Agarde, Arthur (1540 -1615)
Arthur Agarde ,the son of Clement Agarde of Foston in Derbyshire, and Eleanor Middleborough, was educated at Queens' College Cambridge, where he was admitted a sizar at Michaelmas 1553. Bred to the law, he was employed for many years as a clerk in the Exchequer, of which he became Deputy Chamberlain 11 July 1603. An industrious antiquary, he compiled many catalogues of old deeds and wrote on English antiquities, making a special study of Domesday Book. He was a member of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries, and a friend of Sir Robert Cotton. Five folio volumes of collections by Agarde are among the Stowe manuscripts in the British Library, others are among the Harleian manuscripts, a few are in the Ashmolean collection at Oxford, while a French treatise 'Advertissements pur vn roy ou prince' , dated 1612, is in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. The majority, however, he bequeathed to Sir Robert Cotton, and they are now in the British Library. He and his wife were buried in Westminster Abbey. Her christian name was Margaret, and her arms and crest suggest that her surname was Butler.