STORIES From SUSSEX
The Betrayal of Richard Woodman
Richard Woodman
The saddest day in the annals of the county was that day in June 1557
when ten natives of Sussex were burnt together at the stake at Lewes.
The most notable of them was Richard Woodman. His property yielded him
£900 a year in our money, he was prosperous and had a hundred men on his
farms, but his troubles began when in 1554 the vicar, having been a Protestant
under Edward the Fifth, turned Romanist and was publicly admonished by Woodman.
The vicar appealed to the magistrates, who committed the offender to the
King's Bench, where he remained for 18 months, after which he was transferred
to Bishop Bonner's cellar and repeatedly examined. Fully prepared to die
for his faith, Woodman demanded the due observance of law and order, and,
proving at last that he had not been arrested for heresy, he was released.
His success prompted his enemies to declare that he had made submission
to the Church, whereupon be went about the countryside preaching the Protestant
creed. His arrest was again ordered and six men arrived at his house for
the purpose. He demanded their warrant, and, finding they had not got it,
refused to be taken prisoner.
For six weeks he hid in a wood, having with him his Bible and his pen
and ink, and his devoted wife daily took him food. The hue and cry having
died down, he escaped to Flanders, but, "every day seeming seven years,"
he returned at the end of three weeks, hid in his own house, and eluded
arrest until he was betrayed by his father and brother, who feared that
his continued immunity would lose the brother property which he held for
a small debt of Richard's.
The series of examinations by bishops and experts was resumed, and the
skill of Woodman in pointing to irregularities in the steps taken to compass
his death again and again baffled his persecutors.
During his incarceration in Marshalsea Prison he wrote the famous account
of his experiences which appears in Fore's Book of Martyrs. Throughout his
long series of examinations he was bold to audacity and did not scruple
to reprimand his accusers.
He was finally condemned, and burned to death.
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