Part 11

The rising of the commons of Kent in 1450 under their captain, Jack Cade, was the protest of people--sick of the misrule at home and of the mismanagement of affairs abroad--driven to take up arms against an incapable government that would not heed gentler measures.

It was not such a peasant revolt as Wat Tyler had led, this rising of the fifteenth century. It was largely the work of men of some local importance, and country squires were active in enrolling men, employing the parish constable for that purpose in a good many parishes.[70]

For years discontent had been rife. Henry VI., a weak, religious man, more fit for the cloister than the throne, had lost the great statesmen of the early years of his reign. The Duke of Bedford, good Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and Cardinal Beaufort were all dead, and Richard, Duke of York, by far the ablest man left among the nobles, had been banished to the government of Ireland. The Duke of Suffolk became the chief minister of the crown in 1445, and all the disasters of the war in France and of corrupt maladministration in England were laid at his door. Suffolk was responsible for the king’s marriage with the penniless princess, Margaret of Anjou, who, ambitious and self-willed, proved the worst possible counsellor for Henry. And the price of this marriage was the territories of Anjou and Maine, which were ceded to Margaret’s father, besides a heavy tax of one-fifteenth of all incomes demanded by Suffolk in payment for his expenses in arranging and carrying out the undesirable wedding. The years of Suffolk’s ministry saw nothing but defeat and disgrace as the hundred years’ war with France drew to its end. The victories of Edward III. and Henry V., and all the wealth of life and treasure poured out so lavishly by England, had come to nothing, and by 1451 all France save Calais was lost. Popular discontent turned to action early in 1450 against Suffolk and his fellow ministers. At the opening of parliament Suffolk was impeached as a traitor, along with Lord Say-and-Sele, the treasurer, and Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury; and Suffolk, without even demanding a trial by his peers, threw himself on the king’s mercy. Henry was satisfied with the banishment of his fallen minister for five years; but when Suffolk went on board, the sailors of the vessel that was to take him across seas decreed a capital sentence, and after a rough court-martial trial the Duke of Suffolk was beheaded on May 2nd in a small boat off the coast of Dover, and his body left on the sands. Four months earlier, Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, who had only just resigned the keepership of the Privy Seal, and was known as a supporter of Suffolk’s, had been slain by the sailors of Portsmouth, when he arrived at that town with arrears of pay long overdue to the troops. Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, survived till the end of June, and then, at the time when Cade was marching on London, he was dragged away from the very altar of Erdington Church, in Wiltshire, when he had said mass, and put to death on a hill there by the infuriated people of his diocese.[71]

Widespread as the discontent was in 1450, there was no general movement throughout the land as in the days when John Ball and his companions bound the peasants together by village clubs. Kent, “impatient in wrongs, disdaining of too much oppression, and ever desirous of new change and new fangleness,” was well organised for revolt, and the men of Surrey and Sussex were ready to bear arms with Cade. Outside these counties no one is found to have taken the lead against the government. Kent and Sussex had their own reasons for revolt, for piracy swept the English Channel unchecked, and the highways were infested with robbers--soldiers broken in the war; and they had their leader--Mortimer, whom some called “John Mendall” and others, later, Jack Cade. So by the end of May a full list of grievances and necessary reforms was drawn up, and the commons of Kent had, for the second time in history, risen in arms and encamped on Blackheath, resolute to get redress from the king for their injuries.

The success of democratic revolt depends largely on the clear courage of its leaders and the complete confidence of the people in those they elect for their captains. In 1450 Jack Cade proved himself both clear-headed and brave, and the men of Kent followed him whole-heartedly.

To this day we are still in the dark as to the real name and family of the Captain of Kent. He was known popularly as “Mortimer,” and was so described in the “pardon” he received. He was a man of some property, or he would not have been attainted by special act of parliament, nor have enjoyed the confidence of the men of substance who accepted his generalship. He was known as an Irishman and as a soldier in the French wars, and it is likely enough that he served under the Duke of York both in France and Ireland. His strong advocacy of the claims of York favours the notion of kinsmanship; but, on the other hand, York was by far the ablest statesman of the day, and to demand his recall to the king’s council was no guarantee of family motives.

There was some talk at the time that Cade was called John Aylesmere, and that he was married to the daughter of a Surrey squire at Taundede. But there is no more evidence for these things than for the charges made against him in the warrant for his arrest, that he had once killed a woman in Sussex and had then fled to France and fought with the French arms.

The undisputed high character of Cade’s followers is all against the portrait painted by the government after his death; when, anxious to blacken the good name of so resolute a leader, it was made out that he was merely a disreputable ruffian. The landowners of Kent and Sussex would never have accepted for their captain a mere swashbuckling blackguard. They rallied to him as a Mortimer, seeing in him a likeness to Richard, Duke of York.[72] If his real name was Cade, then he was probably a squire or yeoman, for Cade was no uncommon name round Mayfield and Heathfield in Sussex, and Cades were landed proprietors near Reigate as late as the seventeenth century.

