wealth, and made it an eunuch: and more than 'Staf. O gross and miserable ignorance! *All. No, no; and therefore we'll have his head. *Assail them with the army of the king. Staf. Herald, away: and, throughout every town, [Exeunt the Two STAFFORDS, and Forces. *Cade. And you, that love the commons, follow me. *Now show yourselves men, 'tis for liberty. [Exeunt. SCENE III. Another part of Blackheath. Alarums. The two Parties enter and fight, and both the STAFFORDS are slain. Cade. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford ? 'Dick. Here, sir. Cade. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou behavedst thyself as if thou hadst been ⚫ in thine own slaughter-house: therefore thus will I reward thee,-The Lent shall be as long again as it is; and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a hundred lacking one, a week.2 'Dick. I desire no more. *Cade. And, to speak truth, thou deservest no *less. This monument of the victory will I bear;3 * and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse's *heels, till I do come to London, where we will *have the mayor's sword borne before us. * * Dick. If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols, and let out the prisoners. Cade. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march towards London. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Palace. Enter KING HENRY, reading a Supplication; the DUKE of BUCKINGHAM, and LORD SAY with him; at a distance, QUEEN MARGARET, mourning over SUFFOLK's Head. *Q. Mar. Oft have I heard-that grief softens * And makes it fearful and degenerate; 1 Shoes. Here may his head lie cn my throbbing breast: * But where's the body that I should embrace? Buck. What answer makes your grace to the ' rebels' supplication? *K. Hen. I'll send some holy bishop+ to entreat: For God forbid, so many simple souls Should perish by the sword! And I myself, 'Rather than bloody war shall cut them short, Will parley with Jack Cade their general.But stay, I'll read it over once again. *Q. Mar. Ah, barbarous villains! hath this lovely face *K. Hen. How now! what news? why com❜st thou in such haste? Mes. The rebels are in Southwark; Fly, my lord! Jack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer, Descended from the duke of Clarence' house: Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless; *K. Hen. O graceless men! they know not what Buck. My gracious lord, retire to Kenelworth, Until a power be rais'd to put them down. *Q. Mar. Ah! were the duke of Suffolk now alive, *These Kentish rebels would be soon appeas'd. K. Hen. Lord Say, the traitors hate thee, Therefore away with us to Kenelworth. Say. So might your grace's person be in dan- The sight of me is odious in their eyes: may. phrey's brigandine, set full of gilt nails, and so in glory returned again toward London.' Sir Humphrey Staf ford was, in fact, killed at Sevenoaks, and is buried at Bromsgrove, in Staffordshire. 2 The last two words, a week, were added by Malone from the old play. It is necessary to render the passage intelligible. In the reign of Elizabeth, butchers were strictly enjoined not to sell flesh meat in Lent, not with 4 Shakspeare has here fallen into another inconsista religious view, but for the double purpose of dimin-ency, by sometimes following Holinshed instead of the ishing the consumption of flesh meat during that period, old play. He afterwards forgets this holy bishop: and and so making it more plentiful during the rest of the in scene the eighth we find only Buckingham and Clifyear, and of encouraging the fisheries and augmenting ford were sent, conformably to the old play. Holinshed the number of seamen. Butchers, who had interest at mentions that the archbishop of Canterbury and the duke court, frequently obtained a dispensation to kill a certain of Buckingham were sent. number of beasts a week during Lent; of which indul- 5 Predominated irresistibly over my passions, as the gence, the wants of invalids who could not subsist with-planets over those born under their influence. The old out animal food, was made the pretence. There are play led Shakspeare into this strange exhibition; a several proclamations on the subject in the library of queen with the head of her murdered paramour on her the Society of Antiquaries. bosom, in presence of her husband! 3 Here Cade must be supposed to take off Stafford's armour. So Holinshed-Jack Cade, upon his victory against the Staffords, apparelled himself in Sir Hum 6 Instead of this line the old copy has:- Cade. Be it a lordship thou shalt have it for that *K. Hen. Come, Margaret; God, our hope, will | succour us. Q. Mar. My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceas'd. *K. Hen. Farewell, my lord; [To LORD SAY.] trust not the Kentish rebels. * Buck. Trust nobody, for fear you be betray'd. Say. The trust I have is in mine innocence, And therefore am I bold and resolute. [Exeunt. SCENE V. The same. The Tower. Enter LORD SCALES, and others on the Walls. Then enter certain Citizens, below. Scales. How now? is Jack Cade slain? 