Lewes Martyrs

From Wikipedia:

The Lewes Martyrs were 17 Protestants who were burned at the stake in Lewes, Sussex, England, between 1555 and 1557. These executions were part of the Marian persecutions of Protestants during the reign of Mary I.

On 6 June 1556, Thomas Harland of Woodmancote, near Henfield, Sussex, carpenter, John Oswald (or Oseward) of Woodmancote, husbandman, Thomas Reed of Ardingly, Sussex, and Thomas Avington (or Euington) of Ardingly, Sussex, turner, were burnt. ^[1][2][3]

Richard Woodman and nine other people were burned together in Lewes on 22 June 1557, on the orders of Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London — the largest single bonfire of people that ever took place in England.^[4][5] The ten of them had not been kept in the town gaol before they were executed but in an undercroft of the Star Inn. The Star Inn became Lewes Town Hall and the undercroft still exists.^[6]

Together with the Gunpowder Plot, the Lewes Martyrs are commemorated annually on or around 5 November by the Bonfire Societies of Lewes and surrounding towns and villages, including Lewes Bonfire.^[7]

Photo – The Martyrs’ Memorial, Lewes by Marathon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

From Foxes Book Of Martyrs

343. OTHER MARTYRS, JUNE 1556.

The death of William Sleek in the King’s Bench.

The last day of the said month of May, in the year aforesaid, William Slech, being in prison for the said doctrine of the Lord’s gospel, and the confession of his truth, died in the King’s Bench, and was buried on the back side of the said prison; for that the Romish catholic spiritualty thought him not worthy to come within their pope-holy churchyards, neither in any other Christian burial, as they call it.

In June next following, about the sixth day of the same month, four martyrs suffered together at Lewes, whose names were these: Thomas Harland, of Woodmancott, carpenter; John Oswald, of Woodmancott, husbandman; Thomas Avington, of Ardingley, turner; Thomas Read.

To Thomas Harland I find in the bishop of London’s registers, to be objected for not coming to church. Whereunto he answered, that after the mass was restored, he never had will to hear the same, because (said he) it was in Latin, which he did not understand, and therefore as good (quoth he) never a whit as never the better. John Oswald denied to answer any thing, until his accusers should be brought face to face before him; and neverthe-less said, that fire and faggots could not make him afraid: but as the good preachers which were in King Edward’s time have suffered and gone before, so was he ready to suffer and come after, and would be glad thereof.

These four, after long imprisonment in the King’s Bench, were burned together at Lewes in Sussex, in one fire, the day of the month aforesaid.

The martyrdom of Thomas Whood and Thomas Milles

In the same town of Lewes, and in the same month likewise, were burned Thomas Whood, min-ister, and Thomas Milles, about the twentieth day of the same month, for resisting the erroneous and heretical doctrine of the pretended catholic Church of Rome.