POLITICAL HISTORY 



of these years drawing together in the woods and in recesses of the 

 Surrey hills, to listen to the desperate counsels of the wandering preachers 

 who conducted the ramifications of discontent throughout England. Not 

 only was the trouble not over with June ; it had begun before the actual 

 rising. John Mylot of Mitcham received a pardon for treasons and 

 felonies committed from May i to November i, 1381. In March, 1382, 

 meetings of the discontented were still being held, and a new commission 

 was issued to suppress rebels and to lead the armed force of the shire 

 against them, directed to most of the same men as before with the addi- 

 tions of the Bishop of Winchester and William Weston the new sheriff 

 of Surrey. Again in December of the same year a similar commission 

 was issued. Surrey in these years was much in the same state as Wexford 

 and Wicklow in 1799 in a more dangerous state, and that is saying 

 much, than Surrey was in 1830. 



Later in the reign of Richard II. the Queen Anne of Bohemia died 

 in Surrey, at Sheen. Edward III. also had died there. But on the death 

 of Queen Anne, Richard, not entirely sane in his grief, pulled down the 

 royal house there. Henry V. rebuilt it, and founded at the same place 

 the Carthusian house of Sheen, the last great royal monastic foundation 

 of England. It was endowed with the estates of suppressed alien 

 priories. In the time of his son history seems to repeat itself to the 

 careless reader or to the diligent reader of the play of Henry VI. part ii. 

 A popular insurrection from Kent, Sussex and Surrey invaded Southwark 

 again in 1450, as in 1381, and passed the bridge into London. Jack 

 Cade was perhaps a Surrey man by marriage and residence. Passing as 

 Aylmer a physician, he had married the daughter of a gentleman at 

 * Taundede,' which is more like Tandridge than any Kentish name, and 

 as his land was confiscated on his attainder, she was perhaps an heiress. 

 But Cade's insurrection was a political movement, not social, and was 

 openly supported by landed gentry and corporate towns. A mixed 

 multitude no doubt gathered round the rebels. A contemporary says : 

 'They kept no order among them, for as good was Jack Robin as John-a- 

 Noke, for they were all as high as pigs' feet.' They took possession of 

 Southwark, and Cade fixed his headquarters at the White Hart. It is 

 written in the Paston Letters l how Sir John Fastolfe the old soldier, who 

 lived in Southwark, meditated armed opposition to them, but was 

 persuaded to send his servant Payn to them to try to induce them to 

 disperse, and how Payn was nearly murdered, how Fastolfe's house was 

 plundered, and how he was nevertheless accused of complicity with the 

 rebels. Cade was at first allowed free passage over the bridge. After- 

 wards the citizens, supported by soldiers from the Tower, held it against 

 him, for he had neglected to secure it, and as usual it appeared that 

 London could not be forced from the Surrey side. Then Cade broke 

 open the Marshalsea, King's Bench and Clink prisons and plundered 

 Southwark. The mass of his followers dispersed on promise of pardon, 

 while he with the more desperate withdrew to Rochester. The counties 



1 Paston Letters, No. 99, Mr. Gairdner's edition. 

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