1 Cit. No, my lord, nor likely to be slain; for they have won the bridge, killing all those that withstand them: The lord mayor craves aid of your honour from the Tower, to defend the city from the rebels. Scales. Such aid as I can spare, you shall com- But I am troubled here with them myself, word. * Dick. Only, that the laws of England may come out of your mouth. John. Mass, 'twill be sore law then; for he was thrust in the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole yet. [Aside. Smith. Nay, John, it will be stinking law; for his breath stinks with eating toasted cheese. [Aside. Cade. I have thought upon it, it shall be so. Away, burn all the records of the realm; my mouth shall be the parliament of England. *John. Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless his teeth be pulled out. [Aside. *Cade. And henceforward all things shall be in common. Enter a Messenger. Mess. My lord, a prize, a prize! here's the Lord Say, which sold the towns in France; he *that made us pay one and twenty fifteens," and one shilling to the pound, the last subsidy. * เ Cade. Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon London-stone, I charge and command, that, of the city's cost, the pissing-conduit' run nothing but claret wine this first year of our 'thou art. henceforward, it shall be treason reign. And now, for any that calls me other than-Lord Mortimer. Enter a Soldier running. Sold. Jack Cade! Jack Cade! Cade. Knock him down there. [They kill him. *Smith. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call * you Jack Cade more; I think he hath a very fair *warning. Dick. My lord, there's an army gathered together in Smithfield. Cade. Come then, let's go fight with them: But, first, go and set London Bridge on fire; and, if you can, burn down the Tower too. Come, let's [Exeunt. away. Dick. I have a suit unto your lordship. Enter GEORGE BEVIS, with the LORD SAY. times.-Ay, thou say, thou serge, nay, thou 'Cade. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten buckram lord! now art thou within point-blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my majesty, for giving up of Normandy unto Monsieur Basimecu, the dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee, by these presence, even the of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom presence that must sweep the court clean of such filth as Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm, in erecting a grammar'school: and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face, that thou hast men about thee, that usually talk of a noun, and a verb; and such abominable words, as no Christian ear can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou hast put them in prison; and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them; 10 when, indeed, only for that cause, they have been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride on a foot-cloth," dost thou not? Say. What of that? Cade. Marry, thou oughtest not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets. king his father.' See also W. of Wyrcestre, p. 357; and the Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 42. 5 This trouble had been saved Cade's reformers by his predecessor Wat Tyler. It was never re-edified till Henry VI. founded the hospital.' 1 Whatever offence to modern delicacy may be given by this imagery, such ornaments to fountains appear to 6 It was reported, indeed, that he should sale with have been no uncommon device in ancient times. The great pride that within four daies all the laws of Eng. curious reader may see a design, probably from the pen-land should come foorth of his mouth.'-Holinshed, cil of Benedetto di Montagna, for a very singular foun- p. 432. tain of this kind, in that elegant book the Hypneroto- 7 A fifteen was the fifteenth part of all the moveables, machia, printed by Aldus in 1499. Le Grand, in his or personal property of each subject. Vie Privee des François, mentions that at a feast made 8 Say is a kind of thin woollen stuff or serge. by Phillippe-le-Bon, there was 'une statue d'enfant nu, 9 Shakspeare is a little too early with this accusation. pose sur une roche, et qui de sa broquette pissait eau Yet Meerman, in his Origines Typographicæ, has de rose. This conduit may, however, have been one availed himself of this passage to support his hypothe set up at the standarde in Cheape, according to Stowe, sis that printing was introduced into England by Freby John Wels, grocer, mayor, in 1430, with a small cis- deric Corsellis, one of Coster's workmen, from Haerterne for fresh water, having one cock continually run-lem in the time of Henry VI. Shakspeare's anachroning. 2 'He also put to execution in Southwarke diverse persons, some for breaking this ordinance, and other being his old acquaintance, lest they should bewray his base lineage, disparaging him for his usurped name of Mortimer. Holinshed, p. 634. 