Cade

Cade, JACK, leader of the insurrection of 1450, was by birth an Irishman. He had murdered a woman in Sussex, had fled to France, and served awhile against England, and then had settled in Kent as a physician, and married a squire's daughter. Assuming the name of Mortimer, and the title of Captain of Kent, he marched on London with upwards of 15,000 followers, and encamped at Blackheath, whence he kept up a correspondence with the citizens, many of whom were favourable to his enterprise. The court sent to inquire why the good men of Kent had left their homes; and Cade, in two formal complaints, called on Henry VI. for redress of grievances, and change of counsellors. The answer was an army, before which Cade retreated to Sevenoaks; there he defeated a detachment, and killed its two leaders. On 2d July he entered London, where for two days he maintained strict order, though he forced the Lord Mayor to pass judgment on Lord Say, one of the king's detested favourites, whose head Cade's men straightway cut off in Cheapside. On the third day some houses were plundered; and that night the citizens held London Bridge against the insurgents. A promise of pardon now sowed dissension among them; they dispersed, and a price was set upon Cade's head. He attempted to reach the coast, but was followed by one Alexander Iden, a squire of Kent, who on 12th July fought and killed him in a garden, near Heathfield in Sussex.