It was enough that, chosen Captain of Kent, Cade, or Mortimer, was known and trusted as a brave, upright man of good character and ability.[73] Whether descended from nobles or of good Sussex stock was a small matter to men in earnest for the changes and reforms the country needed.

Ashford was the heart of the rising, and from Ashford the host marched to Blackheath, where, at the beginning of June, the camp was fixed. The army, estimated at 46,000, included 18 esquires, 74 county gentlemen, and some five clerks in holy orders, who were presently joined by the Abbot of Battle, the Prior of Lewes, and twenty-three county gentlemen from Sussex.

Cade at once explained that they must deal directly with the king if they were to get relief from their present burdens, and then set to work to draw up the bill of “the complaint and requests” of the commons of Kent, while the rank and file laboured “to dyke and stake the camp all about, as it had been in the land of war.”

But war had not yet been declared, and for the present discipline was loose in the camp at Blackheath.[74] “As good was Jack Robin as John at the Noke, for all were as high as pig’s feet; until the time that they should come and speak with such states and messengers as were sent unto them. Then they put all their power into the man that was named captain of all their host.”

On June 7th the king was at Smithfield with 20,000 soldiers, and messengers were promptly despatched to Blackheath to know the meaning of the insurrection. Cade answered by showing the petition he had drawn up, and mentioned that they had assembled “to redress and reform the wrongs that were done in the realm, and to withstand the malice of them that were destroyers of the common profit, and to correct and amend the defaults of them that were the king’s chief counsellors.” He then sent off the “bill of complaints” to the king and to the parliament then sitting at Westminster, “and requested to have answer thereof again, but answer he had none.” The “complaint” was received with contempt, and the opinion of the king’s counsellors was that “such proud rebels should rather be suppressed and tamed with violence and force than with fair words or amicable answer.”

Yet “the complaint,” which consisted of fifteen articles, was no revolutionary document. It contained protests against the royal threat to lay waste Kent in revenge for the death of the Duke of Suffolk; the diversion of the royal revenue raised by heavy taxation to “other men”; the banishment of the Duke of York “to make room for unworthy ministers who would not do justice by law, but demanded bribes and gifts”; the purveyance of goods for the royal household without payment; the arrest and imprisonment on false charges of treason of persons whose goods and lands were subsequently seized by the king’s servants, who then “either compassed their deaths or kept them in prison while they got possession of their property by royal grant”; the interference with the old right of free election of knights of the shire by “the great rulers of the country sending letters to enforce their tenants and other people to choose other persons than the common will is to elect”; the misconduct of the war in France, demanding inquiry and the punishment by law of those found guilty. Complaint was also made of various local grievances--the insecurity of property, the arbitrary conduct of the lords of the seaports, the extortion in taxation owing to sheriffs and under-sheriffs farming their offices, the fines exacted by sheriffs for non-compliance with the orders of the court of exchequer (whose writs were sealed with green wax) when no summons or warning had been given, and the “sore expense” incurred by there being only one Court of Sessions in the whole county.

Five “requests” were added to the bill of complaints. These expressed the desire of the commons that the king should reign “like a king royal”; that “all the false progeny and affinity of the Duke of Suffolk” should be banished from the king’s presence and brought to trial, and the Duke of York and his friends included in the royal council; that punishment should be meted out to those responsible for the death of the Duke of Gloucester; that the extortions practised daily by the king’s servants in the taking of goods from the people should cease; that the old Statute of Labourers for keeping down wages should be abolished; and that the “false traitors” and “great extortioners,” Lord Say and Crowmer, the sheriff of Kent, should be brought low.

In brief, the charter of the commons of Kent demanded the total expulsion of all Suffolk’s ministers and relatives from public service, the return of the Duke of York and his party to power, the suppression of the bribery, corruption, and extortion practised by the sheriffs and government servants, and the repeal of the Statute of Labourers.

It would have been well if Henry had heeded these complaints and requests. As it was he pushed on to Blackheath, in spite of murmuring in his army, and Cade, unwilling to risk a battle, and knowing that disaffection was at work in London, quietly withdrew to Sevenoaks. There was no spirit in the royal troops to suppress the rising, and many favoured the Captain of Kent. But two knights, Sir Humfrey Stafford and Sir William Stafford, kinsmen of the Duke of Buckingham and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and men of some military repute, decided to pursue the rebels and advanced to Sevenoaks with a small picked body of soldiers. Their defeat was complete. Both knights were slain, and those of their men who were not cut to pieces fled from the battle, or joined Cade’s host.