3 At that time London Bridge was of wood: the houses upon it were actually burnt in this rebellion. Hall says he entered London, and cut the ropes of the drawbridge.' 4 Holinshed calls Mathew Gough'a man of great wit and much experience in feats of chivalrie, the which in continuall warres had spent his time in serving of the nisms are not more extraordinary than those of his contemporaries. Spenser mentions cloth made at Lincoln in the ideal reign of King Arthur, and has adorned a castle at the same period with cloth of Arras and of Tours. 10 i. e. they were hanged because they could not claim the benefit of clergy. 11 A foot-cloth was a kind of housing which covered the body of the horse: it was sometime: made of velvet and bordered with gold lace. This is a reproach truly characteristical: nothing gives so much offence to the lower orders as the sight of superfluities merely osten tatious. *Dick. And work in their shirt too; as myself, *for example, that am a butcher. Say. You men of Kent,Dick. What say you of Kent? Say. Nothing but this: 'Tis bona terra, mala gens,1 Cade. Away with him, away with him! he speaks Latin. Say. Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will. Kent, in the commentaries Cæsar writ, Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle:2 Sweet is the country, because full of riches; The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy; Which makes me hope you are not void of pity. I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy: *Yet, to recover them, would lose my life. *Justice with favour have I always done; * Prayers and tears have mov'd me, gifts never. Is my apparel sumptuous to behold? *Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death? *These hands are free from guiltless blood-shedding, 6 *This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts. *O, let me live! *Cade. I feel remorse in myself with his words: *but I'll bridle it; he shall die, an it be but for pleading so well for his life. Away with him! *he has a familiar' under his tongue; he speaks *not o' God's name. Go, take him away, I say, and strike off his head presently; and then break into his son-in-law's house, Sir James Cromer,8 and strike off his head, and bring them both upon two poles hither. could* *When have I aught exacted at your hands, *Kent, to maintain the king, the realm, and you?3 *Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks, * Because my book preferr'd me to the king: *And-seeing ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven, *Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits, * You cannot but forbear to murder me. *This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings *For your behoof, *Cade. Tut! when struck'st thou one blow in * the field? *Say. Great men have reaching hands; oft have I struck *Those that I never saw, and struck them dead. All. It shall be done. * Say. Ah, countrymen! if when you make your prayers, God should be so obdurate as yourselves, *How would it fare with your departed souls? *And therefore yet relent, and save my life. * Cade. Away with him, and do as I command ye. [Exeunt some, with LORD SAY. The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they have it:9 Men shall hold of me in capite; and we charge and command, that their wives be as free as heart can wish, or tongue can tell. 'Dick, My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up commodities upon our bills ?10 Cade. Marry, presently. 'All. O brave! *Geo. O monstrous coward! what, to come be- Re-enter Rebels, with the Heads of LORD SAY, and hind folks? Nick. No, 'tis Outalian: I know it well enough. 2 Ex his omnibus sunt humanissimi, qui Cantium incolunt. Cæsar. Thus translated by Ar. Golding, 1590:- Of all the inhabitants of the isle, the civilest are the Kentish-folke.' It is said also in the same words in Lyly's Euphues and his England, 1580. 3 This passage has been supposed corrupt merely because it was erroneously pointed. I have now placed a comma at Kent, to show that it is parenthetically spoken; and then I see not the slightest difficulty in the meaning of the passage. It was thus absurdly pointed in the folio: 'When have I aught exacted at your hands? Kent to maintain, the king, the realm, and you? Large gifts, have I bestow'd on learned clerks,' &c. 4 i. e. in consequence of. 5 The old copy reads 'the help of a hatchet.' There can be little doubt but that Dr. Farmer's emendation, 'pap of a hatchet,' is the true reading: it is a proper accompaniment to the 'hempen caudle.' Lyly wrote a pamphlet with the title of 'Pap with a Hatchet;' and the phrase occurs in his play of Mother Bombie: They give us pap with a spoone, and when we speake for what we love, pap with a hatchet.' 6 i. e. these hands are free from shedding guiltless or innocent blood. his Son-in-law. "Cade. But is not this braver ?