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.
Cade alone hesitated. What if parliament should disavow these
“pardons,” and the commons be treated as the peasants were treated when
they trusted a king’s word? He asked for the endorsement of his own
pardon, and the pardons of his followers, by parliament before his army
dispersed. Chancellor Kemp explained that this was impossible, because
parliament was dissolved. The people were satisfied with the cardinal’s
word. The rising was at an end.
The following day the bulk of the commons departed from Southwark for
their farms and cottages in Kent and Surrey and Sussex. Cade watched
them go. His own mind was made up. Not till parliament should give him
a pardon of indisputable legality would he lay down his arms. With a
small band of followers he set off for Rochester, sending what goods
and provisions he had by water.
The rising was at an end, and nothing more was heard in parliament, or
elsewhere, of the famous charter of “complaints” and “requests.”
With the break-up of the insurgent army, the government woke to
activity. Alexander Iden was appointed sheriff of Kent, and marrying
Crowmer’s widow, subsequently gained considerable profit. Within a week
the king’s writ and proclamation, declaring John Cade a false traitor,
was posted throughout the countryside, and Cade, defeated in an attempt
to get possession of Queenborough Castle, was a fugitive with the
reward of 1,000 marks on his head, alive or dead, and with Sheriff Iden
in hot pursuit.
Near Heathfield, in Sussex, Iden came up with his prey, early on
Monday, July 13th.
Cade died fighting. A broken man, worn and famished, friendless and
alone, he still had his sword. The spirit of Mortimer, Captain of
Kent, flickered up in the presence of his enemies--it were better to
die sword in hand fighting for freedom than to perish basely by the
hangman. So Cade fought his last fight in the Sussex garden, and fell
mortally wounded, overpowered by the sheriff and his men.
In all haste Iden sent off the dead body to London; it was identified
by the hostess of the White Hart, and three days later the head was
stuck on London Bridge. The body was quartered and portions sent to
Blackheath, Norwich, Salisbury, and Gloucester, for public exposure.
The sheriffs of London, upon whom the gruesome task fell of despatching
these remains, complained bitterly of the cost of this proceeding,
“because that hardly any persons durst nor would take upon them the
carriage for doubt of their lives.”[81]
Iden got his 1,000 marks reward, besides getting the governorship of
Rochester Castle, at a salary of £36 per annum.
Cade was “attainted of treason” by act of parliament, and all his
goods, lands, and tenements made forfeit to the crown. A year later
another act of parliament made void all that had been done by Cade’s
authority during the rising.
In January, 1451, Henry VI. went into Kent with his justices, and this
royal visitation was known as the harvest of heads; for in spite of
Cardinal Kemp’s pardons, twenty-six men of Canterbury and Rochester
implicated in the rising were hanged.
So the last echoes of the rising died away, and corruption and
misgovernment remained. But the commons of Kent and their captain had
done what they could, and in the only way that seemed possible, to get
justice done, and their failure was without dishonour.
Sir Thomas More and the Freedom of Conscience
1529–1535
AUTHORITIES: William Roper--_Life of Sir Thomas More_, 1626;
Harpsfield--_Life of More_ (Harleian MSS.); Stapleton--_Ires Thomæ_,
1588; Cresacre More--_Life of More_, 1627; Erasmus--_Epistolae_
(Leyden, 1706); Sir James Mackintosh--_Life of More_, 1844;
Campbell--_Lives of the Chancellors_; Foss--_Lives of the Judges_;
_Calendar of State Papers--Henry VIII._, edited by Dr. Brewer and Dr.
Gairdner (Rolls Series); _More’s English Works_, edited by William
Rastell; Rev. T. E. Bridgett--_Life of Blessed John Fisher_, and _Life
and Writings of Sir Thomas More_, 1891.
[Illustration: SIR THOMAS MORE
(_From the Drawing by Hans Holbein._)]
SIR THOMAS MORE AND THE FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE
1529–1535.
“Did Nature ever frame a sweeter, happier character than that of
More?”--so Erasmus wrote in 1498, when Thomas More was twenty, and
Erasmus, recently come to England, some ten years older. It was at the
beginning of their friendship, a friendship that was to last unbroken
till death,[82] and More had then passed from the household of Cardinal
Morton to Oxford, and from Oxford to Lincoln’s Inn, to take up his
father’s calling and follow the law as a barrister.
Twenty years later Erasmus, writing at length to Ulrich von Hutten,
gives us a portrait of More in full manhood. Temperance, simplicity,
human affection, good humour, independence of mind--these qualities are
conspicuous.
“I never saw anyone so indifferent about food. Until he was a young
man he delighted in drinking water, but that was natural to him. Yet,
that he might not seem to be singular or unsociable, he would conceal
his temperance from his guests by drinking the lightest beer, or often
pure water, out of a pewter vessel.”
“He prefers milk diet and fruits, and is especially fond of eggs. He
would rather eat corned beef and coarse bread than what are called
delicacies.”
“He likes a simple dress, using neither silk nor purple nor chains of
gold--except on state occasions. It is wonderful how careless he is of
all that ceremony which most men identify with politeness. He neither
requires it from others nor is anxious to use it himself, though when
it is necessary, at interviews or banquets, he knows how to employ it.
But he thinks it unmanly to waste time over such trifles.”
“He seems born and fashioned for friendship, and is a most faithful and
enduring friend. He is easy of access to all; but if he chances to get
familiar with one whose vices will not brook correction, rather than
a sudden breaking off, he gradually relaxes the intimacy and quietly
drops it. He abhors games of tennis, dice, cards, and the like, by
which most gentlemen kill time. Though he is rather too negligent of
his own interests, no one is more diligent in behalf of his friends.
So polite, and so sweet-mannered is he in company, that no one is
too melancholy to be cheered by him. Since boyhood he has always so
delighted in merriment that it seems to be part of his nature; yet his
merriment is never turned into buffoonery.”
“No one is less led by the opinions of the crowd, yet no one is less
eccentric.”
The friendship of More and Erasmus had ripened in those twenty
years. In More’s house, and at his instigation, Erasmus had written
the _Praise of Folly_,[83] and the great scholar watched with warm
interest the famous career and the brilliant character of the man he
loved so heartily.
More was already high in Henry VIII.’s favour when Erasmus could write
that no one was less led by the opinions of the crowd, and more than
once his independence and courage of mind had been proved in the twenty
years that had passed.
Drawn at first to the monastic life, More had spent four years
(1500–1504) with the Carthusians in Smithfield, “frequenting daily
their spiritual exercises, but without any vow.” Then it is plain to
him that his vocation is not the priesthood, but marriage and public
life, and he leaves the Charterhouse, and in 1505 is married and in
Parliament.[84] But all his life the devotion to religion, and to
the services of the Church, remain in More, and he is ascetic in the
mortifications of the body till the spirit and the will ride supreme.
In the House of Commons More stood out against the exactions of Henry
VII., and at once fell under the king’s displeasure.
More’s son-in-law, Roper, tells the story: