Читать книгу The Story of London - Henry B. Wheatley - Страница 7

‘Whan Adam dalf and Eve span,

Wo was thanne a gentilman,’

and he kept his audience enthralled with his eloquence.

Messengers were sent by the King to demand the cause of the rising, and brought back the answer that the Commons were gathered together for the King’s safety. The King’s mother—Joan, Princess of Wales, and widow of Edward, the Black Prince, who had been on a pilgrimage to the shrines of Kent—was allowed by the rebels to enter the city.

Mr. Trevelyan tells us how a conference was proposed: ‘The rebels invited the King to cross the river and confer with them at Blackheath. He was rowed across in a barge accompanied by his principal nobles. At Rotherhithe, a deputation from the camp on the moor above was waiting on the bank to receive them. At the last moment prudence prevailed, and Richard was persuaded not to trust himself on shore. The rebels, shouting their demands across the water, professed their loyalty to Richard, but required the heads of John of Gaunt, Sudbury, Hales, and several other ministers, some of whom were at that moment in the boat. The royal barge put back to the Tower.’[40]

Stow tells us that the watchword of the peasants was ‘With whom hold you?’ and the answer was ‘With King Richard and the true Commons.’ The Chronicler adds: ‘Who could not that watchward, off went his head.’

Mr. James Tait, the author of the excellent life of Wat Tyler in the Dictionary of National Biography, mentions ‘a Proclamation in Thanet Church, on the 13th June, [which] ran in the names of Wat Tyler and John Rackstraw, but the St. Albans insurgents who reached London on Friday the 14th were divided as to which was the more powerful person in the realm, the King or Tyler, and obtained from the latter a promise to come and shave the beards of the abbot, prior and monks; stipulating for implicit obedience to his orders.’

The men of Essex were outside Aldgate in great numbers, and as the day advanced the leaders became fearful as to their condition. They had no means of breaking into the city, and if they remained long where they were they would inevitably have been starved.

‘Walworth guarded the bridge, and sent to the peasants, bidding them, in the name of the King and the city, come no nearer to London.’[41] If there had been no treachery it would have been easy to keep the rebels outside till they were forced by hunger to desist from their endeavours to enter, for time was on the side of the besieged, but the peasants had friends and well-wishers within, and the city being divided against itself, fell.

Mr. Trevelyan writes: ‘A committee of three aldermen rode out to Blackheath to deliver [Walworth’s] message. Two of them, Adam Carlyll and John Fresh, faithfully performed their mission. But the third alderman, named John Horn, separated himself from his two colleagues, conferred apart with the rebel leaders, and exhorted them to march on London at once for they would be received with acclamation into the city. After this treachery he did not fear to return to the city, and brought some of the peasants with him and lodged them in his house. He even advised Walworth to admit the mob.’[42]

The rioters burnt the Marshalsea prison, situated in the High Street, Southwark, and set the prisoners free. Others gutted Lambeth Palace to show their hatred of the archbishop, but he was not there.

On Thursday morning, 13th June, Horn, the disaffected alderman, rode out to Blackheath to confer with the rebels, and he urged them to come to the bridge, where they would find friends. He had an ally in Walter Sybyle, alderman of Bridge Ward, who in virtue of his office took command on the bridge, and he announced that he would let the rebels in by the bridge gate in spite of all opposition. Then Walworth, the Mayor, finding that he was powerless, gave leave to Wat Tyler’s followers to enter the city on condition that they paid for everything they took, and did no damage.

The Kentish rebels poured into the city over the bridge, and at the same time the men of Essex were let in at Aldgate. The first cry of the mob as they entered the city—their defiant answer to the Mayor’s condition—was ‘To the Savoy! To the Savoy!’ the house of John of Gaunt, outside the city liberties and by the riverside, which was burnt and entirely destroyed. In the accounts of the Savoy for 1393–1394 mention is made of the annual loss of £4, 13s. 4d.—‘the rent of fourteen shops belonging lately to the manor of the Savoy annexed, for each shop by the year, at four terms, 6s. 8d., the accomptant had nothing, because they were burnt at the time of the insurrection, and are not rebuilt.’ In these accounts the Rising of 1381 is referred to as ‘The Rumor.’