-Let them kiss one another," for they loved well, when they were alive. Now part them again, lest they consult about the giving up of some more towns in France. Soldiers, defer the spoil of the city until night: for with these borne before us, instead of maces, will we ride through the streets; and, at every corner, have them kiss.-Away! [Exeunt. SCENE VIII. Southwark. Alarum. Enter CADE, and all his Rabblement. Corner! kill and knock down' throw them into *Cade. Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus' Thames!-14 Parley sounded, then a Retreat.] *What noise is this I hear? Dare any be so bold *to sound retreat or parley, when I command them *kill? 7 A demon who was supposed to attend at call. 8 It was William Crowmer, sheriff of Kent, whom Cade put to death. Lord Say and he had been previously sent to the Tower, and both, or at least the former, convicted of treason at Cade's mock commission of Oyer and Terminer at Guildhall. See W. of Wyrcester, p. 470. 9 Alluding to an ancient usage, on which Beaumont and Fletcher have founded their play called the Custom of the Country. See Cowel's Law Dictionary, or Blount's Glossographia, 1651, in voce Marcheta. Blackstone is of opinion that it never prevailed in England, though he supposes it certainly did in Scotland. Boetius and Skene both mention this custom as existing in the time of Malcolm III. A. D. 1057. Sir D. Dalrymple controverts the fact, and denies the actual existence o the custom; as does Whitaker in his History of Manchester. There are several ancient grants from our early kings to their subjects, written in rude verse, and empowering them to enjoy their lands as 'free as heart can wish or tongue can tell. The authenticity of them, however, is doubtful. See Blount's Jocular Tenures. 10 An equivoque alluding to the halberts or bills borne by the rabble. Shakspeare has the same quibble in Much Ado about Nothing, Act iii. Sc. 3. 11 This may be taken from the Legend of Jack Cade in the Mirror for Magistrates, as Dr. Farmer observes but both Hall and Holinshed mention the circumstance Enter BUCKINGHAM, and Old CLIFFORD, with 'Buck. Ay, here they be that dare and will dis turb thee: [Exeunt. Follow me, soldiers; we'll devise a mean *K. Hen. Was ever king that joy'd an earthly throne, *And could command no more content than I? Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the king All. God save the king! God save the king! Cade. What, Buckingham, and Clifford, are ye so brave?-And you, base peasants, do beye lieve him? will you needs be hanged with your 'pardons about your necks? Hath my sword there'fore broke through London Gates, that you should leave me at the White Hart in Southwark? I thought, ye would never have given out these · arms, till had recovered your ancient freeyou dom: but you are all recreants, and dastards; ⚫ and delight to live in slavery to the nobility. Let them break your backs with burdens, take your houses over your heads, ravish your wives and ' daughters before your faces; For me, I will 'make shift for one; and so-God's curse light upon you all! All. We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade. Crying-Villageois! unto all they meet. All. A Clifford a Clifford! we'll follow the 'king, and Clifford. Enter BUCKINGHAM and CLIFFORD. * Buck. Health, and glad tidings, to your majesty! *K. Hen. Why, Buckingham, is the traitor, Cade, surpris'd? *Or is he but retir'd to make him strong? Enter, below, a great number of CADE's Followers, with Halters about their Necks. Clif. He's fled, my lord, and all his powers do And humbly thus, with halters on their necks, gates, To entertain my vows of thanks and praise !— *Mess. Please it your grace to be advertised, *The duke of York is newly come from Ireland; *And with a puissant and a mighty power, *Of Gallowglasses, and stout Kernes,2 And still proclaimeth, as he comes along, *Is marching hitherward in proud array; *His arms are only to remove from thee The duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor. *K. Hen. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York distress'd; Like to a ship, that, having scap'd a tempest, Is straightway calm'd3 and boarded with a pirate; *But now is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd; *And now is York in arms to second him.- * And ask him, what's the reason of these arms, pray thee, Buckingham, go forth and meet him; *Tell him, I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower;And, Somerset, we will commit thee thither, Until his army be dismiss'd from him. *Som. My lord, Cade. Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro, as this multitude? the name of Henry the 'Fifth hales them to a hundred mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate. I see them lay their heads together, to surprise me my sword make for me, for here is no staying.--In despight of the devils and hell, have through the very midst of you! and heavens and honour be witness, that no want of resolution in me, but only my follow-✶ 'ers' base and ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels. [Exit. way Buck. What, is he fled? go some, and follow him; And he, that brings his head unto the king, 'Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward.