100 ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND, 



reasoning, arrogant in heart, and stiff in opinion.' That for a 

 time his movement, violent as it was, was highly popular is 

 clear. The nobles of Henry's court summoned their retainers 

 to fight against his followers, and they declined to combat with 

 those ' who laboured for the common weal/ After his success 

 against the Staffords * men spared not to speak, that the cap- 

 tain's cause was profitable to the Commonwealth.' Gascoigne, 

 writing after Cade's death, hints very plainly that he was a 

 genuine reformer, and very unfairly dealt by. I am disposed to 

 recognise in Cade's rebellion nothing more than an outbreak at 

 the maladministration of public affairs. The fortunes of England 

 on the Continent were at the worst, and the King's marriage 

 was in the public judgment closely connected with this untoward 

 state of things. The revenues of the crown were absolutely 

 gone, and the appeals to the public purse were incessant and 

 importunate. We have already seen how detested the ecclesias- 

 tics were, for two bishops were murdered in this year, and so 

 was the King's chief minister, Suffolk. Cade purposed, as 

 Tyler is said to have purposed, some seventy years before, to 

 have got hold of the King's person, and to have used the 

 authority which his name might give for bringing about salutary 

 reforms. The dispersal, too, of Cade's army is curiously like 

 that of Tyler's. The king offers a general pardon to the rebels, 

 and they trust his word. Cade, more prudent, objected that a 

 pardon was of no avail without the sanction of parliament, and 

 after getting away with his spoils to Rochester by water, and 

 having in vain tried to seize Queenborough Castle, makes a 

 raid through Kent into Sussex, and is killed near Lewes. I 

 shall refer to the financial expedients of the time in a later 

 chapter. 



It has been already stated that the fifteenth century was a 

 period in which wealth was very generally distributed, for 

 wages were relatively high, agricultural produce was cheap, and 

 land was valued as a rule at twenty years' purchase. Hence, 

 though the penitence or ostentation which founded colleges and 

 monasteries was as common as it had been in earlier ages, 



