The following from a framed document in the church:
Richard Woodman was an ironworker employing a large number of men. In one of his examinations before Bishop Bonner, he says, "Let me go home, I pray you, to my wife and children, to see them kept, and other poore folke that I would set aworke by the help of God, I have set aworke a hundred persons ere this, all the yeare together."
At the beginning of the reign of Queen Mary he admonished his rector, one Fairbanke, "for turning head to tail" and preaching "clean contrary to that which he had before taught."
He was apprehended and by the Justices of the Peace of this county committed to the King's Bench. After being imprisoned for a time in Bishop Bonner's coal-house, he was set at liberty by that prelate.
He was however again taken, and after repeated examinations ("in all thirty-two from his apprehension to his condemnation,") he was burned at Lewes with nine others.
Extract from Foxe's book of Martyrs.
The arrest of Richard Woodman.
"But yet I got out and leapt down, having no shoes on.
So I took down a lane that was full of sharp cinders, and they came running after with a great cry, with their swords drawn, crying, 'Strike him, Strike him!' which words made me look back, and there was never one nigh me by a hundred; and all the rest were a greater way behind; and I turned around hastily to go my way, and stepped upon a sharp cinder with one foot, and saving of it, I stepped into a great miry hole, and fell down withal, and before I could arise and get away, he was come up to me. His name is Parker the Wild as his is counted in all Sussex."
1842 edition.
This framed print in the church is captioned
"THE BURNING OF RICHARD WOODMAN AND NINE OTHER PROTESTANT MARTYRS
Before the Star Inn, Lewes, Sussex on June 22nd 1557."
Here is the memorial to Richard Woodman in Warbleton Churchyard.
Digital photographs
Visitors to this album since June 2003
If you found this page using a search engine or other link, please use the icons below to link to one of the main sections of the Roughwood web site:
Please do not reproduce or store any of the pictures on this site without asking first.
