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242 THE SUSSEX COAST
Agnes Morley (1511), a Lewes lady who founded the Grammar School, which in 1885 was dissolved into exhibitions. "Item, if Andrew, Roger, Thomas or Clement bee a Relligious man, I will that his bequest shal bee divided amonges the remenaunt. Item, if anny of theym bee prestes, I wille that he shall not occupie my housyng, if anny of the other bee alive." How far such views were general in the capital at the time it would be difficult to say, but intending quite the opposite Queen Mary contrived to do much to spread them. At the end of High Street by the old Market Place was the famous Star Inn, on whose site the new Town Hall now stands, its chief interest being that it contains the old Jacobean oak stair from the mansion of the Coverts at Slaugham. It is double after the landing, the posts are very thick and heavy, with finials and, where possible, pendants; the rail rests on round arches, the shafts with Ionic caps. There are carvings representing the Continents, the senses, the virtues, the elements, &c. Just in front were burnt the martyrs to whose memory has recently been erected on the Down-side above the suburb of Cliff an obelisk of white granite, far more conspicuous than beautiful. John Foxe gives a lengthy account of "The history of ten true godly disciples and martyrs of Christ burnt together in one fire at Lewes anno 1557, June 22." The most famous of them was the iron-worker, Richard Woodman, who first got into trouble by pointing out that the parish priest of Warbleton, whose ministrations he attended, had turned head to tail and preached clean contrary to that which he had before taught. He was examined by John Christopherson, the Marian Bishop of Chichester, who seems to have been a |
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