[Exeunt some of them. I'll yield myself to prison willingly, For he is fierce, and cannot brook hard language. vern better: For yet may England curse my wretched reign. [Exeunt. SCENE X. Kent. Iden's Garden. Enter CADE. *Cade. Fye on ambition! fye on myself; that 1 So all the historians agree; and yet in Part I. Act The second folio printed by mistake claimed; and the iii. Sc. 4, King Henry is made to say : 'I do remember how my father said❜-- a plain proof that the whole of that play was not written by the same hand as this. 3 The first folio reads calme; which may be right. third folio calm'd. This reading has been adopted as most perspicuous, and because in Othello we have :must be be-lee'd and calm'a. 4 But is here not adversative. It was only just now 2 The Galloglasse useth a kind of pollax for his (says Henry,) that Cade and his followers were routed.' weapon. These men are grim of countenance, tall of 5A gentleman of Kent, named Alexander Eden, stature, big of limme, lusty of body, wel and strongly awaited so his time, that he took the said Cade in a gar timbered. The kerne is an ordinary foot-soldier, using den in Sussex, so that there he was slaine at Hothfor weapon his sword and target, and sometimes his field,' &c.-Holinshed, p. 635. This Iden was, in fact, piece, being commonly good markmen.-Stanihurst's the new sheriff of Kent, who had followed Cade from Descript, of Ireland, c viii. f. 21. Rochester.-William of Wyrcesver, p. 472. * * *have a sword, and yet am ready to famish! These * Enter IDEN, with Servants. Iden. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court, Cade. Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray, for entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king for carrying my head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, · ere thou and I part. Iden. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be, I know thee not; Why then should I betray thee? Is't not enough, to break into my garden, And, like a thief, to come and rob my grounds, Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner, • But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms? Cade. Brave thee? ay, by the best blood that ever was broached, and beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and thy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead as a door nail,2 I pray God, I may never eat grass more. Iden. Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent, * Thy leg a stick, compared with this truncheon; ing-place to all that do dwell in this house, because Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed, * Iden. How much thou wrong'st me, heaven *Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee! And as I thrust thy body in with my sword, *So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell." Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave, And there cut off thy most ungracious head; "Which I will bear in triumph to the king, Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon. [Exit, dragging out the Body. ACT V. SCENE I. The same. Fields between Dartford "York. From Ireland thus comes York, to claim his right, And pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head: Enter BUCKINGHAM. Whom have we here? Buckingham, to disturb me? The king hath sent him, sure: I must dissen.ble. 'Buck. York, if thou meanest well, I greet thee well. "York. Humphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy 'Art thou a messenger, or come of pleasure? As for words, whose greatness answers words,3 1 A sallet is a helmet. 2 See note on the Second Part of King Henry IV. Act .Sc. 3. 3 Johnson explains this, 'As for words, whose pomp and rumour may answer words, and only words, I shall forbear them, and refer the rest to my sword.' 4 In the folio 'I beseech Jove' was substituted to avoid the penalty of the statute, 3 Jac. I. c. 2, against profane swearing. Cade was very unlikely to swear by Jove. 5 This sentiment is much more correctly expressed in the quarto : "O sword, I'll honour thee for this, and in my chamber so great. 'O, I could hew up rocks, and fight with I am so angry at these abject terms; Aside. 6 Johnson erroneously ir terprets this, 'In supposing that I am proud of my victory. Iden evidently means that Cade wrongs him by undervaluing his prowess. 7 Not to dwell upon the wickedness of this horrid wish, with which Iden debases his character, the whole favourable both to Iden's morality and language. This of this speech is wild and confused. The quarto is more faulty amplification was owing to the desire of expanding a scanty thought in the old play. It can hardly be treated as an interpolation, however we may desire to think it such. 9 i. e. balance my hand. 9 York means to say, 'If 1 have a soul, my cand shall not be without a sceptre |