'42 LAND REFORM 



distrusted the promises of those in power, and with 

 good reason, for they were never meant to be ful- 

 filled. He tried in vain to keep his followers together, 

 but they disbanded, though he warned them what 

 would happen. Shakespeare makes him say, " Do 

 you believe him ? (the messenger). Will you needs 

 be hanged with your pardon about your necks ? " 



Cade then became a fucritive with a few followers, 

 and immediately a proclamation was issued charging 

 him with various crimes, " revokinof the charter of 

 pardon, and offering rewards to anyone who should 

 take him quicke or dead, or any who are with him." 

 A few days afterwards he was taken and killed. "His 

 head was set on London Bridge and his quarters sent 

 to divers places in Kent," and a large number of his 

 followers were executed. 



The chroniclers give an account of the alleged 

 crimes and excesses committed by the insurgents, and 

 speak in the strongest terms of the wickedness of 

 Cade's character. All this may be true, partly true, 

 or not true at all, but in any case it in no way affects 

 the cause and objects of the rebellion. 



In most of the revolts the rage of the peasantry was 

 specially directed against the lawyers, and for good 

 reason. It was by the aid of the lawyers and the 

 subtleties of baron-made law that the peasants were 

 continually deprived of their rights in the land by the 

 manorial lords.^ It was a lamentable thing "that, of 

 the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parch- 

 ment," and that parchment, "when scribbled o'er, 

 should undo a man." (" Henry the Sixth," Part II.) 



' Among other works see "' Rights of Common," by Joshua Williams ; 

 " History of the Law of Real Property," by Kenelm C. Digby. Both 

 are extremely technical ; the latter can only be understood by juris- 



