Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/177

 ing up his character for good discipline he issued proclamations in the king's name against robbery and extortion, ‘showed his mind to the mayor for the ordering of his people,’ and returned to Southwark for the night. Next day (Friday, 3 July) he again entered the city, caused Lord Say to be sent for from the Tower, and had him arraigned before the mayor and other justices at the Guildhall. The unfortunate nobleman claimed to be tried by his peers; but a body of men sent by the captain took him from the officers and hurried him to the standard in Cheap, where they beheaded him before he was fully shriven. About the same time William Crowmer, sheriff of Kent, Say's son-in-law, who was execrated as the instrument of extortionate taxation, was seized and brought to Mile End, where he was beheaded in Cade's presence. The heads of Say and Crowmer were then carried through the streets upon poles and made to kiss each other. Another victim, named Bailey, who was also beheaded that day on a charge of necromancy, was believed to have been put to death by Cade's orders simply because he was an old acquaintance, who might have proclaimed his imposture.

It was but a trifling addition to these excesses that Cade also robbed the house of the unpopular Philip Malpas. That night he returned again to Southwark, and next morning came back as before, dined in a house in the parish of St. Margaret Pattens, and robbed his host. The better class of citizens were now seriously alarmed for the security of property; and the mayor and aldermen took counsel with Lord Scales and Matthew Gough, to whom the king, when he retired to Kenilworth, had entrusted the keeping of the Tower. As Cade withdrew once more into Southwark for the night, it was determined not to let him enter the city again. Next day, 5 July, was a Sunday, and he apparently made no effort to do so, though there was no open show of opposition. He seems to have had some difficulties with his own men, and caused one, William Hawarden, a common thief, who had been his chief councillor, to be beheaded in Southwark (William Worcester says in Smithfield, but evidently by mistake. Compare ). In the evening the mayor and citizens, with a force under Matthew Gough, occupied London Bridge to prevent the Kentish men re-entering the city. Cade at once called his men to arms, and set upon the citizens so furiously that he drove them from the Southwark end of the bridge to the drawbridge in the centre. After midnight the drawbridge was set on fire by the insurgents, and many of the citizens were slain or drowned. The veteran Matthew Gough himself perished in the conflict. Before this Cade had broken open the King's Bench and Marshalsea prisons, and the released prisoners came gladly to his aid. All night the battle raged between the drawbridge and the bulwark at the bridge foot in Southwark, till about nine in the morning the Kentish men gave way, and both sides being exhausted a truce was agreed on for some hours.

The opportunity was seized by the leading members of the council to terminate disorders by an amnesty. Cardinal Kemp, archbishop of York, the chancellor, with Archbishop Stafford of Canterbury, who had only recently resigned the chancellorship, and Waynfleet, bishop of Winchester, held a conference with Cade in St. Margaret's Church, Southwark, at which terms were arranged, and two general pardons were afterwards sent by the chancellor, one for Cade himself and the other for his followers. The men eagerly availed themselves of the general pardon; but unfortunately the other, being made out in the name of Mortimer, was invalid. It was not, however, till about a week later that the captain's real name appears to have been discovered; and meanwhile, trusting to the security of his pardon, he seems to have remained in Southwark till the 8th. He had, however, taken care to secure a quantity of booty in a barge, and have it conveyed by water to Rochester, whither he himself repaired on the 9th, passing on his way through Dartford, and raising new commotions as he went. He continued at Rochester for two days, and went on to Queenborough, where he and his followers attempted to capture the castle, but were resisted by Sir Roger Chamberlain. On the 12th a proclamation was issued against him, in which he was for the first time named John Cade, and a reward of 1,000 marks was offered to any one who would bring him to the king alive or dead. He now perceived that the game was desperate, and escaped in disguise towards the woody country about Lewes. But one Alexander Iden, ‘a squire of Kent,’ who had either already been, or more probably was soon after, appointed sheriff of Kent in the place of the murdered Crowmer, pursued him to the neighbourhood of Heathfield in Sussex, where he found him on 12 July in a garden, and took him prisoner, but not without a struggle, in which Cade received a mortal wound. He was put into a cart by his captor and conveyed up to London, but died by the way. On the following morning, Monday the 13th, his naked body was identified by the hostess of the White Hart in Southwark.