DURING THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. 99 



an indenture of apprenticeship drawn up and executed more 

 than four centuries ago, and a similar instrument of our own 

 day. The introduction of the clause, that the apprentice shall 

 work as a journeyman for a year after the expiration of the 

 term is singular, and the allusion to the custom of London 

 appears to be intended to cover two peculiarities in inden- 

 tures executed in the City, that infants can legally bind them- 

 selves, and that the master may cancel the indenture in case 

 the apprentice is guilty of certain grave moral offences. 



The social condition of England, apart from the causes and 

 the consequences of the great war of succession, was not 

 characterised by any very important events, the causes of which 

 may be traced to popular discontent, such discontent being 

 based on any relations of land and labour. There are, however, 

 two events which occurred at an interval of a century, on which 

 some brief comment should be made. I allude to Cade's re- 

 bellion in 1450, and the uprising of the Norfolk people under 

 Ket the tanner in 1549. 



It is not easy to separate the political discontent which is to 

 be seen in ' the complaint of the commons of Kent/ and their 

 captain's manifesto, from the social element of grievance. In 

 the fifteen articles, which, according to Holinshed, constituted 

 the first-named manifesto, the fourth, fifth, sixth, tenth, and 

 eleventh appear to be the only agricultural injuries which the 

 men of Kent could make any remonstrance against, and several 

 of these affect all persons equally. The complaints of Cade, 

 the captain, do contain a distinct charge, in the reference to 

 the statute of labourers. But it is not quite clear whether this 

 grievance is alleged in the interest of labourers or of farmers. 



The cause of Cade was highly popular. He is described by 

 Holinshed, who is copying some older author, as a young man 

 of goodly stature, and right pregnant of wit.' After the affair 

 of Sevenoaks, when the King sent the Archbishop of Canterbury 

 and the Duke of Buckingham, two near kinsmen of the Staffords 

 who had lost their lives at the above-named fight, they found 

 him, according to the same authority, sober in talk, wise in 



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