table. A rough shelf or ledge, cut out of the stone partition, served as a bench at meal-times. Any of the dark corners could be used as sleeping-rooms. The cave was probably used by thieves or smugglers as a convenient hiding-place.