Sir Robert Hales, the Treasurer, was a marked man, and his manor house at Highbury was burnt and utterly destroyed. Jack Straw’s Castle, which was built on the site of Highbury Castle, retained the name of the second leader of the revolt almost to our own time. Later in the same day the Priory of the Order of St. John at Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell, of which Hales was prior, was burnt by the men of Essex, who in their march to London had previously attacked the Priory of the Order at Cressing, Essex.

Stow informs us that the Commons passed through the city and did no harm, they took ‘nothing from any man, but bought all things at a just price, and if they found any man with theft they beheaded him.’ This, however, was soon changed; first they were joined by the dangerous classes in the city who were glad of an opportunity of punishing their enemies the Flemings by the riverside and the lawyers of the Temple; then the prisons of Fleet, Newgate and Westminster were broken open, and hordes of rascality were added to those contributed by the Marshalsea. To add to these elements of disorder the men became drunk with wine supplied by the rich citizens, and we hear no more of restraints. Gross outrages against property and life now follow one another rapidly. Much damage was done in Fleet Street and the Temple. The rolls and records of the lawyers were burned or otherwise destroyed. The royal account books suffered in the same way. Stow relates that the insurgents ‘determined to burne all Court-rolles and old muniments, that the memory of antiquities being taken away, their lords should not be able to challenge any right on them from that time forth.’ Not content with destroying the documents, they desired to destroy the producers of documents. Again Stow tells us that ‘they took in hand to behead all men of law, as well apprentises as utter-barristers and old justices, with all the jurers of the country whom they might get into their hands, they spared none whom they thought to be learned, especially if they found any to have pen and ink they pulled off his hood, and all with one voice crying, “Hale him out and cut off his head.” ’

The only place of safety was the Tower, and here the young King watched the flames in several parts of the city, and listened to the turbulent cries of the mob on all sides of him. Just beneath, on the east side near St. Katherine’s Hospital, was an encampment of the rebels who clamoured for the murder of the Chancellor and others who had taken refuge in the Tower. This was an eventful day for all, crowded with actions more than enough to terrify a boy suddenly called upon to act.

The Council were hurriedly called together, and after considering the serious dangers which surrounded them, agreed to a policy of concession. The rebels, however, were invited to meet the King at Mile End on the following day.

On Friday, the 14th June, the King and his Court went to Mile End to hear the demands of Wat Tyler and his followers. We learn from the Stow MS. (referred to above), that when they arrived the Commons came to the King, and all knelt to him, saying, ‘Be welcome, our lord King Richard, if it please you, and we will not have any other King than you; and Wat Tighler, master and leader of them, praying to him (the King), on the part of the Commons, that he would suffer them to take and have all traitors that were against the King and the law.’ The demands are recited as follows in the manuscript:—

‘That no man should be a serf by birth, nor do homage or any manner of suit to any lord.

‘No man should be a serf to any man except by his own will, and by covenant duly indentured.

‘To give fourpence for an acre of land.’

Stow gives the demands in fuller detail:—

‘The first, that all men should be free from servitude and bondage, so as from thenceforth there should be no bondmen.

‘The second, that he should pardon all men of what estate soever, all manner actions and insurrections committed, and all manner treasons, fellonies, transgressions and extortions by any of them done, and to grant them peace.

‘The third, that all men from thenceforth might be enfranchised to buy and sell in every country, city, borough town, fair, market and other place within the realm of England.

‘The fourth, that no acre of land holden in bondage or service should be holden but for fourpence, and if it had been holden for less aforetime, it should not hereafter be enhanced.’

