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178 KIPLING'S SUSSEX
continued during the next fifteen years ; until in 1587 the Earl of Warwick made an agreement with the gunfounders that a fixed quantity of cannon should be cast annually for the Government, and that the work should be distributed equally among them. They, on their part, undertook that no ordnance should be sold except in London, and to such merchants " as my lord or his deputy should name." This was brought about by the fear of the Spaniards.
Other branches of the iron trade were not neglected; church bells, tombstones and fire-backs were made in great abundance. In the museum of the Sussex Archaeological Society at Lewes, the collection of Sussex ironwork is worthy of inspection. One seventeenth century fireback to be seen at Lewes represents a Sussex iron-founder and the implements of his trade. In this the ironfounder is seen with his immense hammer, and his faithful hound is jumping up to him. The inscription on it reads: " Richard Leonard, at Brede Fournis, 1636."
Richard Woodman, one of the ten Sussex martyrs burnt at Lewes, was an ironmaster at Warbleton. He says, in one of his examinations before the Bishop of Winchester, " Let me go home, I pray you, to my wife and children, to |
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