the very altar of Erdington Church, in Wiltshire, when he had said mass, and put to death on a hill there by the infuriated people of his diocese.[71] Widespread as the discontent was in 1450, there was no general movement throughout the land as in the days when John Ball and his companions bound the peasants together by village clubs. Kent, “impatient in wrongs, disdaining of too much oppression, and ever desirous of new change and new fangleness,” was well organised for revolt, and the men of Surrey and Sussex were ready to bear arms with Cade. Outside these counties no one is found to have taken the lead against the government. Kent and Sussex had their own reasons for revolt, for piracy swept the English Channel unchecked, and the highways were infested with robbers--soldiers broken in the war; and they had their leader--Mortimer, whom some called “John Mendall” and others, later, Jack Cade. So by the end of May a full list of grievances and necessary reforms was drawn up, and the commons of Kent had, for the second time in history, risen in arms and encamped on Blackheath, resolute to get redress from the king for their injuries. The success of democratic revolt depends largely on the clear courage of its leaders and the complete confidence of the people in those they elect for their captains. In 1450 Jack Cade proved himself both clear-headed and brave, and the men of Kent followed him whole-heartedly. To this day we are still in the dark as to the real name and family of the Captain of Kent. He was known popularly as “Mortimer,” and was so described in the “pardon” he received. He was a man of some property, or he would not have been attainted by special act of parliament, nor have enjoyed the confidence of the men of substance who accepted his generalship. He was known as an Irishman and as a soldier in the French wars, and it is likely enough that he served under the Duke of York both in France and Ireland. His strong advocacy of the claims of York favours the notion of kinsmanship; but, on the other hand, York was by far the ablest statesman of the day, and to demand his recall to the king’s council was no guarantee of family motives. There was some talk at the time that Cade was called John Aylesmere, and that he was married to the daughter of a Surrey squire at Taundede. But there is no more evidence for these things than for the charges made against him in the warrant for his arrest, that he had once killed a woman in Sussex and had then fled to France and fought with the French arms.