warres had valeauntly serued the King, and his father, in the partes
beyond the sea. But it is often sene, that he which many tymes hath
vanquyshed his enemies in straunge countreys, and returned agayn as a
conqueror, hath of his owne nation afterward been shamfully murdered
and brought to confusion. This hard and sore conflict endured on the
Bridge till ix. of the clocke in the mornynge in doubtfull chaunce and
Fortune’s balaunce: for some tyme the Londoners were bet back to the
stulpes at Sainct Magnes Corner; and sodaynly agayne the rebelles were
repulsed and dryuen back to the stulpes in Southwarke, so that both
partes beynge faynte, wery, and fatygate, agreed to desist from fight,
and to leue battayll till the next day, vpon condition that neyther
Londoners shoulde passe into Southwarke, nor the Kentish men into
London.’ William Rastall, who produced his curious Chronicle, called
‘_The Pastimes of People_,’ in the year 1529, adds to this account,
that ‘the Kentysshemen brent the Brydge;’ see page 265 of the excellent
edition of that work, by the Rev. T. F. Dibdin, D. D. &c. London, 1811,
quarto.
“During the truce that followed this most valiant defence of London
Bridge, and which nearly effaced the deep stain of the Citizens opening
their gates to a rebel, a general pardon was procured for Cade and
his followers, by John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord High
Chancellor. Upon which, some accepted of the King’s grace, and all
began, by degrees, to withdraw from Southwark with their spoil, whilst
Cade himself was soon after slain by Alexander Iden, Esquire, of Kent,
in consequence of a reward being offered for his apprehension. His dead
body was brought to London, and his head erected on the Bridge-gate,
where he had so recently placed that of one of his greatest victims,
Sir James Fynes, Lord Say, Treasurer of England. Concerning these
events see also Shakspeare’s ‘_Second Part of King Henry the Sixth_,’
Act iv., Scenes 7th and 10th; Fabyan’s ‘_Chronicle_,’ pages 451-453;
and Stow’s ‘_Annals_,’ pages 391, 392.
“I have but little more to subjoin to close the history of this
rebellion; but I may add, that in January 1451, twenty-six of the
Kentish rebels were tried before the King and his Justices Itinerant,
and executed at Dover, and other places in the County; and that on
Tuesday, February 23rd, as Henry returned to London, great numbers more
met him on Blackheath, dressed in their shirts only, and imploring his
clemency on their knees, were all pardoned. Against his entering the
City, nine heads of those who had been executed were erected on London
Bridge, that of their leader standing in the centre. ‘This,’ says Hall,
in closing his account of Cade’s insurrection, ‘is the successe of all
rebelles, and this fortune chaunceth ever to traytors: for where men
striue against the streame, their bote neuer cometh to his pretensed
porte.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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