Sir John Forster

Sir John Forster (c.1520–1602) was an English military commander and Warden of the Middle Marches.

Born about 1520, he was son of Sir Thomas Forster (d. 1527) of Etherston, Northumberland, marshal of Berwick, and his wife Dorothy, daughter of Ralph Ogle, 3rd Baron Ogle and Margaret Gascoigne. Trained from early youth in border warfare, he was in August 1542 put in command of Harbottle Castle with a garrison of a hundred men. He fought at the Battle of Solway Moss, 23 November 1542, under Thomas Wharton, 1st Baron Wharton, and claimed to have captured Robert Maxwell, 5th Baron Maxwell; Cuthbert Tunstall and Suffolk, however, determined that Maxwell's real captor was Edward Aglionby.

He fought also at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, 1547. Knighted by Protector Somerset in 1547, he was sheriff of Northumberland, 1549-50.

On 4 August 1563 he was appointed a commissioner to treat concerning the delimitation of the borders, and on 10 January 1565 to discuss the position of James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray and other Scottish exiles in England. In 1569 he assisted in suppressing the Rebellion of the Northern Earls, and in 1570 took punitive measures against the Scottish borderers who had helped them. In August 1572 he was ordered to have the Earl of Northumberland executed.

In July 1575 he was captured during a border fray and taken to Jedburgh. He was to meet the Scottish Warden, and make truce every so often. Forster, however, was known for cheating. His meeting with Sir John Carmichael turned into a battle, and he was defeated and captured. His lieutenant, Sir George Heron, among others, was killed. Forster was, though, immediately released by the Scottish regent, on Elizabeth's remonstrances.

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