The result of this disaster to the royal plans was that Henry returned to London with an army that soon melted away, or broke into open disorder. Many of the nobles, who on receipt of the petition of the commons of Kent had called for violent measures against the rebels, now left the king, and, with their retainers, rode to their country estates. Henry, to appease the clamour of some of his own followers, ordered the arrest of Lord Say-and-Sele, the king’s treasurer, and of Sheriff Crowmer, and bade officers take them to the Tower. Parliament was dissolved, and Cade was busy in Kent gathering reinforcements, and doing what he could to repair locally the mischief of Suffolk’s rule before proceeding to London.[75]

As a last resource, Henry decided to treat with Cade by ambassadors, and on June 29th, when the commons were again encamped on Blackheath, came the Duke of Buckingham, and Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, for many years the king’s chancellor--a gentle old man, who, if he had made no stand against the misgovernment himself, was hardly to be blamed--to arrange, if possible, a peaceful settlement.

The conference came to nothing, for neither Buckingham nor the archbishop could promise Cade any positive redress of grievances, or the interview he sought with the king.

“These lords found him sober in talk, wise in reasoning, arrogant in heart, and stiff in opinions; one who that by no means would dissolve his army, except the king in person would come to him, and assent to the things he would require” (Holinshed.)

The failure of the mission was reported, and Henry, after appointing Lord Scales as guardian of the prisoners in the Tower, hastily fled to Kenilworth, although the lord mayor and citizens of London promised to stand by him if he would remain in the city. There was little of sovereignty in Henry VI., son of Henry V., the conqueror of Agincourt. Quiet he loved, and in religious exercises he found the satisfaction that others found in war and statecraft.

On the first of July the way was open for the commons to enter London. Suffolk, Bishop Moleyns, and Bishop Ayscough had all been summarily executed. Lord Say, the treasurer, alone remained of the discredited ministers. No opposition was offered to Cade by the citizens of London. The Common Council had discussed the rising, and at the Guildhall only one dissentient voice had been raised to the admission of the Captain of Kent to the city. One Horne, a stockfishmonger and alderman, alone objected to any recognition of the unlawful assembly of the commons, and he was sent to Newgate prison for safety, and on Cade’s entry fined 500 marks for his daring speech.

Negotiations had been opened between the City Council and the commons while the latter were at Blackheath, and Thomas Cocke (or Cooke),[76] a past warden of the Drapers’ Company, acted as the mutual friend of both parties. From Cocke the corporation learnt of Cade’s purposes, and that the city stood in no danger from the rising; and it was Cocke who carried instructions from Cade to the wealthy foreign merchants, requiring them to furnish horses, arms and money for his army.

“Ye shall charge all Lombards and strangers, being merchants, Genoese, Venetians, Florentines and others this day to draw them together: and to ordain for us, the captain, twelve [sets of] harness complete, of the best fashion, twenty-four brigandines, twelve battle-axes, twelve glaves, six horses with saddle and bridle completely harnessed, and 1,000 marks of ready money.”

So ran the summons, which was duly obeyed.[77] For Cade had added the stern warning that “if this demand be not observed and done, we shall have the heads of as many as we can get of them.”

The corporation had really no choice but to welcome Cade. Kings and nobles had fled, and here was the Captain of Kent with 50,000 men come to do justice at their gates. London had suffered as badly as any place from the misgovernment of the country, and it was plain the commons of Kent were no army of maurauders, for no complaint had been heard of their ill doing in Kent, and their captain had treated with full civility the Duke of Buckingham and Archbishop Stafford.

So the keys of the city were presented to Cade, and at five o’clock on the 2nd of July the Captain of Kent, mounted on a good horse, rode across London Bridge, followed by all his army. In Cannon Street, in the presence of Sir John Chalton, the Lord Mayor, and a great multitude of people, Cade laid down his sword on the old London Stone and declared proudly, “Now is Mortimer lord of this city.” At nightfall he returned to his headquarters, the White Hart, a famous inn in Southwark, and next morning was betimes in the city. That day sentence was passed on Lord Say-and-Sele and on his son-in-law, Sheriff Crowmer. They were removed from the Tower by Cade’s orders, taken to the Guildhall, tried and condemned for “divers treasons,” and for “certain extortions,” and executed forthwith. Say was beheaded at the standard in Cheapside, and Crowmer at Mile End, and so bitter was the public feeling against these two men, and so fierce the popular hatred, that their heads were carried on poles through the city, and made to kiss in ghastly embrace before being placed on London Bridge.

These, with a third man named John Bailey, who was hanged with Cade’s permission for being a necromancer and a dabbler in magic and the black arts, were the only persons put to death while Mortimer was lord of the city. At Southwark, where the commons were now encamped, as at Blackheath, theft in the popular army was treated as a capital offence, and two or three “lawless men” were hanged. It was inevitable if discipline and good order were to be obtained in so vast a company that punishment should follow sharp and swift on all who brought discredit on the rising.

