The leader called himself, or was called, Mortimer, and it is said gave out that he was cousin to the Duke of York. His real name it is said—but there seems some reason to doubt the story—was John Cade; he was an Irishman by birth and he had been in the service of Sir Thomas Dacre in Sussex, but had been compelled to abjure the country for having killed a woman with child. He passed over to France and served in the French army against England, but later he returned, assumed the name of Aylmer, and married the daughter of a Squire; at this time he called himself physician, and on the outbreak of the rebellion assumed the name of Mortimer.[3] [3] Gairdner, Introduction to the _Paston Letters_. On the 1st of June the rebels reached London and encamped at Blackheath. The King, who was at Leicester, hastened to town with a large army of 20,000 men and lay at St. John’s Priory, Smithfield. Instead of marching upon the rebels at once, he waited, and sent messengers to know what they wanted. They replied by a long and carefully drawn up “Bill of Articles,” which was evidently the work of some clerk or lawyer: it was a document which proves the rising to have been no chance effervescence, but a deliberate and intelligent attempt to set forth and to remedy grievances. It must be noted that Jack Cade or Mortimer kept up correspondence with the City, having appointed one Thomas Cocke, Draper, as his agent. The following is the “Bill of Articles”:— 1. “Imprimis, it is openly noised that Kent shoulde be destroyed with a royall power, and made a wylde foreste for the Deathe of the Duke of Suffolk, of which the Commons of Kent thereof were never guilty. 2. “Item, the king is stirred to lyve only on his Commons and other men to have ther revenues of the Crown the which hath caused povertie in his excellencie, and great payments of the people, now late to the king graunted in his Parliament. 3. “Item, that the Lordes of his Royall bloud been put from his dayly presence, and other meane persons of lower nature exalted and made chiefe of his Privie Counsell, the whiche stoppeth matters of wronges done in the realme, from his excellent audience, and may not be redressed as lawe will, but if bribes and giftes be messengers to the handes of the Sayd Counsell. 4. “Item, the people of his realme be not payd of debts owing for stuffe and purveyance taken to the use of the king’s householde, in undoing of the sayd people, and the poor Commons of this realme.