Richard Woleman or Wolman (died 1537) was an English churchman, Archdeacon of Sudbury from 1522; and the Dean of Wells [1] between 1529 and 1537. [2] [3] [4]
The Archdeacon of Sudbury is a senior cleric in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.
The Dean of Wells is the head of the Chapter of Wells Cathedral in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The dean's residence is The Dean's Lodging, 25 The Liberty, Wells.
In 1478 Wolman was a member of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He also studied abroad, being noted in the Oxford register as doctor of the civil law "of an [sic] university beyond the seas". He was principal of St. Paul's Inn, in the university of Cambridge, in 1510, and was made doctor of canon law in 1512. On 31 October 1514 he was admitted an advocate, and on 9 April 1522 collated to the archdeaconry of Sudbury. In 1524 he became vicar of Walden, Essex, and on 26 July of the same year canon of St. Stephen's, Westminster. [5]
Corpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guild of Corpus Christi and the Guild of the Blessed Virgin Mary, making it the sixth-oldest college in Cambridge. With around 250 undergraduates and 200 postgraduates, it also has the second smallest student body of the traditional colleges of the University.
Wolman appears to have been resident at court in 1525, and to have been an intermediary with the king, during the absence of Thomas Wolsey, in the matter of ecclesiastical preferments. He was made chaplain to the king Henry VIII in 1526, and a master of requests in attendance at the court, an office involving membership of the king's council. On 4 July 1526 he was presented to the living of Amersham, but he continued to reside at court. [5]
Thomas Wolsey was an English archbishop, statesman and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the King's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered, and by 1514 he had become the controlling figure in virtually all matters of state. He also held important ecclesiastical appointments. These included the Archbishopric of York – the second most important role in the English church – and acting as Papal legate. His appointment as a cardinal by Pope Leo X in 1515 gave him precedence over all other English clergy.
Amersham is a market town and civil parish within the Chiltern district in Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, 27 miles (43 km) northwest of central London. It is part of the London commuter belt. Amersham is 15 miles (24 km) from Aylesbury and 8 3⁄4 miles (14 km) from High Wycombe.
On 17 May 1527 Wolsey sat at his house at Westminster to hear the pleadings in the king's divorce suit. On this occasion Wolman was nominated by the king promoter of the suit. On 5 and 6 April 1527 he took the evidence of Richard Foxe as to Henry's protest against the marriage with Catherine of Aragon. On 31 May he brought forward this evidence and adduced arguments against the dispensing power of the pope. During the proceedings Wolman acted as a secret negotiator between the king and Wolsey. His reward was a prebend in St Paul's Cathedral (25 June) and a third share of the advowson of the first canonry and prebend void in St. Stephen's, Westminster. He is frequently referred to as a canonist of authority by the correspondents of the king and of Wolsey during the divorce proceedings. He was one of twenty-one commissioners to whom Wolsey, on 11 June 1529, delegated the hearing of causes in chancery. He was one of the signatories of the address to Pope Clement VII. [5]
Richard Foxe was an English churchman, successively Bishop of Exeter, Bath and Wells, Durham, and Winchester, Lord Privy Seal, and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Catherine of Aragon was Queen of England from June 1509 until May 1533 as the first wife of King Henry VIII; she was previously Princess of Wales as the wife of Henry's elder brother, Arthur.
St Paul's Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London. It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grade I listed building. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present cathedral, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed in Wren's lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the City after the Great Fire of London. The cathedral building largely destroyed in the Great Fire, now often referred to as Old St Paul's Cathedral, was a central focus for medieval and early modern London, including Paul's walk and St. Paul's Churchyard being the site of St. Paul's Cross.
Some time after 29 August 1529, and before 8 November following, when he was elected prolocutor of Convocation, Wolman was appointed dean of Wells. In October 1531 he was incorporated at Oxford. He sat on the Committee of convocation which on 10 April 1532 received the subscription of Hugh Latimer to articles propounded to him. On the following 30 June he was presented by the crown to the rectory of High Hunger (Ongar) in Essex. [5]
Hugh Latimer was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester before the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary he was burned at the stake, becoming one of the three Oxford Martyrs of Anglicanism.