Lord Say and Sheriff Crowmer being dead, the city fathers saw no further purpose in Cade’s lordship, and they dreaded being called upon to contribute to the support of his army, for they knew that Cade needed money for his men. To the everlasting credit of the commons no charge was laid against them of riot or disorder. The city was in their hands for three days, yet no harm befell the citizens. On their captain alone has blame fallen for the events of those days in July.

The difficulties of the man were immense. He had rendered no mean service to the state by calling attention to the ills that plagued the country, and proposing remedies. He had roused a large body of Englishmen to demand a better government, and by the sharp method of the times he had got rid of a bad minister and a corrupt sheriff, so that public life was at least the healthier for the deliverance from two of its oppressors. And now he had this army of 50,000 men, all needing food and shelter--an orderly, well-disciplined body, no mob of mercenaries--and the city of London, with all its wealth, gave him nothing.

Cade had to get supplies. The commons of Kent could not live on the good will of the London people. Their captain was forced to levy toll where he could. At present all he had received was the tribute from the foreign merchants and 500 marks from the fishmonger Horne.

On July 3rd, the night of Say’s execution, Cade supped with Philip Malpas, Cocke’s father-in-law. Malpas was one of Suffolk’s party, a King Henry’s man, unpopular in the city, and though an alderman and a draper, an expelled member of the city council. Warned by Cocke, Malpas got rid of his valuables before Cade arrived. But the Captain of Kent found certain jewels belonging to the Duke of York in the house, and these he carried off.[78]

The following night Cade supped with a merchant named Curtis (Ghirstis according to Fabyan, Girste according to Stow) in the parish of St. Margaret Pattens and before he left insisted on a contribution to the war chest. Curtis paid, but he resented bitterly the abuse of his hospitality. It seemed to him, as it seemed to his fellow merchants to whom he told the tale of his wrongs, sheer robbery, and the following morning (Sunday, July 5th), while Cade rested quietly at the White Hart in Southwark, the city fathers were busy shaking their heads over the business, and grave anxiety filled their minds. This might be but the beginning of pillage; there were always materials in London for a riot, apart from Cade’s army.

“And for this the hearts of the citizens fell from him, and every thrifty man was afraid to be served in like wise, for there was many a man in London that awaited and would fain have seen a common robbery” (Stow.)[79]

In the course of the day mayor and corporation were in consultation with Lord Scales, the Governor of the Tower, with the result that decision was made to prevent Cade and the commons from re-entering the city. London Bridge was at once seized and fortified by the citizens, and Matthew Gough, a distinguished soldier in the French wars, was placed in command.

Cade, knowing nothing of the hostility he had created, took his ease that day--it was the last peaceful Sabbath he was to know. Towards evening he gave orders for the King’s Bench and Marshalsea prisons to be opened, and their inmates--for the most part victims of official extortion and injustice--to be released. This was done, and certain “lawless men” convicted of disobedience were haled off to be hanged; to the end there was no relaxing of discipline.

Then came word that the passage of London Bridge was stopped, and the right of entry to the city barred against the commons as against a foe. Cade took this as a declaration of war, of the civil war he had done his best to prevent, and sallied out to force an entrance. At nine o’clock the battle began on the bridge, and all through the short summer night it raged, neither side effecting victory. “For some time the Londoners were beat back to the stulpes at St. Magnus corner, and suddenly again the rebels were repulsed and driven back to the stulpes at Southwark.” It was not till nine o’clock on Monday morning that the commons, wearied and disheartened, fell back from the fray, and Cade understood that the attack had failed, and that for the first time since the assembling of the people on Blackheath, at the end of May, a check had been given to the democratic movement. A hasty truce was settled between Cade and the mayor, that while the truce lasted the commons should not cross into London nor the citizens into Southwark. Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York, the king’s chancellor, who with old Archbishop Stafford had been left undisturbed in the Tower since the king’s ignominious flight, immediately decided that the time had come to arrange a settlement with the Captain of Kent.

Kemp sent messengers that day to the White Hart, asking Cade to meet the representatives of the king, “to the end that the civil commotions and disturbances might cease and tranquility be restored,” and Cade consented.

Kemp, who had himself presided at the trial and condemnation of Suffolk, brought to the conference, which was held in the church of St. Margaret, Southwark,[80] on July 7th, Archbishop Stafford and William Waynfleet, Bishop of Winchester. The chancellor, bent on making peace, also brought pardons to all concerned, duly signed and sealed. He listened courteously to Cade’s “complaints” and “requests,” received the petition, promised it should have the full consideration of parliament, and then announced a full pardon to all who should return home.

The proposals of the bishops won the general approval of the commons. There was nothing to be gained, it seemed, by remaining in arms, now they had won a promise that their charter should come before parliament.