Stow adds: ‘These and many other things they required. Moreover, they told him [the King] he had been evilly governed till that day, but from that time he must be governed otherwise.’

After consultation with his courtiers the King conceded everything asked by Wat Tyler. They agreed that serfage should be abolished, and that all servile dues should be commuted for a rent of fourpence per acre, and a general pardon was pronounced on all. Clerks were set to work to draw up charters of liberation and pardon in proper legal form for every village and manor, as well as for every shire.[43]

While these arrangements were going on, the soldiers, who could have kept the Tower with ease, were ordered or at least permitted, to let in the mob. This appears to have been part of the agreement, and we cannot but brand it as a wicked compact, as it was clearly the duty of the Court to protect its servants.

The unfortunate Leg, the farmer of the poll tax, was murdered, and a learned friar, the friend and adviser of John of Gaunt, was torn in pieces as a substitute for his patron. In the chapel, Archbishop Sudbury and Hales were torn from the altar and hurried to Tower Hill, where their heads were struck off and straightway placed on London Bridge.

John Ball was said to be among the first who entered the Tower, and to have directed the outrages. The mob suffered the Princess of Wales to escape by boat, when she went to the Queen’s Wardrobe, which had been given to Queen Philippa, and was afterwards called the Tower Royal in the Vintry Ward. In some accounts it is said that she went to the Wardrobe in Carter Lane, but this is a mistake. The King, after his return from Mile End, joined his mother at the Queen’s Wardrobe.

On Friday and Saturday, as they received their charters, the bulk of the insurgents left London and returned to their homes, leaving the residue and more dangerous masses behind them.

Mr. Trevelyan relates how the King and his nobles rode out from the Queen’s Wardrobe through Ludgate and Temple Bar, passed along the Strand by the smouldering ruins of the Savoy to Westminster. This was on Saturday the 15th of June. The royal party was met at the doors of the Abbey by a sorrowful procession of monks in penitential garb, bearing the Cross before them. The King dismounted and kissed the Cross. The nobles, the courtiers and men-at-arms entered the church and performed with unusual fervour the acts of piety. The reason why the monks were in this subdued condition was owing to the fact that a violation of sanctuary had just occurred.[44]

The insurgents had marched on Westminster, broken open the Exchequer, destroyed the books and records, and violated the sanctuary. Richard or John Inworth, warden of the Marshalsea, after the destruction of that prison, had fled for refuge to Westminster Abbey. On their arrival the mob found him at the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and having torn him away carried him back to the city, where his head was struck off on the block in Cheapside.

Stow gives a vivid account of the King’s visit to the Abbey: ‘The same day (June 15), after dinner, about two of the clock, the King went from the Wardrobe called the Royal, in London, toward Westminster, attended only by the number of 200 persons, to visit Saint Edward’s shrine, and to see if the Commons had done any mischief there. The abbot and convent of that Abbey, with the chanons and vicars of Saint Stephen’s Chappell, met him in rich copes with procession, and led him by the charnel-house into the Abbey, then to the church, and so to the high altar, where he devoutly prayed and offered. After which he spake with the anchore [anchoret], to whom he confessed himself; then he went to the chapel called Our Lady in the Pewe, where he made his prayers.’ Froissart tells us that the figure of the Virgin in this chapel was renowned for its many virtues, and that the Kings of England had much faith in the miracles performed at this shrine. When Richard left Westminster he ‘made proclamation that all the Commons of the country that were in London should meet him in Smithfield.’[45]

In the Stowe MS. there is a very full and clear record of the subsequent proceedings: The King went to the house of the canons of Saint Bartholomew, ‘and then the Mayor of London, William Walworth, came to the King, who commanded him to go to the Commons to make their chieftain come to him, and when he was called by the Mayor, Wat Tighler of Maidstone by name, he came to the King with great countenance mounted on a small horse, so as to be seen by the Commons, and dismounted, carrying a dagger in his hand, which he had taken from another man; and when he was dismounted he took the King by the hand, half kneeling, and shook his arm sharply and strongly, saying to him: “Brother, be of good comfort,” … and the King said to the said Wat, “Why will you not go to your country?” and the other replied with a great oath, that he and his companions would not go unless they had their charter such as they wished to have.’[46]

The points are then set forth in fuller particularity than they were in the previous meeting at Mile End. Such demands as were not mentioned previously are as follows:—

‘That there should be no law outside the law of Winchester.

