Medieval London (Vol. 1&2). Walter Besant

soo rode he forthe unto the Crosse in Cheppe. There stood a royalle castelle of jasper grene, and there yn ij grene treys stondyng uppe ryght, showyng the ryght tytyllys of the Kyng of Inglond and of Fraunce, convaying from Synt Edwarde and Synt Lowys be kyngys unto the tyme of Kyng Harry the vj every kyng stondynge whythe hys cote armowre, sum lyberdys, and sum flourdelysse; and on that othyr syde was made the Jesse of owre Lorde ascendyng uppewards from Davyd unto Jesu. And so rode he forthe unto the Lytylle Condyte. And there was a ryalle mageste of the Trynyte, fulle of angelys syngyng hevynly songys, blessynge ande halowynge the kyngys whythe thes resonys in Latyn wrytyn; Angelis suis mandavit de te ut custodiant te, etc. Longitudinem dierum replebo in eum et ostendam illi salutare meum. And thenne vente he forthe unto Poulys, and there he was ressayvyd whythe bysvhoppys and prelatys whythe dene and the quere, and whythe devoute songe, as hyt longythe to a kynge. Ande so he offerryd there and thankyd God of hys goode speede and of hys welfare. And thenne he rode to Westemyster, and there he restyd hym: and on the nexte day followynge the mayre and the aldyrmen whythe a certayne comeners that were worthy men, and they presentyde the kynge whythe an hampyr of sylvyr and gylte, whythe a M l. there yn of nobellys, etc.”

      The next great Riding was the reception of Margaret of Anjou when she came over to be married in the year 1445, when the same “properties,” castle, tower, and other devices, were brought out to greet her.

      The disastrous wars in France, the lavish expenditure which produced nothing but defeat, the unsettled condition of the Low Countries with which the greatest part of the London foreign trade had been carried on, a succession of bad harvests, with other causes, affected the prosperity of the City as well as smaller towns very sensibly. When the Parliament of 1433 voted a fifteenth and a tenth it assigned £4000 to the relief of poor towns. Of this sum £76: 15: 6¼ was assigned to eighteen wards of London.

      In 1447 a petition was presented to Parliament by four priests of the City, viz. William Litchfield, Allhallows the Great: Gilbert, St. Andrew’s Holborn; John Cote, St. Peter’s Cornhill: and John Neil, St. Thomas Acons Hospital, and St. Peter Colechurch; praying for permission to set up schools of grammar in their respective parishes. They base their request on the small and insufficient number of schools in London compared with the great number that had existed in former days. What schools were they? FitzStephen mentions three in the time of Henry II. What grammar schools were founded between 1150 and 1450? Every monastery it is said had its school. Certainly the novices and the wards of the Abbot were under instruction: their place was assigned to them in the Cloisters and there were rules as to their supervision. But the sons of the citizens were not admitted to these schools. The King replied that the schools might be established or provided, subject to the approval of the Archbishop.

      We have now arrived at a strange and not wholly intelligible event, the rising of the Kentish men and their occupation of London.

      The most important of these rebellions, known as that of Jack Cade, was one among many which showed the temper of the people. The reverses in France, where all that Henry V. had won was lost, never to be recovered; the exactions and taxations; the many cases in which persons were accused of treason and thrown into prison in order that others might obtain their lands; created a widespread discontent, which, in these risings, became the wrath which seizes on the sword and demands the ordeal of civil war. There were at least three other leaders in Kentish risings, one called Blue Beard, another named William Parminter and a third named John Smyth. In Wiltshire the Bishop of Salisbury was dragged from the altar and brutally murdered; and the insurgents in that county were reckoned at 10,000 men.

      Why they rose, and what were their grievances, are shown in the remarkable document in which they are set forth.

      As for the people who took part in these risings, it is certain that they were by no means the common labourers and villeins, such as those who went out with Wat Tyler. It is also certain that they chose as their leader one who had some knowledge of war. And it must be remembered that the men who flocked to the standard of Mortimer were as well armed, and as good soldiers, as any whom the King could collect or could command.

