Jack Cade's Rebellion of 1450 was one of the most important popular uprisings to take place in England during the Middle Ages. It began as an orchestrated demonstration of political protest by the inhabitants of south-eastern England against the corruption, mismanagement, and oppression of Henry VI's government. This is the first full-length study of Cade's revolt to be published this century. Harvey charts the course of the rebellion and its associated troubles during the early 1450s, and explores the nature of the society which gave rise to these upheavals. She uncovers the identities of the rebels, explains their actions, assesses their relations with the magnates, and examines their achievements, illuminating the eventual collapse of Henry VI's reign into the War of the Roses.

This work, based on archival research, combines a collective portrait of aristocratic women with an analysis of the particular, class-specific form of patriarchy and gender relations that flourished among the upper classes in Yorkist and early Tudor England.

This introductory textbook provides a wide-ranging survey of the political, social, cultural and economic history of early modern Britain, charting the gradual integration of the four kingdoms, from the Wars of the Roses to the formation of 'Britain', and the aftermath of England's unions with Wales and Scotland. The only textbook at this level to cover Britain and Ireland in depth over three centuries, it offers a fully integrated British perspective, with detailed attention given to social change throughout all chapters. Featuring source textboxes, illustrations, highlighted key terms and accompanying glossary, timelines, student questioning, and annotated further reading suggestions, including key websites and links, this textbook will be an essential resource for undergraduate courses on the history of early modern Britain. A companion website includes additional primary sources and bibliographic resources.

A comparative study of how the societies of late medieval England and France reacted to the long period of conflict between them from political, military, social and economic perspectives.

Accounts of Jack Cade's 1450 Rebellion-an uprising of some 30,000 middle-class citizens, protesting Henry VI's policies, and resulting in hundreds of deaths as well as the leaders' execution-form the dominant entry in a group of quasi-historical documents referred to as the London chronicles of the Fifteenth Century. However, each chronicle is inherently different and highly subjective. In the first study of the primary documents related to the Cade Rebellion, Alexander L. Kaufman shows that the chroniclers produced multiple representations of the event rather than a single, unified narrative. Aided by contemporary theories of historiography and historical representation, Kaufman scrutinizes the differing representations and distinguishes the writers' objectiveness, their underrated literary skills, and their ideological positions on the rebellion and fifteenth-century politics. He demonstrates how the use of figurative language is related to writing about trauma, and how descriptions of Cade's procession through London are a violent parody of midsummer festivals. In an exploration of authenticity in the descriptions of Cade, Kaufman also examines the characterization and plot devices that push Cade towards the realm of myth, showing that representations of Cade are influenced by popular fifteenth-century stories of Robin Hood.