‘That no outlawry should be by any process of law made henceforth.

‘That the goods of Holy Church should not be in the hands of men of religion, nor of the parsons and vicars, nor of others of Holy Church, but the “avantés” should have their sustenance easily, and the remainder of the goods should be divided among the parishioners, and no bishop should be in England except one … and all the lands and tenements of the possessors should be taken from them and parted among the Commons, saving to them their reasonable sustenance.

‘To this the King replied easily, and said that he [Wat] should have all this that he [the King] could properly grant, saving to him the rights of his crown, commanding him [Wat] to go to his hold without more delay.’

From this point there are differences in the accounts, and it is difficult to be quite certain about the sequence of events which bought about Wat Tyler’s death. Stow accuses the leader of a deep-laid scheme for which there does not appear to be any special authority. He writes: ‘Wat Tyler being a crafty fellow, of excellent wit, but lacking grace, answered that peace be offered, but with conditions to his liking, minding to feed the King with fair words till the next day, that he might in the night have compassed his perverse purpose, for they thought the same night to have spoiled the city, the King first being slain, and the great lords that cleaved to him, to have burnt the city by setting fire in four parts thereof.’[47]

We have now to co-ordinate the different accounts of the end of Wat Tyler. Some of these take no notice of the causes that led to Walworth’s action, but Stow’s description seems in the main to make the whole scene clear, although he does not produce a consecutive narrative, but rather relates incidents out of their proper order.

The great open space of Smithfield, the favourite meeting-place on the north of London, and the chosen site for the tournaments and jousts, was crowded on all sides. Near the gate of St. Bartholomew’s Priory were the King and his Court, and farther to the west were the ranks of the Commons set in order of battle. There had been some conference between the leaders, but no agreement had been come to, and naturally the state of tension was profound.

Wat Tyler threatened the King, and took umbrage at the position of Sir John Newton or Newentone, keeper of Rochester Castle, who bore the King’s sword. He treated with much disrespect the knight, who remarked that he recognised in the rebel leader the greatest thief and robber of his country. This so enraged Wat Tyler that he first ordered his followers to behead Newentone, and then attempted to strike him with his dagger. At this Walworth came forward and requested the King to allow him to arrest Wat, who struck at him, but without effect, as Walworth’s armour protected him. The Mayor then, in self-defence, attacked Wat, and wounded him in the neck, and gave him a blow on the head. John Cavendish (or, as some say, Ralph Standish) then came forward in support of the Mayor and wounded Wat in several places. The chieftain spurred his horse and cried to the Commons to avenge him. After riding some thirty yards he fell off his horse, half dead, and was taken to the Hospital of St. Bartholomew’s, where he died. What purports to be the dagger with which Walworth struck Wat Tyler is in the possession of the Fishmongers’ Company.

The suspense at this crisis must have been intense. The rebels prepared their bows, but the arrows were not let fly, for the King spurring his horse, rode forward across the square to the host, and cried out, ‘Will you shoot your King? I am your captain and leader, follow me.’ This brilliant display of courage by the beautiful boy of fourteen, who had the misfortune to be King, had its effect, and the Commons followed him peaceably into the fields of Clerkenwell.

Walworth raised a body of loyal citizens, and these marched out under the command of Sir Robert Knolles and surrounded the rebels, who surrendered and asked for pardon. The host was divided into companies and sent to their respective homes under proper escort.

