The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [96]
Scales, having ordered that the gates of London be locked, still feared what Cade might do next, so, acting on the advice of the Queen and several bishops, he sent Cardinal Kempe to parley with him. The Cardinal was empowered, on behalf of the government, to promise Cade and his men ‘charters of pardon’ if they would lay down their arms and go home. Cade agreed, on condition that the demands in his manifesto be met. Kempe assured him they would be, promising that the King’s commission would investigate all grievances.
Government clerks set to work, hastily drawing up the promised pardons; Cade’s was made out to ‘John Mortimer’. Most of the rebels then dispersed and went home, but Cade told his remaining men that their cause could not be considered as won until Parliament had agreed to their demands. On 8 July, he retreated with his small force to Rochester by river, sailing along the Thames in barges full of stolen goods. The next day he made an unsuccessful attempt to besiege Queenborough Castle on the Isle of Sheppey. The Sheriff of Essex and many others were now hunting him down, and on 10 July he was publicly proclaimed a traitor and 1000 marks were offered for his capture. The free pardon granted at Southwark was revoked on a technicality as it had been issued to John Mortimer, not Jack Cade.
Many of Cade’s followers had deserted him, and the authorities were hot on his trail. He fled into Sussex, south to Lewes, where he hid in the surrounding woods, and thence to Heathfield, where he concealed himself in a garden. Here, however, he found himself cornered by armed men led by Alexander Iden, Sheriff of Kent. He defended himself bravely but was quickly overcome and mortally wounded by the Sheriff himself. Broken and bleeding, he was dragged off towards London, but died on the way, cheating the executioner. His body was stripped naked and taken to the capital in a cart, but the Council were apparently in some doubt as to whether the right man had been arrested and would only accept that it was Cade when the corpse had been identified by the innkeeper’s wife at the White Hart in Southwark. Then the head was smitten off and boiled and the skull was placed on a spike above the drawbridge on London Bridge, facing towards Kent as a warning to any future rebels. The torso was quartered and the quarters displayed in towns in the disaffected areas. Sheriff Iden was rewarded with a substantial pension for life and appointed Keeper of Rochester Castle. Benet says that Cade had been condemned ‘not according to the law, but according to the King’s wish’.
Indeed, Henry was bent on having his revenge. The King and Queen had returned to London on 10 July, but only after order had been restored by the Council. Henry then presided over the trials of other rebels captured by the authorities in Kent and himself passed sentence of death upon every one. Eight were executed at Canterbury, twenty-six at Rochester, the King being present on each occasion of what was referred to as ‘the harvest of heads’.
The rebellion had achieved nothing. The King’s commission was dismissed and no changes were made; the court party remained supreme. However, what had been made strikingly manifest by Cade’s uprising was the inability of King and Council to cope successfully with such a crisis. A king was supposed to lead his armies, protect his people and enforce justice, but this king had fled, and in his absence the government of the realm had all but broken down. What had also been made alarmingly clear was how easy it had been for the insurgents to occupy the capital.