      The leader called himself, or was called, Mortimer, and it is said gave out that he was cousin to the Duke of York. His real name it is said—but there seems some reason to doubt the story—was John Cade; he was an Irishman by birth and he had been in the service of Sir Thomas Dacre in Sussex, but had been compelled to abjure the country for having killed a woman with child. He passed over to France and served in the French army against England, but later he returned, assumed the name of Aylmer, and married the daughter of a Squire; at this time he called himself physician, and on the outbreak of the rebellion assumed the name of Mortimer.3

      On the 1st of June the rebels reached London and encamped at Blackheath. The King, who was at Leicester, hastened to town with a large army of 20,000 men and lay at St. John’s Priory, Smithfield. Instead of marching upon the rebels at once, he waited, and sent messengers to know what they wanted.

      They replied by a long and carefully drawn up “Bill of Articles,” which was evidently the work of some clerk or lawyer: it was a document which proves the rising to have been no chance effervescence, but a deliberate and intelligent attempt to set forth and to remedy grievances. It must be noted that Jack Cade or Mortimer kept up correspondence with the City, having appointed one Thomas Cocke, Draper, as his agent.

      The following is the “Bill of Articles”:—

      1. “Imprimis, it is openly noised that Kent shoulde be destroyed with a royall power, and made a wylde foreste for the Deathe of the Duke of Suffolk, of which the Commons of Kent thereof were never guilty.

      2. “Item, the king is stirred to lyve only on his Commons and other men to have ther revenues of the Crown the which hath caused povertie in his excellencie, and great payments of the people, now late to the king graunted in his Parliament.

      3. “Item, that the Lordes of his Royall bloud been put from his dayly presence, and other meane persons of lower nature exalted and made chiefe of his Privie Counsell, the whiche stoppeth matters of wronges done in the realme, from his excellent audience, and may not be redressed as lawe will, but if bribes and giftes be messengers to the handes of the Sayd Counsell.

      4. “Item, the people of his realme be not payd of debts owing for stuffe and purveyance taken to the use of the king’s householde, in undoing of the sayd people, and the poor Commons of this realme.

      5. “Item, the king’s menial servantes of householde and other persons, asken dayly goods and lands, of impeached or indited of treason, the which the king graunteth anon, ere they so endangered be convict. The which causeth the receyvers thereof to enforge labours and means applyed to the death of such people, so apeached or indited, by subtyl means, for covetyse of the said grauntes: and the people so impeached or indited, though it be untrue, may not be committed to the Lawe for their deliverance, but helde still in prison, to their uttermost undoing and destruction, for covetyse of goods.

      6. “Item, though divers of the poore people and Commons of the Realme, have never so great right, trueth, and perfect tytle to these landes, yet by untrue clayme of enesessment made unto divers States, Gentles, and the king’s meniall Servauntes in maintenaunces againste the ryght, the true owners dare not holde, clayme, nor pursue their right.

      7. “Item, it is noysed by common voices, that the king’s landes in Fraunce been aliened and put awaye from the Crown, and his Lordes and people there destroyed with untrue means of treason, of which it is desyred, enquiries through all the realme to be made howe and by whom, and if such traytors may be found guiltie, them to have execution of Lawe without any pardon in example of other.

      8. “Item, Collectors of the 3rd pennie in Kent be greatly vexed and hurte in paying great summes of money, in the Eqchequere to sue out a Writ called Quorum nomina for the allowance of the Barons of the ports, which nowe is desyred, that hereafter in the lieu of the Collectors the Barons aforesaide may sue it out for their ease at their own costes.

      9. “Item, the Sheriffs and undersheriffs, let to farme their offices and Bayliwikes, taking great suertie therefore, the which causeth extortions done by them and by their Bailiffs to the people.

      10. “Item, simple and poore people that