Now that the authorities were triumphant, the leaderless rebels fared badly. On July 2nd the charters were revoked. John Ball fled to the Midlands, and, according to Froissart, he was taken prisoner at Coventry in an old ruin. On the 15th of July he was drawn, hanged and quartered, just one month after the death of Wat Tyler. On December 13th the King proclaimed a general pardon.

A contemporary account of the insurrection was drawn up and inserted in the City ‘Letter Book H’ (fol. cxxiii.). A translation of this is printed in Riley’s Memorials (pp. 449–451). It is of great interest, but naturally no attempt at a judicial statement is made. The events are described as ‘among the most wondrous and hitherto unheard-of prodigies that ever happened in the city of London,’ and it is stated that ‘hardly was there a street in the city in which there were not bodies lying of those who had been slain.’ The traitors who let in the mob are described as ‘perfidious Commoners within the city.’ The whole account is written with spirit, and the ending of the fearful days is graphically described: ‘Therefore our Lord the King returned into the city of London with the greatest glory and honour, and the whole of this profane multitude in confusion fled forthwith for concealment in their affright.’ ‘Our Lord the King, beneath his standard in the said field, with his own hands decorated with the order of knighthood the said Mayor [William Walworth], and Sir Nicholas Brembre and Sir John Philipot, who had already been Mayors of the said city, as also Sir Robert Lamb.’

Thus ended the Peasants’ Rising, which, although it ended in total defeat to its promoters, exercised an enormous influence on the course of English history.

The insurrection of Jack Cade was not so important an event as that of Wat Tyler, but it must not by any means be considered merely as an outbreak of the lower classes.

Fabyan, the alderman and sheriff, has left us particulars of the insurrection, and some further details have been discovered by Dr. James Gairdner, C.B., who has given a connected account in the Preface to his authoritative edition of the Paston Letters, and also in the Dictionary of National Biography. It is almost impossible to understand the characters of the men who held responsible positions in the reign of Henry VI. The uncles of the King quarrelled among themselves, and their respective followers were hunted down by their enemies.

William De la Pole, fourth Earl and first Duke of Suffolk, a distinguished leader in the French wars, but a politician in later life, was the chief opponent of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the leader of the warlike party. Suffolk was an active agent for peace. Apparently the English people were then very much like what they have been in later time. Peace after a successful war has usually been unpopular, and the unfortunate Suffolk was howled at for having given back the Provinces to France.

‘By thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France;

The false, revolting Normans thorough thee

Disdain to call us lord; and Picardy

Hath slain their governors, surpris’d our forts,

And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.’[48]

The Londoners were strongly antagonistic to Suffolk, who was generally accused of maladministration and malversation without definite charges. His friends could not protect him against his enemies, and when trying to escape to France he was intercepted in the Straits of Dover, put in a little boat, and murdered. His body was thrown on the beach near Dover. It was afterwards buried by order of the King. His death did not satisfy the discontented, and other courtiers succeeded to his place in the disfavour of the people.

Whole districts of the counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex rose in arms to the extent of 30,000 men, clamouring for the redress of grievances. The masses received assistance from some of the best families of these counties. The Chronicler Gregory says that the Captain ‘compassed all the gentles to arise with him.’

A man who called himself John Mortimer, and affirmed that he was a cousin of the Duke of York, was chosen to be leader. His real name was believed to be Cade. He was an Irishman, who had had some experience in war, and showed himself a strong leader.

On the 1st of June 1450 a considerable army marched on London and encamped at Blackheath, where they formed a regular encampment.

On hearing of this Henry VI. came from Leicester to London, where he arrived on the 6th inst. He took up his quarters at the Hospital of St. John’s, Clerkenwell, and with him were 20,000 troops. The King sent to know the cause of the rising, and was answered thus: ‘To destroy traitors being about him, with other divers points.’ A message was then sent by the King, and proclamation was made that loyal men should immediately quit the field. Upon the night after all the insurgents were gone, and the insurrection seemed to have come to an end.

