no more harm would have been done to
his memory than such as is usually
inflicted upon those who are guilty of the
political crime of unsuccess; but poetry,
unluckily for "the Captain's" fame, has
warped history aside, and presented us
with a caricature instead of a true picture.
Let us endeavour by the light of
discoveries recently made, to show Cade as
he was, and not as Shakespeare has
depicted him.

The earnest political reformers, or rebels
as it was the fashion to call them, who
arose in the early days of English history
to do battle against oppression, never
received fair treatment at the hands of
historians. Having no printing-press, by
means of which to detail and discuss their
grievances, and no means of organising
public opinion to operate upon the minds
of men in power, there were no means
open to them for the remedy of intolerable
abuses but the rough and unsatisfactory
arbitrament of physical force. If they
succeeded, which they did sometimes, it was
well. If they failed, and were so unhappy
as not to die on the battle-field, they suffered
the rebel's doom, and left their name and
fame to posterity, which did not always care
to remember them.

Among the most notable of these English
"rebels" who would be called reformers if
they lived in our day, was John Cade. In
the Second part of the play of King Henry
the Sixth, he is represented as an illiterate
and brutal ruffian, sprung from the very
dregs of the populace, with the manners of
an American "rowdy," or of that equally
detestable product of our own modern
civilisation, the English "rough." Shakespeare
invariably speaks of him under the familiar
and contemptuous epithet of "Jack," and
though he adheres with more or less
exactitude to the truth of history as regards
the leading facts of his career, he wholly
misrepresents his character and objects;
and is about as unfair as a dramatist of
our day would be, if he introduced George
Washington to the stage in the character
of a clown, or of a Sheffield trades unionist.

In the year 1450, when Cade made his
appearance as a reformer of abuses, very
great discontent prevailed among the
Commons. This, however, was by no means an
abnormal state of affairs. At no time after
the Conquest until the age of James the
Second, were the Commons particularly
well affected to the Norman kings or
satisfied with the state of England, and
many vigorous but unsuccessful leaders of
revolt had from time to time appeared. The
discontent in England at this time was
remarkably bitter. It was partly occasioned by
the inglorious issues of the war in France,
and the cession of the Duchies of Anjou
and Maine, once appanages of the crown
of England; partly by the misgovernment
of the king at home—the consequence
of his own weakness of character—
his subjection to his stronger minded and
imperious queen, and the sway that he
allowed unworthy favourites to exercise
over him; partly by the pretensions of the
House of York to the throne; and partly if
not chiefly by the constant illegal and
extortionate demands which were made upon
that very sore place in the estimation of all
true Englishmen, then as now, the pocket
of the people. The Duke of Suffolk, the
queen's favourite, who had long exercised
a malign influence, had been banished
and slain, to the great displeasure of
the king, and of Queen Margaret; and
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the
protector of England during the king's long
minority, had been treacherously murdered,
to Henry's exceeding shame and sorrow.
The sturdy Commons of Kent were louder
in their dissatisfaction than the Commons
in other parts of England; though the
discontent elsewhere was by no means of a
gentle character. The anger of the Kentish
men was particularly excited by a report,
that the whole county was to be laid waste,
and turned into a deer forest, in punishment
for the murder of the Duke of Suffolk,
with which the men of Kent had nothing
to do. The Duke of York with an eye to
his own interest, took advantage of the
growing ill-will of the Commons, and
fostered and fomented it by every means
in his power. He found an instrument
ready to his hands in John Cade, a gentleman
of Ashford, in Kent, supposed by some
to be a near relative of his own, and a true
scion of the House of Mortimer. However
that may be, Cade had served under the
duke in the Irish expedition of 1449, with
great renown and bravery. "About this
time," says honest John Stow in his
Annales of England, "began a new rebellion
in Ireland, but Richard Duke of York
being sent thither to appease the same so
assuaged the furie of the wild and savage
people there, that he won such favour
among them, as could never be separated
from him and his lineage." Cade's gallant
behaviour on the battle field, and his
striking personal resemblance to the
Mortimers, marked him out to the ambitious
Duke of York, as a person who might be
safely trusted with his cause among the