High Ongar is a village and civil parish in the County of Essex, England. It is located a mile (1½ km) north-east of Chipping Ongar, 8 miles (13 km) west of Chelmsford and 6 miles (10 km) north-west of Brentwood.
Essex is a county in the south-east of England, north-east of London. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and London to the south-west. The county town is Chelmsford, the only city in the county. For government statistical purposes Essex is placed in the East of England region.
When, in October 1532, Henry VIII left England for an interview with Francis I of France at Boulogne, Wolman was one of the council exercising the royal power in London. On 19 March 1533 he was made canon of Windsor, As dean of Wells he signed the acknowledgment of the royal supremacy on 6 July 1534. He cultivated Thomas Cromwell's favour and supported the new queen Anne Boleyn. He signed a declaration, as a doctor of canon law, on the subject of holy orders in 1536. This was put forward in support of the recent religious changes, and bore the signature of Cromwell, as the king's vicegerent, at its head. When the Lincolnshire rebellion broke out, in the autumn of 1536, Wolman was appointed to act on the council of the queen Jane Seymour, during the contemplated absence of the king. [5]
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his cousin and father-in-law Louis XII, who died without a son.
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king.
Anne Boleyn was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII. Their marriage, and her execution by beheading, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation. Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Queen Claude of France. Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken off, and instead she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's wife, Catherine of Aragon.
Wolman signed, in 1537, the address of convocation to the king desiring his sanction to the Institution of a Christian Man . He died in the summer of 1537, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. He left a sum of money for the construction of a market cross and shelter at Wells, which was erected by 1542. He also founded an exhibition at Cambridge. [5]
Edward Foxe was an English churchman, Bishop of Hereford. He played a major role in Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and he assisted in drafting the Ten Articles of 1536.
Richard Pace was an English diplomat of the Tudor period.
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, KG was an English nobleman, active as a military officer in the north. He is now primarily remembered as the betrothed of Anne Boleyn, whom he was forced to give up before she became involved with King Henry VIII.
John Kite was successively Archbishop of Armagh, 1513–1521, and Bishop of Carlisle, 1521–1537.
William Knight was the Secretary of State to Henry VIII of England, and Bishop of Bath and Wells.
The Submission of the Clergy was a process by which the Catholic Church in England gave up their power to formulate church laws without the King's licence and assent. It was passed first by the Convocation of Canterbury in 1532 and then by the Reformation Parliament in 1534. Along with other Acts passed by the Parliament, it further separated the Church from Rome.
Richard Sampson was an English clergyman and composer of sacred music, who was Anglican bishop of Chichester and subsequently of Coventry and Lichfield.
Thomas Wynter or Winter was the Archdeacon of York, Richmond, Cornwall, Provost of Beverley, Dean of Wells Cathedral and the illegitimate son of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.
John Oliver was an English churchman, canon lawyer, courtier and Dean of Christ Church, Oxford.
Robert Shorton was an English churchman and academic, first Master of St John's College, Cambridge and Archdeacon of Bath.
John Chambers was an English Benedictine, the last Abbot of Peterborough and first Bishop of Peterborough.
Thomas Bedyll was a divine and royal servant. He was royal chaplain and clerk of the Privy Council of Henry VIII, assisting him with the separation from Rome.
Dr Richard Gwent was a senior ecclesiastical jurist, pluralist cleric and administrator through the period of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. Of south Welsh origins, as a Doctor of both laws in the University of Oxford he rose swiftly to become Dean of the Arches and Archdeacon of London and of Brecon, and later of Huntingdon. He became an important figure in the operations of Thomas Cromwell, was a witness to Thomas Cranmer's private protestation on becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, and was Cranmer's Commissary and legal draftsman. He was an advocate on behalf of Katherine of Aragon in the proceedings against her, and helped to deliver the decree of annulment against Anne of Cleves.
Peter Vannes was an Italian Catholic churchman who became a royal official in England, and Dean of Salisbury.
William Franklyn (1460–1556) was an English churchman, who became dean of Windsor.
William Benet was an English ambassador.
William Cliffe, Clyffe or Clyff was an English churchman and lawyer, dean of Chester from 1547.
William Buckmaster was an English cleric and academic, three times vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
Edmund Steward otherwise Stewart or Stewarde was an English lawyer and clergyman who served as Chancellor and later Dean of Winchester Cathedral until his removal in 1559.