On the 11th June the King proceeded to Blackheath, and he found that the rebels had withdrawn in the nighttime. Instead of leaving well alone, it was decided to pursue the insurgents, and a detachment of the royal army, under Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother William, were sent in pursuit. A battle took place on the 18th at Sevenoaks, in which both the Staffords were killed and the rest of the party completely routed. The followers of the King in the royal camp were dismayed, and many of them threatened that if justice was not done on certain traitors who had resisted the King they would go over to the Captain of Kent. One of the chief of these unpopular courtiers was James Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, a follower of Suffolk, and to please the disaffected he was sent to the Tower.

The King withdrew to Greenwich and the whole of the army dispersed. He returned to London by water and made preparations for removal to Kenilworth. The Mayor and Commons beseeched him to remain in London, offering to live and die with him and to pay half the cost of his household, but he would not consent. The city authorities did not know what to do, and a party among them opened negotiations with the insurgents. Alderman Cooke passed to and fro under the safe conduct of the Captain.

Stow prints in his Chronicle ‘The safeguard and sign manual of the Captain of Kent sent to Thomas Cocke, draper of London, by the Captain of the great Assembly in Kent.’ He also gives ‘the Complaint of the Commons of Kent,’ and ‘the Requests by the Captain of the great Assembly in Kent.’ These are differently worded from the ‘Proclamation made by Jack Cade,’ which has been printed from a MS. in the handwriting of Stow,[49] but the sentiments and complaints in all the documents are essentially the same. They contain a remarkable expression of the feelings of general unrest among the people, although they are doubtless very unjust to the character of the Duke of Suffolk and his followers.

On the 1st of July the insurgents entered Southwark, and Jack Cade made the White Hart Inn his headquarters. According to Fabyan, while the Commons of Kent settled themselves in Southwark, the rebels of Essex made ‘a field upon the plain of Mile End’ their resting-place. On the 2nd of July a court was held by the Mayor for the purpose of considering the best means of resisting the entry of the rebels into the city. It was found, however, that the majority were in their favour, so that Alderman John Horne was committed to Newgate for opposing the views of the malcontents. In the afternoon, about five o’clock, the insurgents were admitted into the city and passed over London Bridge, Cade cutting the ropes of the drawbridge with his sword. Cade then issued proclamations in the King’s name against robbery and forced requisitions, and rode through the streets, taking the city under his complete control. When he came to the London Stone in Cannon Street he struck it with his sword, and said: ‘Now is Mortimer Lord of this city.’ This was a circumstance of the greatest interest in the history of London, for it shows that some special virtue was supposed, in the popular mind, to be connected with London Stone.

Cade now gave orders to the Mayor, and returned to Southwark for the night.

On Friday, the 3rd of July, he returned to the city, and sent for Lord Saye and ordered him, after a mock trial, to be beheaded at the Standard in Cheapside. Crowmer, an unpopular Sheriff of Kent, and son-in-law to Saye, was beheaded at Mile End. As Jack Cade did not wish to be publicly recognised by those who knew his origin, he caused one Bailey, who was supposed to be an old acquaintance, to be beheaded at Whitechapel.

Attention to the rules of order and honesty at length tired the leader, and Stow relates that ‘he went into the house of Philip Malpas, draper and alderman, and robbed and spoiled his house, taking from thence great substance, and returned unto Southwark. On the next morrow he again entered the city, and dined that day in the parish of Saint Margaret Pattens, at one Ghersti’s house, and when he had dined, like an uncourteous guest he robbed him, as the day before he had Malpas. For which two robberies, although the poor people drew to him and were partners in the spoil, yet the honest and wealthy Commoners cast in their minds the sequel of this matter, and fear lest they should be dealt with in like manner.’

