of Canterbury, who was at the same
time also Lord High Chancellor of
England, that eminent functionary, having full
powers from the king, took advantage of
the opportunity to proclaim a pardon to
Cade and all his followers, if they would
lay down their arms and disperse. The
offer acted magically upon Cade's force,
disheartened alike by the defection of the
Londoners, the non-arrival of the Duke of
York, and their own repulse on London
Bridge, and they began to desert. Cade,
however, was not wholly disheartened, but
consented to meet the Lord Chancellor at
the Church of St. Margaret's, Southwark,
and discuss the matter amicably. The
Lord Chancellor insisted upon absolute and
unqualified submission: Cade, on his part,
insisted that all the seventeen articles of
the complaint of the Commons as set forth
by him, should be accepted and acted upon
by the king. The Lord Chancellor having
fought out the matter as long as he could,
and finding Cade not to be won over by
flattering speeches and fine promises, agreed to
the terms imposed. The fact was notified
to Cade's army, who, forthwith, imagining
the ends of the insurrection to have been
achieved, began in large numbers to take
their departure to their homes. Cade,
however, mistrusted the Chancellor's powers,
and prevailed upon a certain portion of his
followers to remain under arms, until the
king and parliament, assembled at Westminster
for the purpose, should solemnly ratify
the agreement. But Cade was not sufficiently
supported. The defection, the lukewarmness,
or the open hostility of the Londoners,
perhaps a combination of all these, had so
disheartening an effect upon the
"Commons," that Cade's once mighty hosts melted
almost entirely away, and he found himself
within less than two days at the head of a
poor remnant, numbering less than a thousand
men. Not wholly beaten, having
still a hope left of the Kentish people, Cade
made his way to Rochester, with the intention
of making a new appeal to the
oppressed Commons. But it was "too late."
His followers had not their leader's courage
or honesty of purpose, and fell to fighting
about the miserable military chest they
had carried away with them. In five days
Cade was wholly deserted, and fled for his
life. A proclamation was forthwith issued,
offering a reward of a thousand marks,
for his head, dead or alive, on the ground
that he had scorned the king's pardon, and
persisted in waging war against the royal
authority after terms of surrender and
compromise had been agreed upon.
Proclamations for the arrest of offenders, whether
in civil or criminal cases, are proverbially
unfavourable in their descriptions of the
personal appearance and antecedents of
the persons whom it is sought to capture.
In Cade's case there was no exception to
this ancient, and it may be added, this
modern, rule. He was described as an
Irishman, which he was not; as one who
had in Surrey, while in the service of Sir
Thomas Dacres, feloniously slain a woman
with child, and of having fled to France to
escape the consequences of this act, and
while there of taking up arms on "the
French part" against the English. The
proclamation produced speedy effect. The once
popular idol was deserted on every hand:
none were so poor as to do him reverence,
none so charitable as to give him a crust of
bread, or a glass of water in his need;
and, like Masaniello and Rienzi, he found
that the same voices which could cheer and
shout in the days of his prosperity, could
curse him as lustily in the hour of his
calamity. The proclamation was issued on the
10th of July, and on the 15th he was discovered
in the garden of one Alexander Iden
or Eden, in Heathfield, in Sussex, and slain
after a desperate defence. His head was taken
to London, affixed upon the bridge, and his
quarters distributed among the various
towns and districts, where the disaffection,
of which he was the leader, was supposed to
be the most widely spread. One quarter
was sent to Blackheath; a second to
Norwich, where the bishop (Walter Harpe)
was supposed to favour the cause of the
Duke of York; a third to Salisbury; and
the fourth to Gloucester, where the Abbot
of St. Peter's had influence over the
people, and was known, or suspected, to be
a Yorkist.

Thus lived and died John Cade, the
victim of the violence which he
provoked; but in his career no more worthy
of blame than many more illustrious
personages who shared his opinions, and
brought them to more successful issue.
The Duke of York, as readers of English
history will remember, though he did not
aid his faithful Cade, as he ought to have
done, at the right moment, lived for years
afterwards to keep England in a state of
agitation and civil war by his pretensions.
He did not himself mount the uneasy throne
to which he aspired, but left his pretensions
to his son Edward, who made them good
by his strong right arm, and wore the regal
crown, which, in those days, was but too
often a crown of agony both to those who
inherited and to those who conquered it.