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and resulting in hundreds of deaths as well as the leaders' execution-form the dominant entry in a group of quasi-historical documents referred to as the London chronicles of the Fifteenth Century.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.

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and resulting in hundreds of deaths as well as the leaders' execution-form the dominant entry in a group of quasi-historical documents referred to as the London chronicles of the Fifteenth Century.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.

Throughout history brave Englishmen and women have never been afraid to rise up against their unjust rulers and demand their rights. Barely a century has gone by without England being witness to a major uprising against the government of the day, often resulting in a fundamental change to the constitution. This book is a collection of biographies, written by experts in their field, of the lives and deeds of famous English freedom fighters, rebels, and democrats who have had a major impact on history. Featured chapters include the history of Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, when an army of 50,000 people marched to London in 1381 to demand an end to serfdom and the hated poll tax. Alongside Wat Tyler in this pantheon of English revolutionaries is Jack Cade who in 1450 led an angry mob to London to protest against government corruption. There are three chapters on various aspects of the English Civil War, during which the English executed their king. Other rebel heroes featured include Thomas Paine, the great intellectual of the American and French Revolutions; Mary Wollstonecraft, author of The Rights of Woman; Henry Hunt, who, as well as the Chartists after him, campaigned for universal suffrage; William Morris, the visionary designer and socialist thinker; and finally the Suffragettes and Suffragists who fought for women’s voting rights.

Britain has not been successfully invaded since 1066; nor, in nearly 1,000 years has it known a true revolution – one that brings radical, systemic and enduring change. The contrast with Britain’s European neighbours, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Russia, is dramatic – all have been convulsed by external warfare, revolution and civil war and experienced fundamental change to their ruling elites or social and economic structures. Frank McLynn takes seven occasions when Britain came closest to revolution: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381; the Jack Cade rebellion of 1450; the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536; the English Civil Wars of the 1640s; the Jacobite Rising of 1745-6; the Chartist Movement of 1838-48; and the General Strike of 1926. Why, at these dramatic turning points, did history finally fail to turn? McLynn examines Britain’s history and themes of social, religious and political change to explain why social turbulence stopped short of revolution on so many occasions.

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.

The Jack Cade Rebellion of 1450 was an uprising of the commons of England—most of whom were from Kent, Norfolk, and Essex—that culminated in a battle on London Bridge. The rebel force, led by a mysterious man known as Jack Cade, protested King Henry VI’s ineffectiveness as a leader, the over-taxation of the working classes, the crown’s failed attempts to secure French territories, and the corrupt bureaucrats and church officials. This book collects, for the first time, primary documents related to the rebellion that have been translated into Present-Day English or glossed for ease of reading. The sources included in this book comprise the rebels’ petitions, entries from medieval and early modern chronicles, letters and formal correspondences, official government documents, and political poems of the fifteenth century. Students interested in urban history, popular rebellions, medieval and early modern studies, legal studies, criminal justice, Shakespeare, and artistic expressions of protest will find these primary sources invaluable.