On Sunday, the 5th of July, Cade and his followers remained in Southwark all day, and in the evening the Mayor and citizens, with a force under the command of Matthew Gough, occupied London Bridge to prevent the Kentish men from entering the city. Desperate fighting on the bridge continued all through the night, from nine o’clock till nine on the following morning. ‘Sometime the citizens had the better and sometimes the other, but ever they kept them upon the bridge, so that the citizens never passed much the bulwark at the bridge foot, nor the Kentishmen no farther than the drawbridge. Thus continued the cruel fight to the destruction of much people on both sides.’[50] Matthew Gough, John Sutton, alderman, and Roger Hoysand, citizen, were among the killed.

When the rebels got the worst of the encounter a truce was made. A conference was arranged, and Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, and some others, met Cade in St. Margaret’s Church, Southwark. The bishop produced two general pardons sent by the Chancellor—Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York; one for the Captain himself and the other for his followers. These were eagerly accepted, as the insurgents were disgusted with their leader, and they were only too glad to return to their homes.

It seems to have been generally believed that Cade was entitled to the name of Mortimer, but after this conference the truth got abroad, and his pardon was necessarily invalidated in consequence of this discovery. On the 12th of July, therefore, a proclamation of the King was issued for the apprehension of Cade, and the offer of a reward of one thousand marks to anyone who should take him alive or dead. Cade escaped in disguise towards the woody country round Lewes. He was pursued by Alexander Iden, and captured and mortally wounded by him at Heathfield, Sussex, on the 13th inst. The place is known as Cade Street, and a stone with an inscription stands on the site of the capture. Cade’s body was taken to London; his head was placed on London Bridge, and his four quarters were sent to different parts of Kent. Thus ended this dangerous rebellion.

The whole history of the origin of the rising is most complicated. Not only, as already mentioned, were the gentry of Kent on the side of the rebels, but most of the important persons in Southwark supported them. There were Richard Dartmouth, abbot of Battle; John Danyel, prior of Lewes, and Robert Poynings, uncle of the Countess of Northumberland and husband of Margaret Paston. ‘When the pardon time came, a goodly list of names was recorded, with which it was thought wise to deal leniently.’[51]

The Second Part of King Henry VI., which Shakespeare slightly altered from The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster, is chiefly concerned with Cade’s Rebellion; but it is sad that such a perversion of history should in any way be connected with the honoured name of our greatest poet. The libel against Suffolk,

‘There let his head and lifeless body lie,

Until the queen his mistress bury it,’

is apparently devoid of the slightest foundation. The representation of Cade is also a ridiculous travesty. His proclamation, which has come down to us, will be seen to be a very clear and ingenious piece of composition Moreover, Latin is quoted in it, and therefore the writer is not likely to have considered it a crime to speak Latin.

Cade’s description of Lord Saye: ‘Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas before our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and contrary to the King, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a papermill,’ has no foundation whatever in history. In spite of the anachronism of the allusion to the printing press, Gibbon was deceived by the description, and, in claiming Lord Saye as an ancestor, styled him a martyr to learning.

Dr. Gairdner discovered in Gregory’s Chronicle a very remarkable statement, which, if true, would throw great light upon the origin of the outbreak.

‘Ande aftyr that [the Battle of Sevenoaks], uppon the fyrste day of Juylle, the same Captayne come agayne, as the Kenttysche men sayde, but hyt was anothyr that namyd himselfe the Captayne, and he come to the Blacke Hethe.’[52]

Dr. Gairdner is inclined to take this as something more than a mere rumour, but he waits for some corroboration from another source before entirely accepting it. He adds in a note: ‘The story of Jack Cade, however, is attended with difficulties from any point of view, and it is remarkable that when Cade’s body was brought to London it was taken to the White Hart at Southwark, where he had lodged before his entry into the city, and identified by the woman who kept the house. We hear nothing of its being identified by any one who had seen the leader before the Battle of Sevenoaks.’[53]

CHAUCER’S PILGRIMS ISSUING FROM THE TABARD.