Roger Manwood
Sir Roger was the second son of Thomas Manwood (d. 1538, draper) and Katherine (d.1566, daughter of John Galloway of Cley, Norfolk).
Manwood was also, for some years prior to his elevation to the bench of the common pleas, steward, i.e. judge, of the chancery and admiralty courts of Dover.
In Parliament he supported the Treason Bill of 1571, was a member of the joint committee of lords and commons to which the case of Mary, Queen of Scots was referred in May 1572, and concurred in advising her execution.
He was one of the original governors of Queen Elizabeth's grammar school, founded at Lewisham in 1574, and in 1575 obtained an act of Parliament providing for the perpetual maintenance of Rochester Bridge, which, however, did not prevent its demolition in 1856, to make way for the present iron structure.
Manwood was joined with the bishops of London and Rochester in a commission of 11 May 1575 for the examination of foreign immigrants suspected of anabaptism.
In 1582, on the death of Sir James Dyer, chief justice of the common pleas, Manwood offered Burghley a large sum for his place, which, however, was given to Edmund Anderson.
In February 1584-5 he helped to try the intended regicide William Parry, and in the following June he took part in the inquest on the death of the Earl of Northumberland in the Tower, He was a member of the special commission which, on 11 October 1586, assembled at Fotheringay for the examination of Mary, Queen of Scots, and concurred in the verdict afterwards found against her in the Star Chamber (25 October) He also sat on the commission which, on 28 March 1587, found Secretary Davison guilty of 'misprison and contempt' for his part in bringing about her execution.
His disgrace, however, did not prevent his offering Burghley five hundred marks for the chief justiceship of the queen's bench, vacant by the death of Sir Christopher Wray.
[4] At the Inner Temple revels of Christmas 1561 Manwood played the part of lord chief baron in the masque of 'Palaphilos' [cf.
As a judge he was by no means disposed to minimise his jurisdiction, advised that the Treason Act did not supersede, but merely reinforced the common law, and that a lewd fellow, whom neither the pillory nor the loss of his ears could cure of speaking evil of the queen, might be punished either with imprisonment for life 'with all extremity of irons, and other strait feeding and keeping,' or by burning in the face or tongue, or public exposure, 'with jaws gagged in painful manner,' or excision of the tongue.
*] He was a friend of Sir Thomas Gresham and Archbishop Matthew Parker, and steward of the liberties to the latter, in concert with whom he founded at Sandwich the grammar school which still bears his name.
It was said of Manwood ... "A reverend judge of great and excellent knowledge of the law, and accompanied with a ready invention and good elocution""Five hundred in Kent would rejoice at his death""He is remembered as an exceptionally corrupt lawyer who gave vast sums to Kentish charities.
"Of 'corporations': "As touching corporations, that they were invisible, immortal and that they had no soul, therefore no supoena lieth against them, because they have no conscience or soul"Sir Roger provided a significant amount of money for the foundation in 1563 of Sir Roger Manwood's School in Sandwich, Kent, a free grammar school to bring education to the townspeople whose families could not afford it.
Besides his school, he built a house of correction in Westgate, Canterbury, gave St. Stephen's Church a new peal of bells and a new transept—that under which he was buried — and procured in 1588 a substantial augmentation of the living.
[6] Roger Manwood attracted the favourable notice of the queen who in 1563 granted him the royal manor of St. Stephen's, or Hackington, Kent, which he made his principal seat, rebuilding the house in "magnificent" style.
He was buried beneath an imposing marble monument, erected during his lifetime, in the south transept of St. Stephen's Church, near Canterbury.
The tomb also depicts Manwood's wives and children, and incorporates a wooded skeleton claimed to be the most realistic in the county.
The eulogy was discovered by J.P. Collier in the nineteenth-century, in a common-place book ("Miscellanea", 1640's, now Folger MS. 750.1) which was owned by another Kentish gentleman, Henry Oxinden.
Noctivagi terror, ganeonis triste flagellum, Et Jovis Alcides, rigido vulturque latroni, Urna subtegitur.
Insons, luctifica sparsis cervice capillis Plange, fori lumen, venerandae gloria legis, Occidit: heu, secum effoetas Acherontis ad oras Multa abiit virtus.
Pro tot virtutibus uni, Livor, parce viro; non audacissimus esto Illius in cineres, cuius tot milia vultus Mortalium attonuit: sic cum te nuntia Ditis Vulneret exsanguis, feliciter ossa quiescant, Famaque marmorei superet monumenta sepulchri.
In September 1589 Christopher Marlowe and his friend and fellow dramatist, Thomas Watson, were involved in an affray which resulted in the death of one William Bradley.
[11] Thomas Watson and "Christoferus Marlowe nuper de [Norton Fowlgate] yoman" were arrested and committed to Newgate prison on 18 September 1589, on suspicion of the murder of William Bradley in Hog Lane in the parish of St Giles without Cripplegate.
The inquest on Bradley's death was held the following day, but it was only nearly two weeks later, on 1 October, that "Christopher Marley of London, gentleman" was bailed.
His sureties for the sum of £40 were "Richard Kytchine of Clifford's Inne, gentleman, & Humfrey Rowland of East Smithfeilde in the county aforesaid, horner".
Roger Manwood was a friend of Matthew Parker, whose 'Parker scholarship' gave financial support to recipients studying at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
He was later Archbishop of Canterbury (1559–75) under Queen Elizabeth I. Roger Manwood's family was connected with the theatre scene of London, of which Marlowe was a notable figure.
