#jack cade

Ah, how wonderful! A question about Henry VI! Jack Cade's rebellion is one of the most fascinating things about Part II and one of the more complex incidents. This is partly because Shakespeare makes it clear that Cade works for York, but also gives him and the rebels some truly remarkable things to say about hierarchy and equality. This might seem irrelevant to your question, but I promise you it frames my answer, because some context is needed to make sense of the line.

Smith the Weaver comes in with the Clerk of Chatham, who 'can write and read and cast account', which Cade says is 'monstrous' (4.2.78-80). Smith then offers the evidence, 'We took him setting of boys; copies' (4.2.81), which only means that they found this Clerk preparing writing exercises for young boys (Clerks often also worked as schoolmasters). So you could say that the Clerk is caught red-handed in the very act of writing.

But why this is 'monstrous', and why the Clerk should be hanged for it is less obvious. Shakespeare draws, for his source, not just on the actual historical rebellion of Jack Cade in 1450 which wasn't anti-literacy, but the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, with its wish to kill lawyers, and opposition to literacy. And of course, if an indication of what class you belong to is whether you have had enough education to be able to write, then literacy is damning from a commoner's perspective. Hence, Cade asks the Clerk, 'Dost thou use to write thy name? Or hast thou a mark to thyself like an honest plain-dealing man?' (4.2.93-95). When you consider the fact that Shakespeare's father marked himself by drawing a small set of compasses instead of his name, you can see how close to home this is, and how literacy was a social marker.

The theme returns later, in Act 4, scene 7, when Cade condemns Lord Saye for appointing 'justices of peace to call poor men before them about matters they were not able to answer', that is, because they were illiterate and couldn't understand what they were being called to court for. Cade concludes that, in effect, 'thou hast put them in prison, and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them' (4.7.38-41). There couldn't be a more powerful indictment of inequality, and that's why Cade's status as York's crony is not all there is to him, and why his seemingly ridiculous condemnation of the Clerk can't be understood without broader contextual awareness.

The Death Throes Of A Jaded Empire (2021)

… astonishing record …

In other words: Violent tragedy mixed with farce, and add actual gov’t power to it.

Good question!

The first thing that needs to be addressed is that these rebellions failed - Wat Tyler murdered under a flag of truce, Jack Cade run to ground after stupidly dispersing his army, etc. - which narrows the circumference of any aims that could be achieved rather significantly. 

The second thing is that the political class of the nation was pretty united in their opposition, and following Theda Skocpol, revolutions are far more successful when the elite (the ruling class, the army, the state, etc.) are internally divided.

“A British political cartoon shows England as a man leaning on a crutch, trying to pull the American colonists by the nose: “And therefore is England maimed & forc’d to go with a staff .” This quotation is from Jack Cade in Henry VI, Part 2, suggesting that the Colonists rebelling against the British king are like Cade and his rabble-rousers in Shakespeare’s history play.“ 

Great question!

Jack Cade was a fascinating character. We know almost nothing about him personally, except that he was from Kent, and that he sometimes used the name John Mortimer, which some people at the time thought suggested a claim to the throne of England through Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the heir presumptive to Richard II, and part of Richard Duke of York’s claim to the throne. (Another reason why some people then and now think he was working for the Yorkists.)

We do know a good deal about why Cade’s Rebellion happened because he published a manifesto in 1450 - which by itself suggests that he was either educated himself or as others have suggested that he was working with Yorkists - called “The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent.”

The Complaint is a fascinating look at the politics of the immediate pre-Wars of the Roses period. It’s a classic bit of “evil councilors” political rhetoric, blaming the ills of England on the fact that the king is surrounded by “insatiable, covetous, malicious persons that daily and nightly are about his highness, and daily inform him that good is evil and evil is good” and setting forth a list of grievances:

The evil councilors are trying to undermine the law by persuading the king that “our sovereign is above his laws to his pleasure, and he may make it and break it as he pleases, without any distinction.” The manifesto states bluntly that “the contrary is true.”

The evil councilors are trying to smear commoners as pro-Yorkists.

The evil councilors are robbing the king by advising him not to collect his normal incomes, because they’re either getting the king to give the incomes to them or to people who’ve bribed them.

The evil councilors won’t let anyone come before the king without paying bribes.

The evil councilors are falsely labelling people as traitors to take their lands and goods, while protecting real traitors whose assets should be seized to pay off the royal debt.

The evil councilors are corrupting the courts to the point where “the law serves of nought else in these days but for to do wrong.”

The evil councilors are incompetent at their jobs, such that “his false council has lost his law, his merchandise is lost, his common people is destroyed, the sea is lost, France is lost, the king himself is so set that he may not pay for his meat nor drink, and he owes more than ever any King of England ought.” (I.E, injustice and a breakdown of law and order, a declining economy and burdensome taxes, defeat in France, piracy and French raids along the English coast, and high levels of royal debt.)

The evil councilors are threatening to seize “gentlemen’s goods and lands in Kent and call them rioters, and traitors and the king’s enemies,” just because the Duke of Suffolk who Parliament impeached for incompetence and who the King protected, got beheaded by TOTALLY UNKNOWN PERSONS and just happened to wash up at Dover. 

We want everyone to know that we’re only against the evil councilors, and totally insist on everyone being tried under law.

We want everyone to know that we’re not going to rob anyone while we’re rebelling, honest.

We want the Duke of Suffolk’s supporters removed from government and replaced by the Duke of York and his followers.

We want the King to send a royal commission to Kent to investigate corruption.

So as you can see, the manifesto is pretty Yorkist in tone, but it’s pretty authentically rooted in complaints about the direction of public policy in 1450. And it was enough to get 5,000 men to take up arms behind Jack Cade.

Jack Cade then defeated the royal force to put down his rebellion at Sevenoaks, marched into London and declared himself Lord Mayor, and then had James Fiennes (HIgh Sherriff of Kent, Constable of Dover, Warden of the Cinque Ports, Lord HIgh Treasurer of England, Baron Saye and Sele, and a major supporter of the Duke of Suffolk) and his son in law put on trial and executed for treason. 

Unfortunately for him, Jack Cade and his men got drunk and started looting the city, at which point the people of London got sick of him, closed London Bridge against him and fought a pitched battle to hold the bridge, which caused Cade to retreat having suffered heavy casualties. Cade was then persuaded by Archbishop (and Lord Chancellor) John Kemp to disperse his army, issuing general pardons and promising to fulfill the Complaint’s demands. 

Henry VI then revoked those pardons and put a 1,000-mark reward on Cade’s head, who was tracked down and mortally wounded. His body was given a mock trial and beheaded, then quartered so that his limbs could be sent to various cities in Kent as a warning to anyone else who got ideas.