Walter Aston, 3rd Lord Aston of Forfar

Walter Aston, 3rd Lord Aston of Forfar (1633 – 20 November 1714) was the eldest son of Walter Aston, 2nd Lord Aston of Forfar, and his wife Lady Mary Weston, daughter of Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland. He is best remembered today as a fortunate survivor of the Popish Plot.

He succeeded his father as Lord Aston of Forfar in the peerage of Scotland in 1678; he resided mainly at Tixall in Staffordshire.

He was twice married, first marrying the widow Eleanor Blount Knightley of Soddington in Worcestershire, England, widow of Robert Knightley, and daughter of Sir Walter Blount, 1st Baronet, and his wife Elizabeth Wylde, daughter of George Wylde, by whom he had four sons, and who died in 1674. He next married Catherine Gage, daughter of Sir Thomas Gage, 2nd Baronet of Firle in Sussex, who died in 1720.

Like his father, he was an ardent Roman Catholic, and succeeded to his father's role as the effective leader of the large Catholic community in Staffordshire. As such, he was a principal target of informers during the Popish Plot. His former steward Stephen Dugdale, whom he had dismissed for stealing money to pay his gambling debts, turned on him and gave perjured evidence which sent Aston to the Tower of London in 1679 on charges of conspiracy to kill King Charles II Dugdale was a charming, educated and plausible man, who made a noticeably different impression on the Government from the unsavoury parade of previous informers like Titus Oates, some of whom were notorious criminals, like Thomas Dangerfield. Even King Charles, who had up to then been entirely sceptical about the Plot, was so impressed by Dugdale that "he began to think there was something in it".

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